<story><title>Sprawling Mayan network discovered under Guatemala jungle</title><url>http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-42916261</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>baron816</author><text>I wonder how much city life biases us to think the planet is smaller than it is. Perhaps it explains fears of overpopulation.</text></item><item><author>wjnc</author><text>A few hints from the article: 810 sq miles mapped, a three year project and lidar flying by helicopter. Another giveaway is the search for MH370. In some dimensions Earth is still huge!</text></item><item><author>52-6F-62</author><text>This is not my field of expertise, but why wouldn&amp;#x27;t we just run LIDAR scans of as much of the earth&amp;#x27;s surface as possible?&lt;p&gt;Is it prohibitively expensive at this point? Is the computation [relatively] expensive? Is there a sound reason we don&amp;#x27;t race to do more?&lt;p&gt;I get the feeling this kind of data could inspire generations of new archaeologists and historians.&lt;p&gt;There are also some pseudo-archeological and pseudo-historical claims that might be put to rest (or less likely, cause a revolution in human self-knowledge). Eg: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Bosnian_pyramid_claims&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Bosnian_pyramid_claims&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;I would also love to see plots like Cahokia (and others like it) scanned: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Cahokia&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Cahokia&lt;/a&gt;</text></item><item><author>brett40324</author><text>This highly corroborates Charles C Mann&amp;#x27;s book 1491: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.m.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;1491:_New_Revelations_of_the_Americas_Before_Columbus&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.m.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;1491:_New_Revelations_of_the...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;From wikipedia: The book presents recent research findings in different fields that suggest human populations in the Western Hemisphere—that is, the indigenous peoples of the Americas—were more numerous, had arrived earlier, were more sophisticated culturally, and controlled and shaped the natural landscape to a greater extent than scholars had previously thought.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>jacobolus</author><text>It’s both bigger and smaller than we often think.&lt;p&gt;In a straight line, it’s smaller than we might expect: People can (and do) walk across continents, sail across oceans in one-person boats, fly all the way around in 2 days, visit every country at least once during their life, etc.&lt;p&gt;But of course the surface is two-dimensional, we can’t see very far at a time. The land surface is about 150 million square kilometers. (For reference, New York’s Central Park is about 3.4 square kilometers.)&lt;p&gt;It’s also “fractal”, in the sense that as we look at smaller and smaller pieces, we keep noticing more and more details. Every little patch of soil is teeming with tiny animals, plants, fungi, and bacteria.&lt;p&gt;Or if you like, there are probably at least 10 million restaurants in the world (maybe an order of magnitude more, it’s hard to guess). If you eat at 3 different restaurants every day for your whole life, it will take more than 100 lifetimes to eat at all of them. Then there are the 150 million books to read. Etc.</text></comment>
<story><title>Sprawling Mayan network discovered under Guatemala jungle</title><url>http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-42916261</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>baron816</author><text>I wonder how much city life biases us to think the planet is smaller than it is. Perhaps it explains fears of overpopulation.</text></item><item><author>wjnc</author><text>A few hints from the article: 810 sq miles mapped, a three year project and lidar flying by helicopter. Another giveaway is the search for MH370. In some dimensions Earth is still huge!</text></item><item><author>52-6F-62</author><text>This is not my field of expertise, but why wouldn&amp;#x27;t we just run LIDAR scans of as much of the earth&amp;#x27;s surface as possible?&lt;p&gt;Is it prohibitively expensive at this point? Is the computation [relatively] expensive? Is there a sound reason we don&amp;#x27;t race to do more?&lt;p&gt;I get the feeling this kind of data could inspire generations of new archaeologists and historians.&lt;p&gt;There are also some pseudo-archeological and pseudo-historical claims that might be put to rest (or less likely, cause a revolution in human self-knowledge). Eg: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Bosnian_pyramid_claims&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Bosnian_pyramid_claims&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;I would also love to see plots like Cahokia (and others like it) scanned: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Cahokia&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Cahokia&lt;/a&gt;</text></item><item><author>brett40324</author><text>This highly corroborates Charles C Mann&amp;#x27;s book 1491: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.m.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;1491:_New_Revelations_of_the_Americas_Before_Columbus&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.m.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;1491:_New_Revelations_of_the...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;From wikipedia: The book presents recent research findings in different fields that suggest human populations in the Western Hemisphere—that is, the indigenous peoples of the Americas—were more numerous, had arrived earlier, were more sophisticated culturally, and controlled and shaped the natural landscape to a greater extent than scholars had previously thought.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>jackhack</author><text>I would say quite a lot.&lt;p&gt;A private small-aircraft flight over any populated area (other than the biggest cities) reveals just how sparse most towns are. Travel almost any direction away from a main highway and in a minute or two you&amp;#x27;ll be looking at trees, trees, trees (or desert&amp;#x2F;mountains&amp;#x2F;fields).&lt;p&gt;It helps give one an entirely new perspective when we&amp;#x27;re used to traveling along roads and seeing unyielding flows of civilization, when the reality is those are mere ribbons of development criss-crossing what is still mostly empty, disinterested nature.</text></comment>