Word: instrument
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...right instrument on it, then I'll use it," he says. "It will be very useful for many people in the department...
...NASA operates a significant number of astronomical things like the Hubble Space Telescope," says Kirshner. "People here, because they are active scientists, are really engaged in using the instrument...
Storm-chasing scientists do have a genius for coming up with some pretty wild ideas, however. The University of Oklahoma's Howard Bluestein really did develop an instrument akin to the device called Dorothy in Twister. Bluestein, who was one of the models for meteorologist Bill Harding (Bill Paxton) in the movie, named his device the Totable Tornado Observatory, TOTO for short, and tried to intercept an oncoming funnel. TOTO was a bit unwieldy (it tipped the scales at 400 lbs.), so researchers switched to the more sprightly Turtles, which are cheaper to build and more easily deployed...
...according to real-life storm chasers (some of whom acted as scientific consultants on the film). They speculate, though, that most of the flying transmitters would be blown away from the vortex or destroyed by debris. Over the years, researchers have proposed all sorts of zany schemes for getting instruments into a tornado's heart, including blasting at the twister with instrumented rockets and probing it with pilotless planes. One day, no doubt, someone will try building a Dorothy-like instrument--and may even manage to make it work...
...special effects that the kid in all of us can get off on. Such story as the screenplay provides (an estranged couple of meteorologists, played by Helen Hunt and Bill Paxton, bicker their way toward reconciliation while chasing storms in an effort to test a new measuring instrument) is also an emotional low-pressure zone...