By Mike Wolterbeek From the suffocating heat of Death Valley to the bone-chilling cold of Antarctica, scientists at the University of Nevada, Reno are leading the way in new, more precise methods of collecting important temperature data from around the world. “It’s not just a thermometer anymore, we can take the temperature of air, soil, or water at the same instant every 15 seconds, 24 hours a day, every 3 feet for many kilometers,” Scott Tyler, a University of Nevada, Reno professor, hydrologist and director of their national hydrological measurement facility, said. Tyler and his colleagues have adapted distributed temperature sensing methods using lasers and fiber-optic cable for scientific purposes.