The first use of drone-based lidar in Central Asia has enabled archaeologists to uncover details of two newly discovered medieval trade cities high in the mountains of Uzbekistan.

The team used this cutting-edge technology to map the archaeological scale and layout of the cities, which are among the largest ever documented in the mountainous parts of the Silk Road, a broad network of ancient trade routes that connected Europe and Eastern Asia.

The research, led by Michael Frachetti, professor of archaeology in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, and Farhod Maksudov, director of the National Center of Archaeology in Uzbekistan, was recently published in Nature.

High-Resolution Insights into Ancient Urbanism

The drone-lidar scans provided remarkably detailed views of the plazas, fortifications, roads, and habitations that shaped the lives and economies of highland communities, traders, and travelers from the sixth through 11th centuries in Central Asia. The two cities are located in rugged terrain 2,000 to 2,200 meters above sea level (roughly comparable to Machu Picchu in Peru), making them unusual examples of thriving mountain urbanism.

Unveiling the Complexities of Mountain Urbanism

The smaller city, today called Tashbulak, covered about 12 hectares, while the larger city of Tugunbulak reached 120 hectares, “making it one of the largest regional cities of its time,” Frachetti said.

“These would have been important urban hubs in central Asia, especially as you moved out of lowland oases and into more challenging high-altitude settings,” he said. “While typically seen as barriers to Silk Road trade and movement, the mountains actually were host to major centers for interaction. Animals, ores, and other precious resources likely drove their prosperity.”

“This site had an elaborate urban structure with specific material culture that greatly varied from the lowland sedentary culture,” Maksudov said. “It’s clear that the people inhabiting Tugunbulak for more than a thousand years ago were nomadic pastoralists who maintained their own distinct, independent culture and political economy.”

Technological Advancements in Archaeological Exploration

Lidar technology is commonly used to map archaeological landscapes blocked by dense vegetation, but it has additional value where vegetation is sparse, such as the mountains of Uzbekistan. “Drone operation is strictly regulated in Uzbekistan, so this discovery is also thanks to the political support and permissions we received through local partners and government,” Frachetti said.

The centimeter-level scans allowed for advanced computer analysis of the ancient archaeological surfaces, providing an unprecedented view of the cities’ architecture and organization. “These are some of the highest-resolution lidar images of archeological sites ever published,” Frachetti said. “They were made possible, in part, because of the unique erosion dynamics in this mountain setting.”

A Blend of Modern Tech and Ancient Discovery

Frachetti, Maksudov, and their team first discovered the highland cities using predictive computer models and old-fashioned foot surveys between 2011 and 2015, tracing presumed routes of the Silk Road in southeastern Uzbekistan. The project took years to materialize. The extra time ultimately proved to be a blessing, allowing the researchers to make the most of the latest advances in drone-based lidar. “The final high-res maps were a composite of more than 17 drone flights over three weeks,” Frachetti said. “It would have taken us a decade to map such large sites manually.”

Frachetti and graduate students in his Spatial Analysis, Interpretation, and Exploration (SAIE) Lab compiled the drone-lidar data into 3D models, which were passed to Tao Ju, a professor of computer science and engineering, and Xiaoyi Liu, an undergraduate student, both at the McKelvey School of Engineering at WashU. Ju and Liu applied computational algorithms to analyze the archaeological surfaces and auto-trace millions of lines to predict likely architectural alignments. The final step was to match the digital output with comparable architectural cases, revealing a huge ancient city otherwise invisible to the naked eye. “The project reflects a truly interdisciplinary effort,” Ju said. “The analysis techniques have potential applications in many domains that utilize lidar scans.”

Future Excavations and Implications

Both cities warrant much closer inspection, Frachetti said. Preliminary digging at one of the fortified structures at Tugunbulak suggests that the fortress — a building protected by three-meter-thick rammed earth walls — might have been a factory where local metalsmiths turned rich deposits of iron ore into steel. Such industry would have been a key feature of the city and its economy.

