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Back in 1980, Michael Crichton published a novel called Congo. In it, a computer whiz uses satellite imagery to find specific types of secondary growth jungle to find the lost African city of Zinj.

Something very similar has just happened in Guatemala. Scanning the jungle with lasers from airplanes (Light Detection and Ranging, or lidar) scientists have found an incredibly huge city in the jungles of Guatemala. Here's the ancient city of Tikal seen from the air:



and here's an image using Light Detection and Ranging:



LIDAR technology holds the promise of uncovering lost Civilizations.

One of my favorite popular fiction writers, gone too soon.

Crichton had a true love/hate relationship with science. The promise and peril of science loomed large in his mind. But his view of science seemed to sour over his life. Where a lot of his early books were about science that could arguably serve society that had gone wrong, many of his later books were more concerned with how science, the media, and corporations can manipulate the public perception of science.

But he really had a knack as a writer for selecting really juicy subjects for 'near' science fiction. Jurassic Park was based upon mosquitoes sucking the blood of dinosaurs and preserving their DNA, when the insects were trapped in sap that became amber. Here's a recent photo of a piece of amber with a dinosaur feather with a tick embedded in it:



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After proofreading this, I wondered if it was necessary to use the word 'recent' with regard to the photo. The photo is of an object over 90 million years old. Upon further reflection, it probably doesn't matter how recent the photo is.

I really enjoyed his earlier books, starting with the Andromeda Strain. I thought he really went off he rails with Airframe, and didn’t bother with him after that. It was like he evolved from a guy who told creative cautionary tales into a cranky polemicist.

Res Ipsa wrote:I really enjoyed his earlier books, starting with the Andromeda Strain. I thought he really went off he rails with Airframe, and didn’t bother with him after that. It was like he evolved from a guy who told creative cautionary tales into a cranky polemicist.

Agreed. After Airframe a lot of his books had a strong political or social agenda and a little misogyny.

It's funny, but I recently did a post on letting go of books. One of them is my original hardcover copy of Andromeda Strain, which was a 3rd printing.

MeDotOrg wrote:

Res Ipsa wrote:I really enjoyed his earlier books, starting with the Andromeda Strain. I thought he really went off he rails with Airframe, and didn’t bother with him after that. It was like he evolved from a guy who told creative cautionary tales into a cranky polemicist.

Agreed. After Airframe a lot of his books had a strong political or social agenda and a little misogyny.

It's funny, but I recently did a post on letting go of books. One of them is my original hardcover copy of Andromeda Strain, which was a 3rd printing.

Yeah, I need to do that, too. Same with my board game collection. Sigh.

MeDotOrg wrote:Back in 1980, Michael Crichton published a novel called...

Interesting OP but an inept thread title.
Lidar began in 1960s, so once again we see that art imitates life and exploits it for whatever end.
Point being, your thread title should be "science fiction BASED ON science fact".

Maksutov wrote:One of my favorite popular fiction writers, gone too soon.

Oh, man. How did I miss that? I read JP, Lost World, Sphere, Prey, Congo, Timeline, and Disclosure. Prey is especially unsettling considering our forays into nanotech and A.I.. ANYTHING CAN HAPPEN.

Anyway. I can't wait for the LDS church to use LIDAR on the Hill Cumorah. We're gonna see SO MANY THINGS! Things like HIDDEN CAVES WITH MOUNTAINS OF METAL PLATES. SWORDS EVERYWHERE. BATTLE RAMPARTS.

CAN'T WAIT.

- Doc

Doctor CamNC4Me wrote:Oh, man. How did I miss that?

- Doc

Because this tech actually predates that novel by decades?

Use of LIDAR has really grown in the fields with which I associate for developing everything from topo surveys, restoration establishment monitoring over time, to truck driven LIDAR not so different from that used in self-driving cars which capture every detail in a linear corridor at what is claimed to be subcentimeter accuracy. Companies are equipping drones with LIDAR to perform work that they would previously have had to hire others to do. The combination of LIDAR with drone/automated vehicles has the potential to change our society in ways unimagined by science fiction.