Howtown

New episode: How to find ancient cities hiding under the trees

Added 2025-04-17 12:05:01 +0000 UTC

Hi folks,

Today we have an 18-minute feature video about how lasers are uncovering an ancient Maya megalopolis. Would love to hear your thoughts in the comments!

I relished working on this one because it's a delightful example of how advancements in basic research end up supercharging investigations in totally different fields. When the laser was developed in the late 1950s—based on a theory Einstein published in 1917 and with public funding—it was called "a solution looking for a problem." They couldn't have anticipated that we'd be fixing our vision, mapping tectonic plates, or studying ancient cities in the jungle of the Yucatan peninsula! Check out our Patreon feed for a "deleted scene" all about lasers. And kudos to Charlie for the gorgeous animations in this piece.

Live events coming up:

April 18 (tomorrow!): Hangout for the Mayors and Council Members
May 5: Science Paper Book Club. (Will send out the paper soon)

In shorts, we have a couple of clips from Adam's big episode rewinding plate tectonics in case you yearn to relive those great moments:

He's promised a behind-the-scenes for ya'll so stay tuned for that!

Lastly, some news: Howtown won an award "for excellence in independent video journalism"! Watch Adam's acceptance speech at the International Journalism Festival here. He gave a little shout out to me and you! ❤️