Chinese beat Italians and Arabs to noodles

A wrangle as to which culture gave birth to the noodle has finally been settled - and the winner is China. Italians and Arabs had been the other claimants.

Archaeologists, reporting in Nature, said 4000-year-old long, boiled strands protected by an upside-down bowl were found at Lajia, northwestern China.

"The noodles were thin, delicate, more than 50cm...and yellow," said the Chinese Academy of Sciences researchers.