I remember that it was announced that fibre optic cables can be used as "seismic detectors" as in:
QuoteUsing fibre-optic cables to detect earthquakes
Fibre-optic cables can be used to detect earthquakes and other ground movements. The data cables can also pick up seismic signals from hammer shots, passing cars or wave movements in the ocean. This is the result of a study appearing in the journal Nature Communications on July 3 2018. The main authors are Philippe Jousset and Thomas Reinsch from GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences. They carried out the investigation together with colleagues from Island, UK, Berlin, Germany, and Potsdam, Germany.
https://phys.org/news/2018-07-fibre-optic-cables-earthquakes.html#jCp
But, also, a scientist in the UK investigated some noise on his fibre optic link to another lab - which turned out to be due to a known earthquake. With checking it seems that these dicoveries may mean that the millions of miles of the global fibre optic comms sytems, terrestrial and marine, may offer a distributed, maybe global, monitoring and early warning sensor system for 'quakes and tsunamis.
QuoteNorthern white rhino preservation, Deep sea earthquake detection, Twitter's rare Heuchera discovery, Human roars
Earthquakes are scientifically measured with seismometers, but few are present on the sea floor, where earthquakes that can cause tsunamis originate. But could communication cables traversing the oceans fill in the gaps? Giuseppi Marra from the National Physical Laboratory in Teddington, discusses his accidental discovery that fibre-optic cables might be registering earth's vibrations.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0b85mf7
That's why science and invention/technology need to be encouraged, even in the current crisis. There could be all sorts of solutions that are 'by-products' and not the main objective of such endeavours. Who knows what costly problems can be solved or mitigated with new knowledge and technology...
Quote from: xSilverPhinx on July 05, 2018, 06:23:05 PM
That's why science and invention/technology need to be encouraged, even in the current crisis. There could be all sorts of solutions that are 'by-products' and not the main objective of such endeavours. Who knows what costly problems can be solved or mitigated with new knowledge and technology...
Being of a slightly scientific inclination with a (post RAF) career that involved creativity, a bit of inventing, development, lots and lots of measuring and analysing , I can only agree sith you, Silver. Every lab needs (at least a share in) a non-specialist Jack-of-all-trades pragmatist with curiosity as well as all the eggheads!
Some of the "doctor-engineers" are amongst my heroes: Edward de Bono etc.