Feature
MIT-WHOI Joint Program Marks 50th Year
In 1968, two esteemed scientific institutions launched an unorthodox academic experiment: the Massachusetts Institute of Technology-Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Joint Program in Oceanography and Applied Ocean Engineering. This year, it celebrated its golden anniversary.
Read MoreThe Current that Feeds the Galápagos
A small fleet of robotic undersea vehicles paints the first detailed picture of a vast and important current within the ocean that had remained beyond our purview.
Read MoreFollow the Trails of Nitrogen Through Hydrothermal Vents
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Read MoreJourney to the Bottom of the Sea
My eyelids were tightly pressed down as I mustered all the tricks I could think of to get myself to sleep. I rolled around with no sign of getting close…
Read MoreCan We Improve Monsoon Forecasts?
Scientists are exploring the ocean to gain new insights into forecasting the still-unpredictable monsoon rains that billions of people depend on to irrigate their crops
Read MoreThe Unseen World on Coral Reefs
We have learned that microbial communities on and within us—a microbiome—keep people healthy. Corals reefs also have their own microbiomes that they couldn’t function without.
Read MoreAutonomous Ocean Vehicles Supply Key Data on Hurricane Florence
With Hurricane Florence bearing down on the North Carolina coast, researchers at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) have mobilized autonomous vehicles and instruments to track changes in the ocean ahead of and beneath Florence.
Read MoreThe Recipe for a Harmful Algal Bloom
Harmful algal blooms can produce toxins that accumulate in shellfish and cause health problems and economic losses. They have increased in strength and frequency worldwide. Can we get advance warnings of when and where they will occur?
Read MoreA Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Ocean
Like someone monitoring the traffic flow on a road system, MIT-WHOI Joint Program graduate student Sam Levang is examining the flow of the ocean’s global circulation, which has big impacts of our climate.
Read MoreSharks Take ‘Tunnels’ into the Depths
By tagging sharks, WHOI scientists have revealed their surprising behavior.
Read MoreForecasting Where Ocean Life Thrives
The ocean, like the atmosphere, has “fronts,” and it’s hardly quiet on them. In fact, that is where the plankton that provide the foundation of the ocean food web are most prolific.
Read MoreA Change Has Come in the Arctic
On a long voyage across the Arctic Ocean, an MIT-WHOI graduate students finds chemical clues that climate change has already had impacts on the region.
Read MoreThe Discovery of Hydrothermal Vents
In 1977, WHOI scientists made a discovery that revolutionized our understanding of how and where life could exist on Earth and other planetary bodies.
Read MoreStudents Get Their Sea Legs
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution is known for its ocean-going research. But some incoming graduate students in the MIT-WHOI Joint Program may never have set foot a large research ship before. A new orientation cruise aboard the research vessel Neil Armstrong is introducing students to shipboard life and oceanographic research.
Read MoreThe Bacteria on Your Beaches
The widespread use of antibiotics is increasing the spread of antibiotic-resistant bacteria—perhaps into the ocean, too.
Read MoreA Long Trail of Clues Leads to a Surprise About Oil Spills
Scientists followed evidence from the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill to discover an unexpected phenomenon.
Read MoreReassessing Guidelines for Oil Spill Cleanups
A new discovery could change the way officials approach oil spill cleanups.
Read MoreMission to the Ocean Twilight Zone
The twilight zone is a part of the ocean 660 to 3,300 feet below the surface, where little sunlight can reach. It is deep and dark and cold, and the pressures there are enormous. Despite these challenging conditions, the twilight zone teems with life that helps support the ocean’s food web and is intertwined with Earth’s climate. Some countries are gearing up to exploit twilight zone fisheries, with unknown impacts for marine ecosystems and global climate. Scientists and engineers at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution are poised to explore and investigate this hidden frontier.
Read MoreHow Is the Seafloor Made?
An ultrasound for the Earth? Using sound waves, a graduate student peers into the crystalline texture of the tectonic plates that cover our planet’s surface.
Read MoreUnearthing Long-Gone Hurricanes
A graduate student at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution tracks a trail of clues left behind on the seafloor by hurricanes as they stream across the ocean.
Read MoreLong Island Blue Hole Core
Long Island Blue Hole Core
Read MoreTracking Unexploded Munitions
U.S. coastlines still have a lot of unexploded ordnance, or UXOs, left offshore by military exercises in the 1940s and 1950s. WHOI scientist Peter Traykovski is investigating where UXOs are and how they are moved and buried along the coast.
Read MoreUp in the Sky!
Nope, it’s not a bird or a plane. It’s a drone on a scientific mission to restore a river long impaired by dams and to help bring back populations of…
Read MoreRe-envisioning Underwater Imaging
A revolutionary new underwater imaging system developed at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution can generate ultrahigh-definition television video, 2-D mosaic images, and 3-D optical models—images that scientists can spin to view from…
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