The Self-Aware Earth

Peter Hartwell wants to listen to all the vital signs of the Earth. Over the next five years his project, called Cense, or Central Nervous System for the Earth, aims to seed the planet with 1 million sensors. Eventually there could be a trillion sensing stations, each the size of a shirt pin and carrying 10 to 20 sensors for measuring things like light, temperature and vibration, plus radio gear to send the info to a central location.