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The Ocean—Captured in a Box

The Ocean—Captured in a Box

Claudia Cenedese prides herself on thinking inside the box. Her boxes are made of Plexiglass, and they contain the oceans—but on a miniature scale. Most oceanographers make tiny observations in…

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What Does It Take To Break a Whale?

What Does It Take To Break a Whale?

The ship hit the whale with a force that snapped her 14-foot jawbone like a toothpick and left a 4-foot-long crack in her skull. Known as 2150 among scientists, she…

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Growing Marine Plants Need Their Vitamins

Growing Marine Plants Need Their Vitamins

Your mother was right: You need your vitamins. And that turns out to be true for life in the oceans, too. B12—an essential vitamin for land-dwelling animals, including humans—also plays…

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Of Sons and Ships and Science Cruises

Of Sons and Ships and Science Cruises

Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) has had an unbroken line of three ships named Atlantis that date to the Institution’s founding in the early 1930s. Arthur D. Colburn III, better…

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New Regulations Proposed for Offshore Fish Farms

New Regulations Proposed for Offshore Fish Farms

Newly proposed legislation to regulate large-scale fish farming in the oceans around the United States incorporates major recommendations from a blue-ribbon task force organized by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution…

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Rescue Mission on the Seafloor

Rescue Mission on the Seafloor

The two earthquake-monitoring instruments—each the size and weight of a small refrigerator—were glued to the ocean bottom by erupting lava that had flowed and hardened around them. If scientists could…

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Deep Ocean Waters Don’t Run Still

Deep Ocean Waters Don't Run Still

The ocean’s circulation is thought to play an important role in our climate by transporting heat from tropical regions toward Earth’s poles. Of particular interest is the circulation in the…

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Still Toxic After All These Years

Still Toxic After All These Years

This is a story about persistence—of oil, and of people. It began in 1969 when the barge Florida ran aground off Cape Cod, spilling 189,000 gallons of fuel. But it…

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The Lo-o-o-ng Core

The Lo-o-o-ng Core

Since the early part of the 20th century, scientists have been going to sea on ships equipped with long, hollow pipes called corers. These corers are used to collect seafloor…

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A Ridge Too Slow?

A Ridge Too Slow?

Ever since scientists first discovered vents gushing hot, mineral-rich fluids from the seafloor in the Pacific Ocean 30 years ago, they have found them in various places along the Mid-Ocean…

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Cell-sized Thermometers

Cell-sized Thermometers

Climate shifts are a repeating feature in Earth’s history, but humans have added so much greenhouse gas (especially carbon dioxide) to the atmosphere that climate is warming in our lifetimes.…

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Measuring Raindrops in the Ocean

Measuring Raindrops in the Ocean

Earth is often called the blue marble. But it’s more like a marble cake: a swirling batter of air, sea, and dirt stirred by our spinning planet and baking under…

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Letter from Kangiqsujuaq

Letter from Kangiqsujuaq

Charlie’s Motel was a welcome break from Kangiqsujuaq’s airport in northernmost Quebec, where we had just spent six hours uselessly waiting for the plane that would take us home. But…

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Two Ships Passing Passengers in the Night

Two Ships Passing Passengers in the Night

Into the frigid darkness, following two days of stormy weather, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution’s coastal research vessel Tioga left port shortly after 10 p.m. on March 6, with sea spray…

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Current Events off Antarctica

Current Events off Antarctica

The scientific method can divert researchers down curious pathways. Human psychologists study mouse brains. Astrophysicists look for cosmic particles deep in mine shafts. Taxonomists trace bird evolution by studying feather…

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Dead Corals Do Tell Tales

Dead Corals Do Tell Tales

Sometime around the beginning of the 17th century, a tiny drifting larva found the perfect piece of real estate to settle down, on the shallow seafloor off the island of…

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Follow the Carbon Trail

Follow the Carbon Trail

Carbon makes the world go around. It is the building block of life on Earth, and in the form of carbon dioxide gas in the atmosphere, it has a powerful…

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Young Pup Teaches an Old Robot New Tricks

Young Pup Teaches an Old Robot New Tricks

Mike Jakuba was still a year away from being born when scientists found vents on the seafloor that gushed hot, mineral-rich fluids and were surrounded by bizarre life forms thriving…

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Why the West Wind Wobbles

Why the West Wind Wobbles

Winds and temperatures in Earth’s atmosphere vary from month to month and year to year in countless ways. Decades of monitoring the weather and climate have revealed a few simple…

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