[paulat (OP)]

Someone said the other day that the Earth is getting fatter around the middle or something and this is affecting the length of our days - is this true ? Sounds a bit dodgy to me !

PT

[NakedScientist]

It is true, the earth is getting larger around the middle - like people in the West.

Part of the reason for the expansion of people could be that the portions of food we eat are also expanding ! :

http://www.thenakedscientists.com/html/shows/2002.05.05.htm#1

As to the enlargement of the earth :

http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99992628

TNS

[Exodus]

It seems that humans are not the only ones getting lardy!

www.vetdiet.com/en/vorsorge/weightw.html

Thats Economics...

[NakedScientist]

Absolutely agree - we actually covered this on a show almost a year ago, here's the link :

http://www.thenakedscientists.com/html/shows/2002.04.28.htm - the item is about 2/3 of the way down the page, and there is the full length transcript of the story at the bottom of the page.

TNS