The Week Junior - UK (2022-06-11)

11 June 2022 • The Week Junior

Science and technology

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Ancient pits found

around Stonehenge

T

he landscape around the ancient

monument, Stonehenge, is scattered

with hundreds of pits, many of which

were made long before the standing

stones were put up about 5,000 years

ago. The new discovery shows the area,

near Salisbury, England, has been

important to people for

even longer than experts

thought.

The pits were

found by a team

from the University

of Birmingham and

Ghent University in

Belgium, who surveyed

the area by firing electric

currents into the ground.

The strength of the currents showed

differences in the soil, including areas

where it had been disturbed. Professor

Philippe De Smedt, who led the team,

explained that this technique allows

researchers to “visualise what’s buried

below the surface of entire landscapes”.

Some individual pits were then dug out

by hand and studied for evidence to

find out how old they were.

The oldest pit turned out to be

around 10,000 years old and held

stone tools that could be used

for hunting. At this time,

groups of wandering

people were starting

to move back into

Britain as the land

became easier to live

on after a long, cold

Ice Age, and the team

think the pit was dug by

hunters to trap large wild

animals including deer, pigs

and extinct wild cattle called aurochs.

More recent pits date to the Bronze

Age, around 3,000 years ago. The

historians think they were dug to be

used in rituals once Stonehenge itself

was standing.

Excavating the

hunting pit.

The famous

standing stones.

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S

cientists in the UK have found a

way to power a computer so it

never runs out – using just light and

water as fuel. Researchers at the

University of Cambridge used a type

of algae – living things found mostly

in water that (like plants) draw energy

from sunlight through a process called

photosynthesis. The process creates

a slight electrical current that the

researchers harnessed to power a tiny

computer chip.

Supplied with light and water, the

system has run for more than a year

with no sign of stopping. “We were

impressed by how consistently the

system worked over a long time,” said

Dr Paolo Bombelli, who led the study.

“We thought it might stop after a few

weeks but it just kept going.”

At the moment, many small devices

run on chemical batteries that use

up natural resources and have to be

replaced. The researchers hope that

their system, which uses items that are

common, cheap and reusable, could

be a big step towards powering small

devices in a sustainable way.

A battery powered by light and water

The inventors show off

their battery system.

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