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Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Finding bin Laden with Geography

Courtesy of Seerov @ tdaxp, this new piece in the MIT International Review titled "Finding Osama bin Laden: An Application of Biogeographic Theories and Satellite Imagery." Here's the abstract

One of the most important political questions of our time is: Where is Osama bin Laden? We use biogeographic theories associated with the distribution of life and extinction (distance-decay theory, island biogeography theory, and life history characteristics) and remote sensing data (Landsat ETM+, Shuttle Radar Topography Mission, Defense Meteorological Satellite, QuickBird) over three spatial scales (global, regional, local) to identify where bin Laden is most probably currently located. We believe that our work involves the first scientific approach to establishing his current location. The methods are repeatable and can be updated with new information obtained from the US intelligence community.


Download & read the pdf!

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