Without notice, the waters off of California beaches will sometimes transform into a rusty-red color, driving surfers away.
It’s a massive, unpredictable bloom of single-celled, red plankton, and after an almost five-year absence, the red tide has again returned, and with it, glowing bioluminescent waves.
San Diego photographers, in long-exposure shots, captured the vivid, blue glow over the past few days, though the Scripps Institute said the bloom may now be moving north.
The tiny red creatures, called dinoflagellates, discolor the water during the day. That discoloration is most visible when the sun is directly or almost directly overhead, between 11 a.m and 1 p.m.
But in the evening, they produce a glowing, blue bioluminescence when they’re churned around by waves. It’s not known how long the bloom will last, or how far it might spread up the coast.
Stop breadboarding and soldering – start making immediately! Adafruit’s Circuit Playground is jam-packed with LEDs, sensors, buttons, alligator clip pads and more. Build projects with Circuit Playground in a few minutes with the drag-and-drop MakeCode programming site, learn computer science using the CS Discoveries class on code.org, jump into CircuitPython to learn Python and hardware together, TinyGO, or even use the Arduino IDE. Circuit Playground Express is the newest and best Circuit Playground board, with support for CircuitPython, MakeCode, and Arduino. It has a powerful processor, 10 NeoPixels, mini speaker, InfraRed receive and transmit, two buttons, a switch, 14 alligator clip pads, and lots of sensors: capacitive touch, IR proximity, temperature, light, motion and sound. A whole wide world of electronics and coding is waiting for you, and it fits in the palm of your hand.
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