Scientists said they had unearthed in China a sealed bowl of what they are calling the world’s oldest known noodles, dating back 4,000 years. The discovery, reported in the journal Nature, was made by Houyuan Lu of the Chinese Academy of Science and his colleagues near the Yellow River in northwestern China. “This is the earliest empirical evidence of noodles ever found,” Mr. Lu said. The thin, yellow noodles were found in a bowl that had probably been buried in an earthquake or flood. They are 20 inches long and made from a millet indigenous to China. Of the old debate over whether the the inventors of pasta were Middle Eastern, Asian or Italian, Mr. Lu said, “This study has established that the earliest noodle production occurred in China.” (Reuters)