On the hunt for ...

It's a shame there wasn't some kind of visual recording medium in Noah's day. That way there might have been a comprehensive record of the animals that were herded on to the Ark and researchers in Michigan who are about to mount an expedition in search of BigFoot would know if they were likely to be as lucky as 27 out of 30 previous expeditions who have had a sighting or some other "evidence" of the normally elusive (or perhaps just shy) BigFoot. It's not clear if places on the expedition are available to amateur cryptozoologists. But if you are after something to do you may want to answer a recent call by the European Space Agency for volunteers to help scientists study the effects of long-term space travel. Alas the volunteers won't actually get to go into space but will be confined for some 17 months in an enclosure to simulate a long-range space vessel aka an isolation tank. The plan is that the volunteers would not be released until the end of the experiment/trial! (Hmm - sounds very like Big Brother.) They do have a few requirements though: 25-50, in good health, up to 185 cm tall; no smoking or other addictions (but does this include video games?) - and a working knowledge of both English and Russian would be a plus.