It’s already clear that Tashbulak and Tugunbulak weren’t just remote outposts or rest stops. “The Silk Road wasn’t just about the endpoints of China and the West,” Frachetti said. “Major political forces were at play in Central Asia. The complex heart of the network was also a driver of innovation.”

Frachetti hopes to use the same combination of on-the-ground detective work and drone-based lidar to get pictures of other high-altitude settlements along the Silk Road and beyond. “We could really change the map of urban development in medieval Asia,” he said.

Reference: “Large-scale medieval urbanism traced by UAV–lidar in highland Central Asia” by Michael D. Frachetti, Jack Berner, Xiaoyi Liu, Edward R. Henry, Farhod Maksudov and Tao Ju, 23 October 2024, Nature.
DOI: 10.1038/s41586-024-08086-5

The expedition was supported by the National Geographic Society.

Source

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As the new year looms ahead and all the year-in-review and what’s-to-come thinkpieces start rolling out, we too are feeling reflective.

How has the climate disinformation landscape shifted? Who’s tapped out, and who’s emerging? And why are UFOs and Uzbekistan part of the climate disinfo conversation? 

Just look at this picture that Bjorn Lomborg posted to X/Twitter. “Great to meet Deputy Minister of Health Elmira Basitkhanova,” the text caption reads. “Her ministry is responsible for many of [the] best value for money policies for Uzbekistan.” Two days earlier, Lomborg also posted similar pictures of himself smiling next to Uzbekistan’s deputy minister of digital technologies and the director of the Agency for Innovative Development.

Lomborg’s long sought to ply his trade to whomever will listen, so meeting with government officials from Uzbekistan to tell them how they should do their jobs is not exactly a new breakthrough for him.

But Lomborg’s bland self-promotion is a great example of the larger changes in the climate disinformation landscape on Twitter/X. While the platform was once a digital space where you could observe disinfluencers acting relatively unconstrained, arguing with critics and joking with their friends but not otherwise worrying about being caught behaving badly, that has clearly changed. One after another, disinfluencers’ feeds are giving way to stale and sterile self-promotion posts urging followers to buy their book or Substack subscription or t-shirts.

But that’s not to say that everything’s boring. While the climate-specific disinfluencers have gotten increasingly boring and buttoned-up, the general-purpose click-chasers who occasionally talk about climate change are only getting more unhinged, if such a thing is possible. So what’s not boring, is just so incredibly, painfully stupid. 

That’s where the UFOs come in. Michael Shellenberger‘s already abandoned his UFO conspiracy theory, but ousted Fox personality Tucker Carlson has picked up the thread for his “show” on X and the Tucker Carlson Network, his new propaganda effort.

So on the one hand, we can look forward to more professionalized disinfo in the form of staid press release-type content from lobbyists like Lomborg and Alex Epstein, and on the other, we can expect even more deranged content about extraterrestrials from the Twitter trolls.

2024 should be a fun year!  

Source: Daily Kos

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Toronto, Alaska (16/11 – 50)

Our lives are being maneuvered and we are being manipulated by unelected, insidious forces, toward objectives not necessarily in the people’s interest.

Now that the so-called “pandemic”, declared by the mysterious self-appointed World Health Organization, and followed obediently by governments everywhere, has been decreed “finished”, we should devote a moment to introspection, considering who is running the show and for whose benefit, as governments gaily abdicated their vested responsibility to govern.

Pandemic is over? I hope they told those killer viruses who destroyed the population of Europe and North America. What? Oh, just 1% mortality? And that 1% mostly old, sick, fat folks riddled with comorbidities? How interesting. Get a booster.

Cui bono? Who benefited from the mammoth lockdowns, forced injections, prescription of powerful, deadly medications and jamming of lethal respirators down the throats of elderly, often demented patients? Have people forgotten already how hospitals became like prisons, and families often had to get a court order in order to force them to release a family member, or halt medications they did not approve of: “Remdesivir” (which nurses used to refer to as “Run! Death is near!”) causes kidney failure, and was being prescribed to patients already diagnosed with … kidney failure. Then, in mid-2022 the WHO suddenly did a volte-face and recommended against it.

