After a WONDERFUL Christmas break, The Daughter and I headed back up to the school room last Monday! We started a few new things – one of which is the second book in the Zoology series which focuses on sea creatures. The first chapter discusses salinity, tides, the continental shelf and abyssal plain and also phytoplankton and zooplankton. I was so excited to receive this timely photo from NASA of a plankton bloom – it’s quite lovely! The NASA description is below the image.
Stirring Up a Bloom Off Patagonia
Off the coast of Argentina, two strong ocean currents recently stirred up a colorful brew of floating nutrients and microscopic plant life just in time for the Southern Hemisphere’s summer solstice. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer on NASA’s Aqua satellite captured this image of a massive phytoplankton bloom off of the Atlantic coast of Patagonia on Dec. 21, 2010. Scientists used seven separate spectral bands to highlight the differences in the plankton communities across this swath of ocean.
Image Credit: NASA
Rabbit Trails 
Did you know that burnt microwave popcorn is the only smell that can be detected from space?