Algae are beautiful … who knew?

Algae – microscopic aquatic plants – are the foundation of the ocean’s food chain, they help the ocean trap carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, and scientists can use them to infer the ocean’s temperature in ages past (I’ve been working on a podcast about that so stay tuned). Turns out, when viewed from space, they’re also breath-taking. Wired Science has posted a series of gorgeous satellite images of enormous algal blooms. It’s well worth a few minutes of viewing time.