the writing. and the power of the pan sound man rushed. in 45 minutes. earth. for saving google into those tall stories of creative people and innovative projects around the world ideas to protect the climate camp boost green energy solutions by global ideas before the series of global 3000 on t.w. and online. you're watching tomorrow today the science show on d w coming up. a sensational find in lake constance archaeologists dive into the past. and mexico an inventor is building houses as i've seen read and find out how to turn carbon dioxide into plastic.

170 large piles of stuff or cans in a line running along 10 kilometers of shoreline for millennia they went unnoticed submerged in the waters of lake constance in central europe they form a remarkable manmade monument. all told it consists of more than 120000 tons of stone about as much as went into building the cathedral in cologne. 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 transpose it 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 wind.

a team of archaeologists and geologists set up a tiny drilling platform on lake constance their aim to find out when mysterious cans on the lakes that were built. from the university of ben and his team are experts at geological drilling they want to take samples from deep inside the lake to determine the age of the stone piles resting on it 1st the rig has to be anchored and then maneuvered into a precise location using g.p.s. . and geologists combine an impressive wealth of knowledge. the whole 5 hope with the drilling that we can determine the age of bit more accurately is it really prehistoric if it is prehistoric was a made during the bronze age or the new olympic. team hopes the drilling samples

will allow it to form a better picture of the sediment by the can. chose the drilling sites that allows us to get most of the light 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 see. 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 to how men

drill they drive the device 6 meters deep into the bed of the lake. once they reach the desired depth the scientists hold the drill back up to the surface with the layers of earth trapped in its core. it's 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 can. a few days later in the cool room that burn universities geological institute and so met

him and his team take a closer look at the sediment inside the plastic tubes they've already determined the most promising. what we've laid out comes from a 6 metre deep hole so here we have the lake bed now and in 6 metres depth is the former like the bottom maybe a few 1000 years ago cedars had started depth of about 3 metres according to the radar picture it has to be here somewhere we expect to find the former lake bed on which they built the mounds. so the idea is the ice can prove 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 cut open lengthwise. the sediment layers

a cafe he separated. put it down back there. in front a little pressure. pull it back. here. perfect wonderful. provides an exact image of the cools interior hopefully it will show enough traces of organic fossils that can be used to gauge the lay is a huge. if you zoom right in you can see lots of black spots in the core samples we hope it's organic material plant remains in sufficient quantity to date yeah in order to isolate the aerial we're taking individual samples from the core. because . if there's no organic material it won't 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 foreseeing can be found wherever there's carbon means in any living materials but also in part in carbonaceous minerals any way you find carbon you'll find sand 14 to fit too far. in

a series of steps the samples i cleaned and prepared for measurement. if their carbon 14 content can be determined then so can they each. 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 sea 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 point 0004 grams left but that's 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 presume that's the key to the samples age.

but we can observe 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. there's 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 stake in this block once the really exciting thing is you can see the remains of the stake in the sediment. it's been moved but it's still in proximity and that shows us someone drove a stake in down there and that it's not just driftwood and because it's been shaped

we can assume that it was driven into the ground at the same time as they can hear . the excavations promise to reveal more secrets concealed in the camp. 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. at a time when europe was partially copulated the lakes near the alps would have been lined with houses on low still. the population might have seen very useful by our standards few people live to old age. life was simple and hard. people farm the land raised cattle and went

hunting. they only survived by living in communities. behind mortality rate meant that women as givers 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 2 features clay breasts. their belief to depict the female ancestors of various lineages. the famous mural was also found by like constance. 'd there is evidence suggesting that a european network already existed in the neolithic age goods and draw 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 canada in brittany but now europe has another nearly 6 landmark unlike constance dubbed the swiss stonehenge. of course the scientists want to know what purpose the stone pile served maybe the people in the new lithic age built them to celebrate the summer and winter solstice the piles are lined along the sun's. big bonfires on the piles as part of a ritual. it's just one of the many riddles yet to be uncovered about the find in the late. another remarkable find is this neanderthal skeleton that archaeologists recently

excavated in the shanidar 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 bedded on a stone. it's the best preserved discovery of its kind in a quarter of a century the researchers hope it will tell them more about the burial rachel's. of our neanderthal cousins. we'll see you on facebook what you think archaeologists might discover about 5000 years from now. when indonesia reckons they'll find devices they think are junk like mobile phones computers and. nicholas is pessimistic saying that they won't be any archeologists in 5000 years because they

