Jellyfish, wow!

When your 1st grader has spent the last 2 months diligently working on a research project on jellyfish (complete with a hand-written book, model jellyfish and poster display), there's no way you're going to say anything but "Hell, yes!" to a Blogger Brunch invitation at the Shedd Aquarium and a chance to see their new Jellies! exhibit, even if it is scheduled for 8am on a Saturday morning.

The event itself was pretty disorganized. The parking lot we'd been directed to was closed and breakfast consisted of a table of coffee and massive jelly doughnuts (get it?) tucked away in a room full of duffles and sleeping bags from the previous night's "Sleeping with the Fishes" overnight. In fact, the PR staff kept having to shoo tweenagers away from the refreshments, asking "Are you hear for the media event?"

The jellies are beautiful and mesmerizing to watch, but their stinging tentacles are not the only reason to fear these ocean-dwellers: it turns out global warming, pollution and ocean acidification are actually good for jellyfish--making them a scary harbinger of bad news.