Listen here on your chosen podcast platform.
English Heritage has said there appears to be 'no visible damage' to the cultural site after Just Stop Oil protesters sprayed the site with orange powder paint on Wednesday.
However, Tim Daw, a farmer in Wiltshire and local expert on Stonehenge, has been explaining to Tech & Science Daily why there are concerns there could be potential underlying issues following the incident.
More assessments need to be carried out to see how the lichen, a special plant-like organism that lives in the stone, has been affected. Archaeologists also need to investigate the impact on the historical indentations and markings found on the rock’s surface.
Lisa Webb, consumer law expert at Which?, discusses their report which has found that big tech brands are breaking new laws and selling customers short on product security.
They looked at more than 120 brands behind appliances such as smartphones, doorbells and tumble dryers, and found that despite having a year to prepare for the new laws, a quarter could be failing to publish their product security updates policies in the public domain.
Many other brands offer very short support periods and although it doesn’t breach the law, it essentially means putting consumers at risk long before the end of the product’s natural life – and increasing the chances of items unnecessarily being added to environmental waste.
Which? is now calling on the regulator, the Office for Product Safety and Standards, to investigate the issue and outline what it will be doing to enforce the legislation.
And the rest
Artificial intelligence allows pupils to ‘converse’ with Holocaust survivors, astronauts stuck in space at least another week as Boeing and NASA troubleshoot Starliner spacecraft issues, and archaeologists find depiction of 'Simpsons' character on 3,000-year-old Egyptian mummy coffin.
You can listen to the episode in the player above, find us on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Here’s an automated transcript:
Hi, I'm Rochelle Travers, and this is The Standard's Tech and Science Daily podcast.
Coming up: How AI is helping share Holocaust survivors' stories for decades to come.
Now, let's get into it.
The sound of Just Stop Oil protesters spraying orange powder paint on Stonehenge yesterday, as members of the public tried to intervene.
English Heritage has said there appears to be no visible damage to the cultural site, but experts are concerned that there could be potential underlying issues following the incident.
We're not quite sure whether there will be any lasting damage or not, but applying any sort of paint to ancient stones, especially when they're covered in lichen, which are very delicate plants, they need very specific conditions, is obviously just criminal damage.
That's Tim Daw, a farmer in Wiltshire and local expert on Stonehenge.
Lichen is a unique organism. It's an algae and a fungus.
They live together symbiotically on bare rock where there's no nutrition, or very tiny amounts of nutrition.
So they will live for hundreds of years and grow very, very slowly, just pulling that slight bit of nutrition out of the rock and out of the air.
So if you damage them, they'll be dead for hundreds of years.
There are also worries over whether the paint could impact indentations and markings on the stone that are yet to be fully researched by archaeologists.
The surface of the Sarsen stone, Sarsen's a very, very hard stone, but it is a natural material.
It's full of little pores, which we fear the paint may have got into and be very hard to get out of.
But on the surface of the stone, there are ancient carvings, bronze-age carvings of axes, which over thousands of years of weathering have become very, very faint.
And so any damage to the surface might be removing very faint traces of ancient carvings that we haven't yet investigated.
Tim was at the site this morning and said there is some good news, though, as most of the obvious damage seems to have been cleared.
Overnight, luckily, it didn't rain.
And so they were able to basically vacuum and blow off the powder from the stones.
And that seems to have been very successful and well done.
The majority of the superficial orange powder seems to have been removed.
What we don't know yet, and it will depend on close examination, is whether the little particles have gone into the pores of the stones.
A report by Which says big tech brands are breaking new laws and selling customers short on product security.
There's some new legislation that has come in this year and what that legislation does is effectively make manufacturers responsible for ensuring that smart products don't go dumb too soon.
And that means that those products have to have security updates so that they can't get hacked and updates to ensure that they still remain useful years into their lives.
That's Lisa Webb, consumer law expert Which? who carried out the research.
Now that legislation says that those brands have to provide these policies and they have to be published policies so that consumers when they buy a product can see exactly how long their product will be supported for.
And unfortunately, through our research, what we've been finding is big brands, they're selling these devices and actually we can't find policies telling us how long they're gonna keep them updated for.
The group looked at more than 120 brands behind appliances such as smartphones, doorbells and tumble dryers and found that despite having a year to prepare for the new laws, a quarter could be failing to publish their product security update policies in the public domain.
Many other brands offer very short support periods and although it doesn't breach the law, it essentially means putting consumers at risk long before the end of the product's natural life and increasing the chances of items unnecessarily being added to environmental waste. Which? is now calling on the regulator, the Office for Product Safety and Standards, to investigate the issue and outline what it will be doing to enforce the legislation.
New artificial intelligence will allow pupils to converse with Holocaust survivors even when they're no longer alive.
A clip there of the tech in action from the Holocaust Educational Trust.
The speech-to-text recognition AI search technology, combined with a filming technique using a nine-camera rig, has created virtual 3D versions of Holocaust survivors, which can answer 1,000 questions from pupils.
AI understands the question and then plays the survivor's recorded answer to give pupils the feeling of a natural conversation.
Using virtual reality headsets, students will also be able to explore key sites linked to the testimonies.
It's hoped the technology will ensure that young people have memorable experiences learning about the Holocaust for generations to come.
Let's go to the ads.
Coming up, the Simpsons character, found on a 3,000-year-old Egyptian coffin.
Welcome back.
Two astronauts are stuck in space for at least another week as Boeing and NASA scrambled to fix spacecraft issues.
Astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore have been on the International Space Station since the 6th of June after a successful Boeing Starliner launch.
They were expected to stay for one week, but it's been confirmed that the pair won't be returning back to Earth before the 26th of June.
The Boeing Starliner's facing several mechanical problems.
Whilst en route to the ISS, the crew reported issues with five thrusters and four helium leaks.
And a fifth helium leak has since cropped up.
And finally, forget Springfield!
A photo has been shared on Reddit showing what appears to look like a Simpsons character dating back to ancient Egypt.
Well, sort of anyway.
A depiction was found in 2023 within the lid of a 3,500-year-old Egyptian mummy sarcophagus, and was dubbed as Marge for her yellow body, blue hair and green outfit.
The drawing shows her laying beside 12 high priestesses, which experts say represents 12 hours of the day and shows her traveling to the afterlife.
Now, the Simpsons are well known for their eerie predictions of the future, but maybe it was the ancient Egyptians who actually got there first.
You're up to date.
Come back up 4 p.m.
for The Standard Podcast for all the latest news and analysis.
Tech and Science Daily will be back tomorrow at 1 p.m.
See you then.
