Biology
Are Whales ‘Shouting’ to be Heard?
When we’re talking with friends and a truck rumbles by or someone cranks up the radio, we talk louder. Now scientists have found that North Atlantic right whales do the…
Read MoreVolunteer Gets an Oceanful of Experience
<!– –> It’s two in the morning, and I’m watching a remotely operated vehicle, or ROV, explore previously unseen areas of the seafloor off Indonesia. In real time, I watch…
Read MoreScientists Find that Squid Can Detect Sounds
The ordinary squid, Loligo pealii, is well known as a kind of floating buffet. “Almost every type of marine organism feeds somehow off squid,” said biologist T. Aran Mooney, a…
Read MoreTracking a Trail of Oil Droplets
In the days after oil began gushing from the Deepwater Horizon well, scientists sought quick information on where the oil was traveling in the depths and how it might be…
Read MoreSalps Catch the Ocean’s Tiniest Organisms
Salps are sometimes called “the ocean’s vacuum cleaners.” The soft, barrel-shaped, transparent animals take in water at one end, filter out tiny plants and animals to eat with internal nets…
Read MoreA Torrent of Crabs Running to the Sea
Joanna Gyory’s Ph.D. plans changed completely when she saw the crabs. It was her third or fourth day at the Liquid Jungle Lab, a research facility on an undeveloped island…
Read MoreHolography and Oceanography
Inside the Open Ocean
The Squid, the Whale, and the Grad Student
On the Serengeti Plains of Africa, lions stalk their prey mainly by sight. Scientists studying them also use their eyes to observe the hunt and indeed the entire ecosystem. They…
Read MoreThe Mysterious Movements of Deep-Sea Larvae
The marvelous migrations of fish and whales through the deep sea have been hard enough for us humans to follow. But what about tiny organisms—many smaller than the dot beneath…
Read MoreDye Sheds Light on Jet-Propelled Salps
The boat loaded, we push off from shore. We are headed out for a nighttime blue-water scuba dive in search of salps off the Pacific coast of Panama. Salps are…
Read MoreHaving Their Phosphorus and Eating It Too
Try naming the nutrients you need to be strong and healthy. Chances are phosphorus will be pretty far down the list, if it’s there at all. And yet, you and…
Read MoreVoyage to the Remote Phoenix Islands
The Phoenix Islands aren’t obvious on a map—eight scattered coral atolls barely above sea level in the equatorial western Pacific. These specks form the most remote coral island archipelago in…
Read MoreThe Hunt for Microbial ‘Trojan Horses’
In summer, Wood Neck Beach in Woods Hole, Mass., teems with tourists, but only a few seagulls kept Matt First company as he walked through the brown-gold marsh grass last…
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 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 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 MoreA Most Ingenious Paradoxical Plankton
Everybody has a unique place in the world, a job to do, a niche to fill. When you are a tiny phytoplankter, your place is in the ocean, and your…
Read MoreShellfish’s Mysterious Pathways to Adulthood
With a cool ocean breeze under a cloudless sky, children weave small sailboats through the channel. Larger boats scurry out of Waquoit Bay to fish in Nantucket Sound or spend…
Read MoreA Tag Fit for a Porpoise
In 2003, Stacy DeRuiter arrived as a graduate student at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), where a new device developed at WHOI was sparking a revolution in marine mammal research:…
Read MoreOne Man’s Swamp Is a Fish’s Nursery
A parade of schoolmaster snapper swims by me, their neon yellow fins directing traffic. Echoing in the background is the rhythmic crunch of striped parrotfish nibbling on coral polyps. I’m…
Read MoreThe Spiral Secret to Mammal Hearing
The spiral secrets of mammals? hearing abilities Whispering galleries are curious features of circular buildings. As whispers travel along the buildings’ curved walls, they remain loud enough to be heard…
Read MoreTesting the Waters and Closing Beaches
On a warm, tranquil evening this summer, Falmouth resident Annette Hynes took a friend down to Wood Neck Beach. It is one of Annette’s favorite local beaches, with a long,…
Read MoreBiochemical Warfare on the Reef
Just beneath the tranquil, clear waters of the tropical Caribbean, unseen by all but a few keen-eyed divers, two foes have engaged in a life-and-death struggle every day for thousands…
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