logo
episode-header-image
Aug 2020
13m 28s

Let's scan the whole planet with LiDAR |...

TED
About this episode

We have archives of films, newspapers, even seeds -- what if we could make one for the entire surface of the earth? Drawing on his experience mapping an ancient city in the Honduran jungle, archaeologist Chris Fisher makes the case for scanning the whole planet with LiDAR -- a technology that uses lasers shot from an airplane to map the ground -- in order to preserve our cultural and ecological heritage.



Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Up next
Yesterday
Inside the "play labs" helping refugee kids heal | Erum Mariam
What does healing look like for a refugee child? That's the question educational leader Erum Mariam asked when her team built the humanitarian "play labs": small, welcoming spaces where children displaced from their homes can play and reconnect with what they lost. From songs and ... Show More
14 m
Sep 23
Why we blew up four dams — and saved a river | Amy Bowers Cordalis
For thousands of years, the Klamath River in Northern California was home to one of the continent’s great salmon runs, creating abundance for the native Yurok Tribe … until a series of dams and a century of extraction nearly destroyed it. Indigenous advocate Amy Bowers Cordalis h ... Show More
36m 53s
Sep 22
What makes a good game? | Eric Zimmerman
What’s the best way to make a project more playful? Game designer Eric Zimmerman has a counterintuitive suggestion: a few good rules. Drawing on his experience making everything from video games and tabletop classics to museum-scale installations, he breaks down how creative play ... Show More
14m 16s
Recommended Episodes
May 2021
BrainStuff Classics: How Is New Laser Technology Discovering Ancient Ruins?
Ancient ruins, long grown over by massive forests, can be found painlessly -- thanks to lasers. Learn how LiDAR is preserving forests and uncovering lost Mayan infrastructure in this classic episode of BrainStuff, based on this article: https://electronics.howstuffworks.com/futur ... Show More
6m 1s
Jan 2014
Look What I Found!
<p>How are archaeologists using high-tech tools to study ancient, forgotten ruins? We look at everything from radar to satellite imagery.</p><p> </p> Learn more about your ad-choices at <a href="https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com">https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com</a><p>See ... Show More
37m 48s
Feb 2025
The great abandonment: what happens to the natural world when people disappear?
Across the globe, vast swathes of land are being left to be reclaimed by nature. To see what could be coming, look to Bulgaria. By Tess McClure. Read by Sara Lynam. Help support our independent journalism at theguardian.com/longreadpod 
34m 12s
Apr 2020
How the Voyager Golden Records Work
<p>As part of a super 70s push to get Earth to a seat at the table of the Galactic Federation (in case there is, in fact, such a thing), astronomer Carl Sagan oversaw an ambitious project to launch a compilation of Earth’s greatest hits into deep space.</p><p> </p> Learn more abo ... Show More
1h 3m
Nov 2014
Maps
Aleks Krotoski examines what digital mapping has meant for our understanding of the world. Are we always aware of the decisions that make them look the way they do? Traditionally of course maps are as "authored" as anything else. As Simon Garfield writer of On the Map: Why the wo ... Show More
28m 32s
Jul 2020
#379: A Digital Earth Journey
What can you do with petabytes of earth observation data and scalable compute infrastructure to help support decision making at the continental scale? Simon brings together representatives from Geoscience Australia, the South African National Space Agency and AWS to talk about Di ... Show More
21m 1s
Nov 2022
Leaving A Mark
For millennia, humans have created artifacts of their lives—from art, to books, to music. This hour, we explore ideas about capturing the ephemeral human experience for future generations to find. Guests include paleoanthropologist Genevieve von Petzinger, museum curator Ariana C ... Show More
49m 30s
Nov 2020
Season Three, Episode 3: On the Surface
Like waves of the ocean, our planet’s surface is in constant motion. In this episode, we’ll travel to tropical rainforests to dig into soils with an ecologist, and fly drones with an earthquake expert to spot shifts in the ground beneath our feet. 
37m 41s