Feature
The Airplane That Studied the Ocean
Airplanes don’t typically come to mind when people think of ocean science. But for 25 years, beginning in 1945, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) maintained five planes for research. Ed…
Read MoreFloating Without Imploding
To allow a heavy vehicle to float in the deepest depths, Don Peters and other engineers at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution used an entirely new system of ceramic spheres that…
Read MoreLet There Be Light in the Dark Depths
Jonathan Howland has worked as an engineer for 20 years in the Deep Submergence Lab at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, primarily developing systems for remotely operated vehicles. He led efforts…
Read MoreArmed and Dexterous
Matt Heintz is a research engineer in the Deep Submergence Lab at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI). He started his career at WHOI as a pilot for the human-occupied submersible…
Read More2,000 Batteries Under the Sea
Daniel Gomez-Ibañez has been an engineer at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution for three years. Much of that time, he has spent developing large batteries for underwater vehicles, including Nereus. [Second…
Read MoreMiles Under the Sea, Hanging on by Hair-Thin Fiber
Andy Bowen has been developing robotic deep-sea technology for many years, starting his career at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in the 1980s by working on Jason Jr., the small tethered…
Read MoreNereus Soars to the Ocean’s Deepest Trench
It took a village of engineers to build a completely new type of unmanned deep-sea robot that can reach the deepest part of the ocean. On May 31, 2009, a…
Read MoreWhile Oil Gently Seeps from the Seafloor
I investigate what happens to oil spilled into the ocean—with an eye toward finding better ways to “engineer” cleanups. But the brass ring has always hung out of my reach.…
Read MoreLetters to the Editor
We welcome letters from our readers to discuss material published in Oceanus magazine and will publish a selection of letters online and in forthcoming printed issues of Oceanus.
Read MoreJason Meets the Carnivorous Sea Squirt
Tito Collasius, an engineer at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, has witnessed some of oceanography’s more celebrated moments, including the discovery of the Titanic and the eruption of undersea volcanoes. But…
Read MoreSupreme Court Weighs in on Whales and Sonar
Arguments about the impact of Navy sonar on marine mammals rose to the highest court in the land last fall. But not every issue is best settled in court. One…
Read MoreA New Deep-Sea Robot Called Sentry
There’s been a changing of the guard among deep-sea exploration vehicles. Sentry, a new undersea robot built by engineers at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), completed its first scientific mission…
Read MoreCreatures of the Celebes Sea
Where the Indian and Pacific Oceans meet lies a region known as the “coral triangle”—a region of thousands of islands encompassing the Philippines, Indonesia, parts of Malaysia. and other nations.…
Read MoreWill Climate Change Affect the Greenland Ice Sheet?
Getting to the Bottom of the Greenland Ice Sheet
Greenland—the world’s largest island—is also home to one of the world’s largest ice sheets (after Antarctica). If Greenland’s two-mile-thick ice sheet melts completely, it would ultimately raise global sea level…
Read MoreAs the World Turns and the Oceans Flow
Our planet is full of fascinating flowing fluids. Jack Whitehead has investigated all sorts of them around the globe—hardly ever leaving his laboratory. There’s the once-mysterious Alborán Gyre, for example,…
Read MoreHurricane Hunter
Soon after they married, Jon Woodruff asked his new wife Akiko Okusu if she’d like to take a trip to her native Japan. Not for a belated honeymoon, but to help…
Read MoreMIT/WHOI Joint Program Celebrates 40th Anniversary
It was 1968. On university campuses, the Beatles blared from dorm-room stereos, and VW Beetles infested parking lots. The times were a-changing, and they were ripe for bold initiatives. Few…
Read MoreTurtle Skulls Prove to be Shock-Resistant
Scientists and engineers from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) and the U.S. Navy have discovered that sea turtles’ skulls and shells not only protect them from predators but also from…
Read MoreOcean Conveyor’s ‘Pump’ Switches Back On
One of the “pumps” that helps drive the ocean’s global circulation suddenly switched on again last winter for the first time this decade. The finding surprised scientists who had been…
Read MoreA Deep-sea Chemical-Sniffing Bloodhound
<!– –> Researchers can learn complicated things from some of the simplest animals in the ocean. Case in point: Rich Camilli’s work on sponges near Aquarius, an undersea laboratory 63…
Read MoreWhat Makes the Great Ocean Currents Flow?
The Turtle and the Robot
Stephen Licht built an unusual underwater robot with a curious name. With a wink toward James Joyce, he named it Finnegan, because he was particularly interested in studying the wake…
Read MoreAnother Greenhouse Gas to Watch: Nitrous Oxide
There’s a greenhouse gas whose concentration is on the rise because of human activities. But it’s not the one you’d expect: it’s nitrous oxide (N2O), also known as laughing gas.…
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