Reports by NASA officials indicate that on any given day in the months of July, August and September an estimated 6,000 wildfires scorch lands across the world. While fires are a necessary part of natural processes, they often incur a tremendous deal of damage to both property and health. To combat such effects, many different professionals and organizations join together. At the forefront, city planners and agricultural departments develop irrigation systems to moisten at risk areas. Meteorologists try to predict the likelihood of conditions conducive to fires and the movement of existing fires based on weather patterns. On the front lines firefighters rely on available water sources and accurate information to best combat the flames in the field. Each avenue for fire prediction and prevention relies heavily on a single industrial device known as a flow meter. [Continue Reading Article]

Delivering saline solution to a clinic for medical needs … sounds simple enough, right? Not when that clinic is on the International Space Station, the moon or even Mars. Transporting medical fluids that are manufactured on Earth into space is expensive and logistically challenging. NASA Johnson Space Center knew there had to be a way to manufacture medical fluids in space to alleviate the transportation problems and to make spacecraft more self sufficient, so they called on the microgravity science expertise and spaceflight hardware development know-how of Cleveland, OH based NASA Glenn Research Center and ZIN Technologies, Inc. ZIN Technologies engaged Brooks Instrument to help solve this unique flow challenge. V-F Controls, Brooks Instrument’s sales representative in Mentor, OH, recommended the Quantim Coriolis mass flow controller. This device would be ideal to measure the water flow through a purification system to a standard IV bag that was prefilled with salt crystals and a magnetic lab stirrer. [Continue Reading Article]