Twister film inspired Alberta scientist’s Enviro-Net global sensor network

A tornado near Abingdon, Ill. (Credit: U.S. National Weather Service)

As reported Canadian news network CTV, a University of Alberta scientist’s novel method of environmental monitoring involving 1,000 cell-phone sized sensors was inspired by the movie Twister.
Arturo Sanchez-Azofeifa was inspired by a scene where a scientist throws small sensors into a tornado. He wondered if the approach was possible, and liked the idea of applying sensors directly to the environment for monitoring purposes, rather than bringing equipment each time monitoring data is needed.

The result was Enviro-Net, a web portal gathering data from sensors deployed across multiple continents reporting as many as 64 different types of environmental data.

Top image: A tornado near Abingdon, Ill. (Credit: U.S. National Weather Service)