Each stone weighs 2 kilograms on average then the structures at the lake consist of 60000000 stones. Today it would take more than 8000 truckloads to move them but these were all transported by hand. The latest Analysis Shows that they must have been put there by Human Research teams have been trying to find out when the mysterious cans were built and why. Someone 2019 a team of archaeologists and geologists sets up a tiny drilling platform on Lake Constance their aim to find out when mysterious cans on the lakes bed were built. Geologist flavio ansermet a from the university of baron and his team are experts at Geological Drilling they want to take samples from deep inside the lake bed to determine the 8. The stone piles resting on it 1st the break has to be anchored and then maneuvered into a precise location using g. P. S. And geologists combine an impressive wealth of knowledge. With a drilling that we can determine the age of bit more accurately is it really prehistoric and if it is prehistoric was a made during the bronze age or than the olympic. Team hopes the drilling samples will allow it to form a better picture of the sediment by the can. We chose the drilling sites that allows us to get through most of the layers which will show us how they developed over time. The scientists used Ground Penetrating radar measurements to select the site they highlighted all the sediments on which they can fly if the research has succeeded determining the age of the sediments from a drilling sample they can deduce the minimum age of the can. The main tool of the experiment has a plastic tube which will be driven down by the trail through the sediment layers. Of. The drill casing with the plastic pipe inside just brought into position. Time to start. Using how many drilled they drive the device 6 meters deep into the bed if they like. Once they reach the desired depth the scientists hold the drill back up to the surface with the layers of earth trapped in its coal. Its all running according to plan the sediments packed solid inside the plastic sheeting. For. Now we cut it into metre long sections then it goes off to the lab where we get to work on it. The sections contain thousands of years of Lake Constance history and maybe a hint about the age of the mysterious cans. A few days later in the cool room that ben universitys Geological Institute and so met he and his team take a closer look at the sediment inside the plastic tubes theyve already determined the most promising layers. What weve laid out comes from a 6 metre deep so here we have the lake bed now and in 6 metres depth is the formally the bottom maybe a few 1000 years ago cedars have started depth of about 3 metres according to the radar picture it has to be here somewhere we expect to find the form of lake bed on which they built the mounds. So the idea is that through that and see if we can find any organic material we can date with the radio carbon method. In the laboratory the plastic tube sections a cut open lengthwise. The sediment layers a cafe separated. It put it down back there. In front of a little pressure. Pull it back. Here. Perfect wonderful. And exact image of the cools interior hopefully it will show enough traces of organic fossils that can be used to gauge the lay is age. If you zoom right in you can see lots of black spots in the core samples we hope its organic material plant remains in sufficient quantity to date yeah in order to isolate their tiriel were taking individual samples from the core business because. If theres no organic material it wont be possible to carbon date the samples. Fortunately the geologists managed to isolate a few minute would fragments and some the plant remains. As cool we found quite a bit not too much but with enough small bits and a large one for us to take them into the sea 14 lab and ask them to date it so you know all. The sophisticated procedure is needed to date the fragments and along with them the cans themselves because she data and his team are watching out for telltale traces of the carbon isotope called c 14. See 14 can be found wherever theres carbon means in any living materials but also in part in carbonaceous minerals any way you find carbon youll find sand 14 to fit too far. In a series of steps the samples i cleaned and prepared for measurement. Their carbon 14 contents can be determined then so can they each. Of the age of a sample can be determined by tracing the decay of its c 14 component we know the unique specific carbon 14 content of a fresh sample we can compare that to the content of an old sample in which the c. 14 has decayed over time the extent of decay tells us how old the sample is. The samples are ready for testing only a minute 400 micrograms thats not point 0004 grams left but thats more than enough for an accelerator mass spectrometer the machine breaks the sample down into its smallest individual components until finally only the c 14 atoms remain physical sheet at thats the key to the samples age. But we can observe that down here only we can see that this sample comes from a period between 3403650 years to see roughly speaking the sample is some 5 and a half 1000 years old. 5500 years that means the cancer from the neolithic age. Theres no holding back the archaeologists now they take a dredge out onto the lake and bring part of one of the stone piles to the surface for investigation in part of the whole archaeologist was makes a promising find. There was a steak on this block once the really exciting thing is you can see the remains of the stake in the sediment. Its been moved but its still in proximity and that shows us someone drove a stake in down there and that its not just driftwood and because its been shaped we can assume that it was driven into the ground at the same time as the karen here. You know. The excavations promised to reveal more secrets concealed in the can. To meet the humans who most likely built the cairns in Lake Constance we would have to journey back in time past the middle ages the roman empire before the celts before the bronze age back 5 and a half 1000 years to the neolithic age. A