Archives for July 2010

Those that want to save the planet make strenuous efforts to get us to use our cars less and take fewer foreign holidays. Which is odd as it looks like it's what you eat, not what you drive, that has the biggest impact on the environment.

So do you think eating less meat will save the planet? Well you might like some facts to consider first. There's a massive United Nations report here. And an extremely good New Scientist article here which comes to the conclusion an outright conversion to a vegetarian or vegan way off life isn't the answer.

"Given the deforestation, soil erosion, water pollution and greenhouse gas emissions that will result if worldwide meat production continues to rise, some people are already choosing to eat less meat. And the message is definitely less, not none. For best results, meat should be medium-rare."

There's no doubt cattle in particular have a huge impact on our environment. But they are also very effective at turning scrubby land that's not always suitable for crops into a source of valuable protein.

So what do you think?

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Science happens in funny places. In this case I was in the back of a truck as number-crunchers in Vienna piped back massive amounts of data to a field near Stonehenge. And what the archaeologists saw made them very excited.

Stonehenge dominates the Wiltshire landscape. So it's not a complete surprise that everyone from tourists to archaeologists tends to focus on the huge stones themselves.

But I was there filming the work of an international team lead by the University of Birmingham who are turning their back on the ancient monument and facing outward. Examining the 14 sq km around Stonehenge itself. Believe it or not about 90% of this land is, in archaeological terms, a complete blank.

But that's changing as researchers carry out the biggest archaeological survey of its type in Europe. Not using shovels but instead scanners that can be dragged across the surface of the landscape. Geophysics has revolutionised modern archaeology and this kit is the very latest gear, fresh out of the lab. It can be attached to quad bikes, tractors and even 4x4's and gather data when driven at high speed.

This new technology means you can now cover a huge area in a short period of time and gather extremely detailed information. It wouldn't even be possible to carry this sort of survey with a trowel. No matter how many students you convinced to live in a tent for the summer.

The team was very excited when I was there by this black and white image. It's a scan of an existing barrow and in this image the archaeological team see a segmented ditch and 24 deep pits which they say would probably have been dug for timbers and a wooden structure. A wooden henge. The diagram on the right shows this more clearly.

The team say this is the most exciting discovery at Stonehenge for 50 years. It means at its greatest the monument didn't stand alone in the landscape but instead there was another henge nearby looking down on it.

Interestingly this barrow has been investigated in the past. But in those days people just dug straight down looking for the burial chamber and any ancient gold. What this scan reveals is what's going on outside the previous limited archaeological investigations.

And of course that's true of this entire area that's been scanned. There's still much more data to be analysed. Who knows what the team will discover next? In the meantime the equipment is being packed up and is off to scan a series of archaeological sites across Europe.

UPDATE

For those that wanted more technical details about the work here you go. The team are using a variety of techniques including ground penetrating radar (GPR), magnetic surveys, resistivity and electromagnetic studies. Traditionally GPR and magnetic studies involve a single user pushing or pulling a single detector over the ground to take the data.

But the team have been able to scale up the size of the detector four or five times and increase the speed they travel over the ground up to 6mph which allows them to hook the detectors to tractors and similar. Obviously speed will affect resolution. But the team have managed to cover an area of fourteen square kilometres around Stonehenge in three weeks.

Since the equipment really is fresh out of the laboratory I don't have technical specs for all of it. But for the GPR detector we saw was operating at 250MHz which on this soil will penetrate to about 2m with a resolution of about 5cm.

UPDATE II

*ping!* An email arrives from Scott Palmer correcting our use of the word henge when referring to Stonehenge itself in this story. He explains that Stonehenge is so called because it looks like an old fashioned hangman's scaffold. Henge being a corruption of "hang". All other ceremonial monuments are called henges in tribute to Stonehenge. But it does mean that technically Stonehenge itself isn't actually a henge.

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On Friday's programme I had a close encounter with this charming lady. An American "alligator snapping turtle" pulled from a Birmingham reservoir by local angler, Steve Bellion. She's now living at the West Midlands Safari Park with a male for company. You can watch my live encounter with her here.

