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What was the shape of Noah’s Ark? For millennia Jewish and Christian clerics, scholars, and academics, as well as others with too much time on their hands, have pondered this question. Artist rendering of the one true shape of Noah’s Ark, scientifically provenILLUSTRATION: JON BERKELEY What makes it tantalizing is the precision of the numbers in Genesis 6 (here, in the King James translation): [13] And God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh is come before me; for the earth is filled with violence through them; and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth. [14] Make thee...

BERLIN (AFP) - Germany disconnected the first of 19 nuclear power plants due to be shut down, two years after deciding to abandon atomic energy, in a highly symbolic move for environmental activists. "The reactor is shut down," a spokesman for the E.ON energy company announced Friday just after the plant was officially taken off Germany's electrical grid at around 8:30 am (0730 GMT). No special buttons were pushed or cables cut at the Stade plant near the northern port city of Hamburg. "It was just like for a routine maintenance check," the spokesman said. Stade was brought into service...