time when europe was vastly populated. The lakes near the alps would have been lined with houses on low still. The population wanted seemed very useful by our standards few people lived to old age. Life was simple and hard. People farm the land raised cattle and went hunting. They only survived by living in communities. By mortality rate meant that women as good as of life had a special status as illustrated by these clay pots with moldings in the form of breasts or this wall sculpture one of the oldest and biggest in europe it 2 features clay breasts. Their belief to depict the female ancestors of various lineages. The famous mural was also found by like constance. There is evidence suggesting that a European Network already existed in the neolithic age goods and materials have been found in the region around Lake Constance that were imported from across the continent including copper ceramics and even jewelry. Another thing that people from across europe appeared to have in common already was an appreciation of megaliths large stone manmade monuments such as stonehenge in england. And qana in brittany but now europe has another neolithic landmark in Lake Constance dubbed the swiss stonehenge. Of course the scientists want to know what purpose the stone pile said maybe the people in the neolithic age built them to celebrate the summer and winter solstice the piles are lined along the suns. The. Bonfires on the piles as possible ritual. Its just one of the many riddles yet to be uncovered about the find in the lake. Another remarkable find is this neanderthal skeleton that archaeologists recently excavated in the shadow of dark cave in northern iraq. It is around 70000 years old the position it was found in suggests that it was buried with care. The left hand bend towards the head the right arm lies at an angle on the chest the head is bedded on a stone. Its the best preserved discovery of its kind in a quarter of a century the researchers hope it will tell them more about the burial rituals and the society of our neanderthal cousins. Wheels view on facebook what you think archaeologists might discover about 5000 years from now. When indonesia reckons theyll find devices they think are junk like mobile phones computers and. Nicholas is pessimistic saying that they wont be any archeologists in 5000 years because they wont be any more people. Help fund so from mexico jokes that the archaeologists in the future will find all those socks speck got lost in the washing machine. And sherrys says that the main thing theyll find from us is plastic lots and lots of plastic along with discarded phones and other devices. And indeed all the plastic we produce today is likely to stick around for hundreds of years. Each year around 8000000. 00. More tonnes of plastic end up in the sea and moved around the planet by wide ranging ocean currents currents that play a key role for life and our planet. But how do they run a nice of you in el salvador sent in a question about that. What causes ocean currents they flow like vast rivers within the water driven near the shore by the rise and fall of tides at high tide water flows towards the coast at low tide it flows away from it. Surface currents in the ocean are propelled by strong persistent winds. While further down variations in temperature and salinity drive deep ocean currents. Cold salty water is denser than warmer water with a low salt content so it sinks towards the bottom of the ocean. The speed of the water flow depends on the topography of the seabed. The variations in temperature and salt content also cause a phenomenon known as the global Conveyor Belt its a system of currents that transports water around the world. Ocean currents crucially affect climate for example the humble of current brings cold water teeming with nutrients from the antarctic to the Galapagos Islands for 6 months of the year. They feed the tiny plankton and algae that form the base of the food chain providing sustenance for swarms of fish and also for the marine in quanah the only lizard that lives and forage is in the sea. On land meanwhile life in these months is hard theres hardly any rainfall wildlife including the galapagos giant tortoises have to embark on pair. Journeys in search of food but in the other half of the year food is available in abundance thats when the wet season comes with the panama current bring in warmer waters. This current isnt nearly as rich in nutrients so much of the islands marine life heads off to colder climes aquatic animals that remain have to make do that finally Climate Change is taking a toll on ocean currents exactly how is the subject of intense research. As we heard ocean currents are critically important for marine life cold oxygenated currents are a source of life under water. But sometimes the local ecosystem tips out of balance when one species takes over. For example a kind of seaweed. Thats in mexico and inventor has found a way to use it. Brown seaweed on the mexican coastline a disaster for the environment and the tourist industry but for all my vazquez its free building material. We extract all the water and remove the garbage we continue that process until the sea weed itself starts to produce a kind of organic clay and becomes a hard resistant mass. Which. He produces his own bricks that are 60 percent seaweed a 1000000 tons of the saga some macro can be washed up on the yucatan peninsula over the course of one year the problem has exploded in the last decade. It comes from all the pollution caused by human activity all those chemicals washing and cleaning agents that end up in the sea. The algae feed on that causing them to grow and multiply. In every day for our nickel rivera and her team clean up the beaches before the seaweed starts to decompose a process that would release all fear of acid and toxic gas is devastating to the coastal ecosystem. Its important to support initiatives like on mars where. We just collect the seaweed were happy to then pass it on to others who can do something with it the main thing is for it to not be polluting the environment. That cares and his team makes