Chatting to the experts at the Safari Park in the afternoon I said I assumed "alligator snapping turtles" we so called because they were turtles who could snap at something with the power of an alligator. Having seen this one demolish a tree branch that seemed to make sense to me. They have a surprising turn of speed and can crunch through almost anything unwise enough to get too close.

But actually, the keepers explained, they are so named because the shell looks just like the back of an alligator as it moves through the water. Looking at this picture you can see what they mean.

Which jogged something in my memory. Over ten years ago we ran a story about an alligator being spotted in a lake in Sandwell. Officials even closed the lake in question for a while as you can read here.

Eventually it was decided it was likely the creature in question was probably a salamander. Something which always struck me as slightly unlikely. But what if it was another alligator snapping turtle moving through the water? After the "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" craze of the 1980's it seems unwanted pet turtles ended up in lakes across the country. Adults have been spotted here and there ever since and they make very convincing alligators especially if glimpsed from a distance.

These American turtles don't hibernate back home. But here they will slow down in winter and drop to the bottom of a lake in the cold. And any that don't make it through the winter will stay there. The heavy shell weighing down the body. Which also means after a few years of "alligator" sightings the appearances will stop and the evidence will stay out of sight.

That said if you do come across either an alligator or an alligator snapping turtle in Sandwell do stay away. Both will happily have your fingers off.

For those that really enjoy this sort of thing here's how we reported the Sandwell "alligator" at the time.

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This picture marks the end of a five year personal quest marked by frustration and some very early starts. I can't tell you how happy it makes me.

It all began when I discovered that central Birmingham was home to some of the rarest birds in the country, the black redstart. The more I learnt about them the more I wanted to see one. Especially as where I live in the city's Jewellery Quarter is prime black redstart country.

These small birds love the abandoned factories that line Birmingham's canals. They make their homes at the very back of old buildings which they enter through small gaps in the brickwork or broken windows.

The black redstart has always been a rare sight in this country but as Birmingham began to spruce up its city centre the broken buildings loved by these birds began to disappear. I started to worry I would never be lucky enough to see one. Reports suggest there are just two or three breeding pairs in the city.

I would always keep my ears open when walking back home early in the morning. The male likes to perch on the highest point it can find and sing it's heart out to attract a mate. So I'd watch the top of church spires, the law courts and even the giant cranes listening for their very distinctive call. It makes a huge noise for such a small bird.

Many times we went out at five in the morning for Springwatch to try and capture one of these birds on film. But we always returned empty handed.

In the end it was some dedicated sleuthing by keen Birmingham bird enthusiasts that tracked a black restart down to a building right in the city centre. And they found not just one bird but a whole family including four young chicks. Although we can't reveal the exact location it's behind a building I walk past every day on my way to work.

So this is the end of a great journey for me. And I'm so happy to have finally seen the flash of red under the wing as the male zips into its nest to feed his youngsters bright green caterpillars. This rarest of birds living almost unnoticed in a city of more than a million people is one of Birmingham's greatest secrets.

You can find video of the young family on the BBC Birmingham website here. The West Midland Bird Club has more on black redstarts here. And the RSPB page is here.

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Here's a tweet sent to me by Diego Urbina an astronaut currently just starting out on the 520 day round trip to Mars. Well actually he's sealed in a simulated spaceship in Moscow rather than the real thing. But as you can see the team are trying to replicate all the conditions of spaceflight. I was keen to know if that included rationing water and it does as the tweet from Diego reveals.

@DavidACGregory we have wet wipes during 9 days and shower on the 10th #mars500

There are no windows in the "spaceship" and the food is going to become authentically monotonous. Ground control even simulate the 20 minute delay you'd expect in communications. The time taken for the radio signal to travel from earth to the ship. That means Diego isn't twittering in real time instead he gets a Word document with tweeted questions. He then types in his answers and sends the file back and then someone else sends that out via Twitter.

You can read more about the mission and previous simulated long duration space flights here. Interestingly this mission has an all male crew (not intentional it is claimed) and no alcohol (very intentional).

And if you have a question for Diego Urbina then you can send him one and follow his experience by clicking here.

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