Steak Dinners Go Back 2.5 Million Years

The discovery of a new "missing link" species of bull dating to a million years ago in Eritrea pushes back the beef steak dinner to the very dawn of humans and cattle.

Although there is no evidence that early humans were actually herding early cattle 2.5 million years ago, the early humans and early cattle certainly shared the same landscape and beef was definitely on the menu all along, say researchers.

The telltale fossil is a skull with enormous horns that belongs to the cattle genus Bos. It has been reassembled from over a hundred shards found at a dig that also contains early human remains.

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Medieval Bridges preserved with Sugar

Scientists have used 70 tons of liquid sugar to preserve the remains of three Medieval bridges found near Leicester. Experts from the University of Leicester immersed the 11th century bridges – whose ruins were so heavy they had to be carried in sections by eight-man teams – in tanks of sugar solution.

Leicestershire County Council persuaded British Sugar to provide the sticky haul in three huge delivery batches after a retired local GP found the fragile 11th century timbers in Hemington Quarry near Castle Donington in 1993.

"Securing the viability of the bridge is testament to the natural preservative qualities of sugar," said Dr Julian Cooper, head of food science at British Sugar.

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Emotional Bunny Says: "Yes, I know we're out of sugar for the coffee, but we only have an hour of traveling left - NO! YOU CAN'T EAT THE BRIDGES!!"

(Image credit: trekearth.com)