won't be any more people. alphonso from mexico jokes that the archaeologists in the future will find all those socks that got lost in the washing machine. and sherry says that the main thing they'll 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 more tons of plastic end up in the sea and are moved around the planet by wide ranging ocean currents currents that play a key role for life on our planet. but how do they arise if you are in el salvador and sent in a question about bears. what causes ocean currents they flow like

vast rivers with no 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 its. 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. an unknown as the global conveyor belt it's a system of currents that transports water around the world. ocean currents

crucially affect climate for example the humboldt current brings cold water teeming with nutrients from the antarctic to the collaborators islands for 6 months of the year. they feed the tiny planktonic algae that form the base of the food chain providing sustenance for swarms of fish and also for the marine equine are the only lizard that lives and forages in the sea. on land meanwhile life in these months is hard there's hardly any rainfall wildlife including the collapse of his giant tortoise have to embark on perilous journeys in search of food but in the other half of the year food is available in abundance that's when the wet season comes with the panama current bringing warmer waters. this current isn't nearly as rich in nutrients so much of the island's 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. that in mexico and inventor has found a way to use it. brown seaweed on the mexican coastline a disaster for the environment and the terrorist industry but for all my vasquez it's free building material. we extract all the water and remove the garbage

we continue that process until the seaweed itself starts to produce a kind of organic clay and becomes a hard resistant mass. which of. bread. he produces his own bricks that are 60 percent sea weed a 1000000 tons of the saga some much. 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 causing them to grow and multiply. them every day for a 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 gases devastating to the coastal ecosystem. it's important to support initiatives like on mars where.

we just collect the seaweed we're 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 the 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 he's 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 we've 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 it's very hard . many of my neighbors now want want to. see. the circus and breaks i said to be more robust than words and cheaper to produce than cement they've generated huge interest. i haven't really invented anything i'm just giving back to the belongs to it problem into an opportunity. experts see great potential in his idea oh tell chain in mexico has now started a project with kids aiming to build part of her is sought with some breaks foreign companies are also showing interest and there's certainly no shortage of the seaweed on mexico's caribbean coastline. there's so

many clever ideas around for turning it 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 multi-talented who no one really likes. there are some good reasons for that even though plastics have the answer to all kinds of needs in the household as construction material in cars or aircraft. sticks are carbon based substances synthesized from hydrocarbons from crude oil so they're not sustainable that's exactly what these 3 chemists bear which i know christopher gertler and

voltaire like not want to change its long. plastics as being based on fossil resources on fossil resources of finite but there is one source which is infinite and that is carbon dioxide carbon dioxide the greenhouse gas imagine simply getting the carbon for 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 plastics they wanted to be easily recyclable let's do what they did and go right back to square one. but 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 interrupt unreactive a regular couch potato of a molecule. the seals y u c c o 2 is a decidedly sluggish molecule it needs a politics just like in real life to any job and get the lazy dog moving. in the reagan homes to believe that you need a catalyst to bring the 2 together and get a bonding started it's all to form the final compound. and just what is this catalyst well it's not a magic potion but it does lower in the efficiency enough to allow the 2 partners that have a certain affinity to hook up properly. it's like at a party the guys want to dance with the gals but are too shy to ask for 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 years of research it persuades carbon dioxide to react with other chemicals. the result is this viscous fluid a polio or polymer molecule incorporating numerous oxygen atoms for 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. do you know why i'm certain behind our innovation was to be able to utilize it as a kind of technology planful that way we can easily broaden its spectrum of occupations bringing us into areas like elastic fibers there's a fast. that means clothes could also be made of. to and future but clothing

doesn't 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 blow in the poem are to be split up and there is li recycle that doesn't work with pure carbon chain plastics. vision is to become more focused on circularity in 10 years' time we'll be seeing many more chemically recycled products. because a good way towards our vision of a circular economy. with. 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. even if you. do have a science question that you've always wanted answered it we're happy to help you out send it to us as a video text over smell if we answer it on the show we'll send you

a little surprise as a thank you can i 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 at 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 by.

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