mortiz080

Hi Regular Readers!   As mentioned, I'm in a fairly remote place in the South Pacific, where the weather is warm, the scuba diving is magnificent, and the wifi is extraordinarily flakey.   Since it's so tough to do any online research for this week's SRS Challenge, I'm going to delay my reply until I get back next Wednesday. In the meantime, here are a few photos of things I've seen in the past couple of days.  Have any ideas what these are, or where I am?  (There are enough clues in these photos to narrow it down to a particular island group!)  Search on!  Notice that this next fish is a little different... 

Water covers 75% of our planet...  ... and sometimes it hides a story as well.  In this week's Challenge, we have several locations that are covered in water, and hide their stories.  In each case below, can you figure out what's going on?  Why are each of these locations very interesting?    1.  What's going on with all of these blue lines in the image below?  You can find this oddly arranged water/earth combination at  Google Maps link .  There are several stories to discover here, but first--What is this? Why the strange water shapes?  2.  Just below is picture of another oddly shaped and oddly colored bodies of water.  Why are these giant oval things such different colors? Maps link .  3. While we're in the odd-shapes-and-colors mode, what's going on here?  Why is the water so... red in some places and green in others?  What causes the color changes?  (Like the radio tower Challenge from last week, ...

We see strange / odd / interesting  things every day...   ... but often we don't think to ask "Hey.. what is that thing?"  And it's corresponding Challenge:  "How can I find out about this??"   One of my secret missions with SRS is to help all of us develop a working sense of curiosity ... and more than that, to figure out ways to satisfy that curious twinge. This is one such story.   As I mentioned last week,  I see this very strange antenna every time I fly into San Francisco airport.  This antenna is at  37.5469956,-122.2338807 .    The big question I have every time is what is this thing??    Here's an aerial view:   It's a little hard to see in this image, but it's an strange beast of an antenna, with a large plate-like thing at the top of the mast.  Here's the side view:   Can you see the hexagonal thing at the very top?  (Click on the image to zoom in. Or if you want to, download the image and yo...

The AGoogleADay.com test-your-search-skills site is back up.    (It's been down for a bit over the summer.)   Check it out!   This is a great way to practice and improve your online research skills.   (And it's especially handy for information literacy and classroom teachers.)  Each day supplies 3 Search Challenges in a number of areas, Science, History, Geography, Culture.  Some are easy, a few are tough, but they're all solvable... if you know how to do online search!   Check it out.  (And if you're a teacher, consider working into your daily routine.)   Search on! 

Every time I fly into San Francisco airport...  ... I see this very strange antenna on the left side of the plane as we fly west to land.  (I figured out the lat/long for you so you don't have to extract it:   37.5469956,-122.2338807 )     I've seen it for years, and yet, I don't have any idea what it is or why it's there.  It's all very mysterious.  (What ARE those red letters on the ground around it?)  It's hard to see in this aerial image, but it's an odd antenna, with a large plate-like thing at the top of the mast. I was so surprised by this oddity that after my last flight, I drove over and took a closer look after landing.  It took a while to get there, as the roads around it aren't very straight, but I managed.   Can you see the hexagonal frame at the very top?  (Click on the image to zoom in. Or if you want to, download the image and you can zoom as much as you'd like.)   At the fence I also found this, in case it help...