Who is the WHO, and how have previously sovereign states obligingly sacrificed their independent judgment to it? Advertising itself as “Working with 194 Member States across 6 regions and on the ground in 150+ locations, the WHO team works to improve everyone’s ability to enjoy good health and well-being.” Founded in 1948 as an arm of the fledgling United Nations, like any unimpeded bureaucratic monster, the World Health Organization has swollen to gargantuan proportions, and has a gargantuan appetite, which can only be sated with a gargantuan budget … Do you see where this is going?

Our hidden masters who pull the strings of the governments and corporations adhere to the time-honored principle of “Never let a crisis go to waste” and if the crisis is a tempest in a teapot, well then, use the obedient media to whip up fear and panic among the buffaloed masses, so a flu variant becomes a humanity-destroying monster. Yes, I’m talking about the recent wave of flu infections – oh sorry, “Covid-19”. Give it a scary Hollywood name.

Do you, dear readers, recall those dramatic early-on videos of Wuhan citizens keeling over dead from the mystery virus (which many pranksters loved to tease the Chinese by calling it “Wu-Flu”)? Strangely enough, that horror movie never played out in the rest of the world, or am I mistaken? Are there videos of pedestrians strolling along in Düsseldorf, or Chicongo, or Osaka, and then toppling over kaput? No? I wonder why.

If you are a conspiracy theorist, you might well wonder whether total social control over the masses was not the real goal, from the outset. “Scare them half to death with a mystery medical panic – then sell them the potentially lethal poison to finish the job” may have been the motto of “Big Pharma”, whose money-glazed tentacles stretched through every aspect of medicine, academia, Government… turn on your computer; check out the video montages called “Brought to you by Pfizer” on YouTube, to see how money doesn’t just talk – it never shuts up. Billions were lathered around, so that many more billions could be squeezed from the public purse.

Big Pharma makes big billions – government does what government does: extend control over each and every citizen, with a “digital ID”. For your own good and public health! See how it works?

Yes, this is no “conspiracy theory”, no. Yes, it is a conspiracy by the World Economic Forum, with its 15-minute cities, no more automobile or steak for your family, Buster – shut up, sit still in your locked-down flat and eat those bugs.

The Critical Difference: “Dying from Covid-19” in that corner, vs. “Dying with Covid-19” in this corner. The first combatant? Miniscule. Around 1%, which statistically signifies “margin of error”. The second refers to those poor souls already riddled with comorbidities, obese, polluted by their junk food and smokes. They were 75% toward Death’s Door anyway – why not give them that “extra push” with Mengele-injections and forced intubation?

Note how the medical establishment, swimming in money from Big Pharma at this point, strongly discouraged any discussion of natural immunity, in their rush, their amazing rush to inject an experimental gene therapy into toddlers, teenagers, anybody within range – most of whom were more than willing to be lab rats for Big Pharma. Experimental Animals’R’Us!

Those not afflicted with memory loss will recall the Presidents and Prime Ministers and Health Poobahs guaranteeing that with the magical jabs we would not fall ill with the dreaded Covid. That story changed because it had to. Then it became “Oh yes, you can still get Covid but it is milder than if you’d not been injected”. The story shifted at each point, as celebs and politicos got their arms pumped with gene therapy on television while grinning … Or was it? Not saline solution perhaps, for those “in the know”?

Hey, look over there – it is American Defense Secretary Colin Powell – you know, the dude holding up the bag of yellow powder which was Saddam Hussein’s nuclear bomb instant mix. Colin Powell had been vaxxed out the kazoo, with multiple boosters, and Colin Powell is what cynical docs refer to as “room temperature”: he ain’t movin’, folks, that feller’s daid.

