WiFi Redwoods

UC Berkeley researchers instrumented redwood trees with tiny sensor "motes" that measure light, temperature, humidity, and barometric pressure. Running their own TinyOS software, the sensors establish ad-hoc wireless networks to transmit the data they gather about the microclimates in the tree canopy. "One thing lacking in the forestry community is precise environmental information," says biologist Todd Dawson. "These sensors will help predict how trees are going to grow under a variety of circumstances." The research is part of the Smart Dust wireless sensor network efforts at Berkeley and Intel Research that I've written about in Lab Notes. Link Discuss