seaweed with mud and other organic materials and then stomp on it with their feet to press it together it takes around 20 tons of seaweed to produce one house hes actually a gardener by trade and initially used the seaweed for compost it took a while to get the consistency right for Building Blocks and to ensure the bricks would no longer release toxins. Since i 1st came up with the idea weve been improving the formula every day and now we have a patent and we have the best organic product for building. Vasquez donated this house to a family who lost their home in a fire one 3rd of the local population lives in poverty including monica gomez and her 6 children. Now this house is cooler than our old one in the sun its very hard many of my neighbors now want want to. Go back as i see. The circus and bricks are said to be more robust than words and cheaper to produce than cement theyve generated huge interest not noticeable really or no i havent really invented anything yeah im just giving back to the what belongs to it the problem into an opportunity. Experts see great. Attentional in his idea tell cheney mexico has now started a project with. Aiming to build part of or is sought with his suck us and breaks Foreign Companies also showing interest and theres certainly no shortage of the seaweed on mexicos caribbean coastline. Theres so many clever ideas around for turning into something valuable like making elegant clothes out of plastic waste. Collecting beverage bottles and using them to build boats. Or even houses. And recycling plastic to lower c o 2 emissions. But now it team of researchers wants to make new plastic out of c o 2. Plastic circuit make the class nerd a multitalented who no one really likes. There are some good reasons for that even though plastics have the answer to all kinds of needs be it in household as Construction Material in cars or aircraft. Plastics are carbon based substances synthesized from hydrocarbons from crude oil so theyre not sustainable thats exactly what these 3 chemists. Christopher gertler and voter like not want to change. Plastics as being based on fossil resources on fossil resources are finite but there is one source which is infinite and that is Carbon DioxideCarbon Dioxide the Greenhouse Gas imagine simply getting the carbon for our plastics out of the air thereby reducing Oil Consumption and atmospheric levels of c o 2 to problem solve that one fell swoop. But the researchers not only want to make c o 2 based plastic they want it to be easily recyclable lets do what they did. And go right back to square one. A typical plastic consists of long molecular chains of carbon atoms with lots of Hydrogen Atoms not much more but to actually make a plastic the constituent molecules have to be induced to bond properly. The hydrocarbons from oil are bursting with energy and looking for any excuse to react with something. The c o 2 molecule is in or it unreactive a regular couch potato of a molecule. The fields why is the c o 2 is a decidedly sluggish molecule it needs apologetics just like in real life to a new job and get the lazy dog moving. In the reagan home and to believe that you need a catalyst to bring the 2 together and get a bonding started its all to form the final compound unfair when the d. J. Puts on the right music then push everything comes together music is the catalyst. And this white powder is the catalyst for our reluctant c o 2 the result of hears of research it persuades Carbon Dioxide to react with other chemicals. The result is this viscous fluid a polio a problem eric molecule incorporated in numerous oxygen atoms. The polio is used as the basis for a variety of plastics such as polyurethane foam for mattresses derived from c o 2 from the atmosphere. The concept of the hind our innovation was to be which i utilize it as a kind of Technology Platform that way we can easily broaden its spectrum of occupations bring us into areas like elastic find it is a fast on. That means clothes could also be made of c o 2 in future but. Clothing doesnt last forever what happens then here the new plastic has another advantage the c o 2 it contains x. Is a built in breaking point and they go in the polymer to be split out and them easily recycled that doesnt work with pure carbon chain plastics. Vision is to become more focused on circularity in 10 years time well be seeing many more chemically recycled products in. A good way towards our vision of a circular economy. So that. The goal is to make our resource footprint smaller to move away from a linear economy which turns resources into waste to a circular one based on recycling. What is right right glad you gave it. Do you have a science question that youve always wanted answered it we got you to help out send it to us as a video text ovoid smell if we answer it on the show well send you a little surprise as a thank you cannot just ask. Get in touch with us on our website d w dot com slash science or drop us a line on twitter and facebook. Next week and the usual storage system for Sustainable Energy gravity battery its inventor wants to build a tower of stacked cement blocks to store excess energy how does that work join us next time to find out until then but i. Every saturday at 12 pm the judge in the heart of biofilms with people. They come for the noon song. There at this special service some of the citys top singers performing choral music past present. The spiritual celebration. Song. Boyer. The force is with hugh young. But you are not i just i. Just you i was the man now arab at the official lightsaber tournament in france the worlds generalize show what theyre made up the be the force be with them the locks. The beast 60 minutes tongue. Each still tells my story. Of the people who found me. Dead against him and knives to me. I am not a done to come. Please on my secrets. I have mocked my cities days for centuries kunda companied my country through its finest hours until the day i mean. Not the time to believe. Dance a fool a. Band. Man a bad. Lutheran church in berlin. Once a week music lovers from all over the german capital gather here. The scenes