Subscribe | UPI Odd Newsletter Subscribe IRVINE, Calif., Feb. 3 (UPI) -- A California scientist plans to use one of the oldest communications devices known to man, the carrier pigeon, to monitor air pollution. Beatriz da Costa is a Renaissance woman who teaches studio art, electrical engineering and computer science at the University of California at Irvine. She told the San Francisco Chronicle she was looking for a way to track pollution that was free from "political perspective and old arguments." Advertisement The pigeons will be equipped with global positioning systems, cellular communication devices and pollution sensors, all miniaturized because their maximum load is 1.4 ounces. As they fly from a release site to home base, they will transmit air pollution data every 30 seconds. Da Costa said the flights will be expensive, with equipment costing $250 a pigeon. The cheapest cell phone plan she could find charges 10 cents for each transmission. The pigeons themselves are courtesy of a local racing pigeon fancier. Da Costa plans her first pigeon flights during the International Symposium for the Electronic Arts, scheduled for August in San Jose.
