Feature
Capital Campaign Heads into Homestretch
With $180 million already committed, the WHOI $200 million Depth of Leadership campaign has reached 90 percent of its goal, heading into its final year. “This is a remarkable achievement,…
Read MoreSusan Avery Takes the Helm at WHOI
With the first hints of autumn reaching Woods Hole last October, change of a different sort was in the air. On the same day that Harvard University trumpeted the installation…
Read MoreArctic Voyage Tests New Robots for Ice-covered Oceans
In the summer of 2007, an international team led by scientists at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution sailed to the Arctic Ocean aboard the Swedish icebreaker Oden. Their missions: to test…
Read MoreDNA in Shipwrecked Jars Reveals Clues to Ancient World
Scraping inside clay jars recovered from a 2,400-year-old shipwreck, two researchers found DNA fragments that revealed the jars’ long-disappeared probable cargo: oregano, olive oil, and wine. The genetic technique, developed…
Read MoreOcean Observatories Initiative Poised to Launch
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) was awarded a $97.7 million grant to help build a decades-long dream of ocean scientists: networks of ocean observatories that can monitor conditions in critical…
Read MoreHappy as a (Newly Discovered) Clam
Aboard a research ship in 1997, Janet Voight was amazed when she examined a small log that researchers just happened to trawl up from the bottom of the sea: It…
Read MoreProtecting Public Health by Preventing Pollution
Growing up in Maine, Desirée Plata watched her grandmother suffer from illnesses that she suspected were related to trichloroethylene—a colorless liquid, used as a solvent for cleaning metal parts, that…
Read MoreMaking Nanotubes Without Harming the Environment
They are 10,000 times thinner than a strand of human hair, yet stronger than steel, more durable than diamonds, and able to conduct heat and electricity with efficiency that rivals…
Read MoreA Sea Change in National Ocean Policy?
Early in the new century, two national commissions conducted the first thorough reviews in a generation of the nation’s policy for the oceans. Their two reports were received with fanfare…
Read MoreKnorr Shoots the Moon (Pool) to Drill for Coral
The Knorr’s so-called “moon pool” is a section of the hull that can be removed to give scientists direct access from the deck to the sea.
Read MoreMining the Origins of Life
New System to Take Long Seafloor Cores Is Ready to Go
Over five years, engineers had designed, built, and tested components for a new, one-of-a-kind system to extend the length of sediment samples cored from the sea floor. In September, they…
Read MoreSome Things New Under the Sea
New microbe species discovered In the quest to explore the remarkable diversity of microbial life on Earth, a German-American team of scientists has discovered seafloor bacteria that can “eat” natural…
Read MoreThe Sound of Sonar and the Fury about Whale Strandings
Eight years ago, several U.S. Navy destroyers used sonar in the Bahamas during routine training exercises. Within 36 hours, 17 animals—including 14 beaked whales, one of the world’s deepest-diving whale…
Read MoreScientists Investigate Mysterious Duck Die-offs
Andrea Bogomolni was in a skiff near shore when she saw the ducks in October of 2007: “It was surreal,” the biologist remembered. “You could see hundreds of lifeless brown,…
Read MoreTo Fertilize, or Not to Fertilize
Global warming is “unequivocal,” the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reported in November 2007. Human actions—particularly the burning of fossil fuels—have dramatically raised carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases…
Read MoreLost City Pumps Life-essential Chemicals at Rates Unseen at Typical Black Smokers
Hydrocarbons—molecules critical to life—are routinely generated by the simple interaction of seawater with the rocks under the Lost City hydrothermal vent field in the Atlantic Ocean, according to research led…
Read MoreWHOI Ship Hunts for Revolutionary War Wreck
One of the fiercest battles of the Revolutionary War raged off the coast of Flamborough Head, England, on Sept. 23, 1779, pitting the American ship Bonhomme Richard against the British…
Read MoreMelting Ice Threatens Polar Bears’ Survival
The Department of Interior’s imminent decision on whether to place polar bears on the federally protected endangered species list has focused attention on a recent study that documents for the…
Read MoreProposals Emerge to Transfer Excess Carbon into the Ocean
It’s sort of the planetary equivalent of moving clutter accumulating in the attic to other storage space in the basement: transferring excess heat-trapping carbon dioxide from Earth’s atmosphere into the…
Read MoreDumping Iron and Trading Carbon
Debating the idea of fertilizing the ocean with iron can feel a little like riding a seesaw. On the up side is iron’s eye-catching potential to set off enormous plankton…
Read MoreLessons from Nature, Models, and the Past
The first part of biogeochemist John Martin’s famous prediction—“Give me half a tanker of iron, and I’ll give you an ice age”—has been proved partly right: Iron is the only…
Read MoreWhat Are the Possible Side Effects?
Most of the ocean food chain is too small to see, but that doesn’t mean the effects of iron fertilization will be, too. “The purpose, if one is going to…
Read MoreWill Ocean Iron Fertilization Work?
In this age of satellites, it’s fairly easy to answer the basic question of whether adding iron to the ocean can stimulate a plankton bloom. When storms over land blow…
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