"The incident was not a nuclear explosion, but had the characteristics of a natural quake," the China Earthquake Networks Center said late Saturday in a statement released online

Iowa's ties with China had already shown signs of increasingEven though Iowa is best known for its agricultural products and services, Reynolds said that advanced manufacturing is "actually the largest sector of our GDP

Reynolds said last month when announcing the trip that "there is no better time than now to market and pitch our products in China"We believe as a united Iowa agricultural delegation, we can find opportunities that are beneficial to both China and Iowa," Reynolds saidAccording to Allen Williams, the business development manager at the Iowa Economic Development Authority, the state has had more inquiries from China in recent months than in the previous two or three years

Our relationship with the country is strong, and their growing middle class means increasing purchasing power, and Iowa stands to gain significantly as a resultUS beef had been banned from China since 2003 due to a mad cow disease scare

" When Branstad was receiving a Chinese trade delegation as Iowa governor in March, he remarked that he would like to be able to enjoy a bite of US beef at the US embassy in Beijing

Meetings are planned for the delegation with Chinese government officials, industry partners and Branstad in Beijing, Shanghai and Xi'an, Shaanxi provinceUntil the 18th century, when the technology for extracting sugar from cane was developed, and 19th century, when we learned how to get it from beets, sugar was only available when the fruit ripened or the bees got busy

About 12 percent of children aged 7 to 18 in the survey were overweightJudy Zhu / China DailyA 24-foot-tall pyramid of boxes marked "sugar" in the middle of Times Square makes a point that's kind of hard to ignore

The world does consume too much "added sugar" - a term the USDA began using in 2000 to help people spot processed foods that have added energy with no added nutrition"Every country that has adopted the Western diet, one dominated by low-cost, highly processed food, has witnessed rising rates of obesity and related diseases," the journal Nature commented recently