Early on, strange, unexpected, painful results were being reported from injections of the “vaccine”, which earned its “quotation marks” from being the beneficiary of a refreshened definition of what a vaccine was and was not. Rabies, smallpox, tetanus, polio and so on: prepared from weakened or dead viral matter. That’s what defines “vaccine”.

mRNA: experimental gene therapy, never submitted to proper double-blind trials to ascertain long-term effects. Thus, mysterious cases of athletes collapsing during play (and not infrequently dying on the spot), morticians reporting mysterious fibrous wads found in the blood vessels of autopsies, cases of myocardia and pericardia, conditions inflicting permanent and irreversible damage on the heart muscle, appearing in 15-year-olds, 8-year-olds, and being called “mild…”, “rare” or “…inconsequential”.

Astoundingly-low rates of Covid-19 infection reported from Africa (mostly by Japanese researchers, who were much less compromised or bought off by the global authorities). Was that linked to their steady use of Nobel Prize-winning Ivermectin? No, nothing to see here, move along now, forget about the horse dewormer. Such a propaganda campaign for the miracle jabs and against a cheap prophylactic.

Oh wait, a new variant has been reported, so you need a booster, Buster.

That never seemed to happen with traditional killers. There is not relentless “booster campaign” for tetanus or polio. (Rabies, yes, get your kitty her shots every six months.)

Who were these mysterious authorities to whom governments around the world were sacrificing their decision-making to? Let’s take a close look at WHO, and the sinister money-lubed forces behind it.

Money plays a role, from the git-go. Oh, you have heard those lyrics before?

Consider the “regulatory capture” factor, something the inconvenient Covid-heretic Robert F. Kennedy Jr. talks about. In the much-trumpeted democratic republics, where vox populi is supposed to be championed and held up as a model, mass mandates, lockdowns, a fear campaign, media control, non-conforming physicians threatened with the loss of their careers – all played a part, singing a melody trumpeted by mass media, all crooning “Get the jab, safe and effective”.

Was that true? has a part, and last but not least, allowing unelected bodies that shouldn’t even exist at the federal levels, make decisions that negate our inalienable rights, also having “democracy” decide issues of science.

“Rest homes” for the elderly became extermination camps, with stratospherically-soaring death rates – and not from the effects of the coronavirus. Every death that could be attributed to this “flavor-of-the-month” disease yielded $13,500 to hospitals, often teetering on bankruptcy before the great money-spinner appeared on the scene (too many indigent patients – obese lazy smokers living on grease, sugar and preservatives – not able to pay their bills).

Apart from the millions suffering permanent damage or even-more-permanent death from the fancy, untested “vaccines”, there is the big issue of “truth decay”. Loss of trust in the medical establishment is no joke. When the customers start to balk at what the purported “experts” are prescribing for them, and going to court to fight the institutions, you know something is wrong.

1918 “Spanish Flu” death rate = 35%. 2019 “Wu-Flu” death rate = ~1%, and that includes many deeply-unhealthy citizens already at death’s door.

Vaccine injuries: oh let’s not talk about that. There isn’t time. All line up for your 43^rd booster now, before yet another profitable variant is screamed out over the TV, and that 43^rd turns out to be ineffective.

Actual scene in government hospital, Bogor, West Java, Indonesia: uncle is ailing, has been quite weak and sick for several years. Now he picks up the dreaded <tee hee> “Covid-19” virus, and how does that happen? With a PCP test the inventor of which claimed repeatedly cannot correctly diagnose this type of viral infection. Check out inventor Kary Mullis.

Uncle turns up his toes, buys the farm, checks out, leaves the building, is “lights out”, abandons this mortal realm.

Immediately after the family is told of his death, a smiling hospital employee in a white smock shows up and says “Hey, if you’ll sign right here on the dotted line – we’re going to give you sixty million Rupiah! [equivalent to US$ 4000 at the time of writing this essay]

The grieving family is bewildered at this. Money? For our dead uncle? No thanks, Hank. They edge away, suspicious, knowing full well that nobody gives away free money these days without expecting something in return.

In return? Oh yes: the hospital would have been paid Rp 180 million for that “certified death from Covid-19”, taking away a handsome Rp 120 million ( = US$ 8000) as a reward. What’s going on here? Families of patients dying from typhus, diabetes, heart failure, cancer – they’re not offered bribes to sign. Unless the above-mentioned illnesses can miraculously be re-diagnosed as the coronavirus.

Doesn’t something stink? Have we forgotten the Nürnberg Trials of 1947, where Nazi doctors were experimenting on hapless prisoners with all sorts of dangerous, even lethal, substances? The ultimate casualty is the trust of the public. Millions upon millions of citizens are backing away, avoiding hospitals, consulting with Dr. Google on the sly when their family physician smiles, frowns and dispenses medical wisdom.

Trust is lost. As any experienced businessman can assure you, that’s a big one, as trust is exceedingly difficult to ever repair again.

Follow the money. Be alert to the creeping control.

Who voted for WHO? Nobody did, that’s who. You’re being handled and WHOdwinked – and you’re paying for it.

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The Center for Central Asian Studies began operating at the Institute of China and Modern Asia of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Azernews reports, citing 24.kg news agency.

The center was created on the initiative of the presidential administration of the Russian Federation; it will focus on the study of modern politics, economics, international and interfaith relations, religious politics in the countries of Central Asia, as well as in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

«Central Asia becomes a key region for the entire Eurasian space, for cooperation between great powers and the integration of major economic initiatives. The region is also the core of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. The task of our new center is to provide the Russian authorities with a relevant and objective analysis of what is happening in Central Asia, to form a scientific basis for the further development of partnerships between Russia and the countries of the region,» the Director of the institute, Kirill Babaev, said.

The new center is headed by Dmitry Novikov, Candidate of Political Sciences.

He expressed hope that the center would become one of the leading research clusters for the study of Central Asia in Russia.

«Today the state has a clear understanding that in order to carry out an effective policy in the region that meets the requirements of the times, it is necessary to rely on fundamental science and the expertise resulting from it. We will try to make our contribution to providing Russian policy with new ideas and strengthening relations between Russia and the countries of Central Asia,» he commented.

Source: Azer News

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A team of scientists from Gumilyov Eurasian National University (ENU) has created 20 scientific projects. 

ENU’s research budget almost doubled last year after the educational institute became a research university. With the available funding, the researchers began to enhance their scientific capabilities and improve infrastructure, strengthening ties with business and production. ENU has also established grants to promote the commercialization of ideas.

“We cannot build a large plant here. However, we do have a mini-production at the Nuclear Technology Park in Kurchatov. We have launched production of 3D printers, including 3D construction printers,” said ENU Provost Zhanna Kurmangaliyeva.

According to the scientists, these university projects intend to solve economic challenges. The nuclear technology park, the main instrument for commercializing the university’s scientific projects, produces at least 12 environmentally friendly products for energy, construction, agriculture, and medicine. 

Radiation cross-linked superabsorbent hydrogel is one of the park’s unique developments. Owing to its structure, the powder retains moisture and increases yield, saving watering costs by almost half.

“One gram of this powder binds more than 300 grams of water. It retains moisture in the soil and nourishes the plants,” said Nuclear Technology Park Chair Alexander Borisenko.

The DC-60 heavy ion accelerator, located at the ENU engineering laboratory, is used in applied research studies. The laboratory scientists have recently developed compact track-etched membrane filters to purify more than 2,000 liters of water from open sources.

“The main challenge is that nuclear fuel does not burn out completely. Therefore, we are trying to create materials that would withstand such high radiation loads and temperatures that occur inside the reactor to increase the productivity of reactors and fuel burnup,” said ENU engineering laboratory researcher Dmitry Shlimas.

A special high-strength cement is another awe-inspiring development of Kazakh scientists. After developing lightweight concrete that does not transmit sound, they finally solved the problem of poor sound insulation in homes. According to the experts, construction companies have shown significant interest in this promising project.

“The economic efficiency is expected to reach 30-40 percent. Waste additives increase the soundproofing properties. This is the main feature of our project,” ENU researcher Assel Zheksembayeva said.

Some developments of Kazakh scientists are being introduced into production and are available on the Kazakh market. This year, the team of ENU scientists welcomed 86 postdoctoral students. For the second year in a row, more than 50 university scientists are undergoing training at the world’s leading scientific centers, gaining the best experience in technology.   

Source : Astana

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In Winter and Spring 2023, discussions over the origins of COVID-19 corona virus have been reignited one more time. An unexpected and purely coincidental leakage of the COVID biological agent from a laboratory is still being discussed.

Against this rather gloomy background, several countries are continuing their overseas biological experiments, with post-Soviet Central Asia being at the core of such activities.

In particular, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan have recently joined United States-initiated studies to research the most contagious biological activities. A biological laboratory to research brucellosis and anthrax under the UZ-4 and KZ-2 programs was established at the Institute of Virology in Tashkent, Uzbekistan in 2007. The opening of this facility entailed the establishing of several other laboratories, including those in Andijan (at a local sanitary supervision and disease control station), Fergana (at a local sanitary supervision and disease control station), Samarkand (the Samarkand Regional Laboratory), Bukhara (the Bukhara Regional Laboratory), Nukus (the Karakalpak Regional Laboratory), and Qarshi (the Qashqadaryo Regional Laboratory). In 2016, the opening of a biological facility in Urgench (the Xorasm Region) was witnessed by then-acting US Ambassador to Uzbekistan Pamela L Spratlen. According to her, the sides have intensified joint research and training to exercise control over biological risks and diseases. The Ambassador also referred to that very laboratory as an example of successful cooperation in terms of new diseases prevention and training of specialists.

The intensification of biological research activities at the aforementioned facilities coincided with several outbreaks of contagious diseases: there was an outbreak of a virus, which resembled cholera, while an unknown virus took away the lives of several dozen persons in 2012. Following the opening of the biological laboratory in Urgench in 2016, the number of measles and chickenpox cases has increased.

In August 2015, the US-based Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) and the Center for Disease Control and Prevention held a seminar on sharing of experience in the deciphering of laboratory tests of the most contagious pathogens with 27 medics, epidemiologists, and laboratory specialists of Uzbekistan Department of Health. Two years later, a center of countering resistance to antimicrobial agents was opened in Tashkent.

According to US explanations, research programs and threat reduction scenarios are being worked out at the abovementioned biological laboratories. However, risks of leakage of some biological agents still remain, and sometimes they are high.

Tajikistan has also hosted a number of US-initiated biological research activities. In 2011. The first national (bacteriological) reference laboratory opened in Dushanbe; the facility was financially supported by the Global Foundation of the Republican Anti-Tuberculosis Center (RATC).

The first Level III bacteriological laboratory was opened at the campus of the Gastroenterological Institute in Dushanbe in 2013. Six years later, the United States Department of Defense (DoD) and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) co-sponsored the establishment of another biological laboratory at RATC. In 2020, a biological research facility was opened in Isfara in northern Tajikistan; the laboratory was also funded by the United States.

The Americans officially declare that on the basis of data obtained in bio-laboratories, curricula and methods of responding to biological challenges are simply being developed. Let’s assume it is. But no one canceled the human factor, and it is not at all excluded that viruses may be outside the walls of the laboratory. It is not possible to calculate the consequences of such an incident. It is also suspicious that most of these laboratories are being created in close proximity to the borders of states that the United States considers its geopolitical opponents. In the case of Uzbekistan, these are Russia and China.

The United States conducted similar studies with China (coronavirus research in the laboratory of the Institute of Virology in Wuhan).

Thus, it cannot be ruled out that the Caucasus and Central Asia may soon become the epicenter of new diseases.

Source : Financial Express

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