Marine Chemistry & Geochemistry
How Radioactive is Our Ocean?
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) marine chemist Ken Buesseler began sampling and analyzing seawater surrounding the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant three months after the 2011 disaster. Today, he launched…
Read MoreWHOI Scientists Garner Awards in 2013
As the year 2013 ends, we profile scientists who recently received awards and recognition for their work.
Read MoreBehold the ‘Plastisphere’
Plastic debris provides living space for a variety of marine microbes.
Read MoreReddy Selected for C.C. Patterson Award
Marine geochemist Chris Reddy has been selected to receive the 2014 Clair C. Patterson Award from the Geochemical Society for his analytical and scientific contributions to organic geochemistry. The C.C.…
Read MoreAn Oddity about Lyme Disease Bacteria
The bacterial species that causes Lyme disease avoids a key human defense by not requiring iron. For a WHOI microbial chemist, that raised a big question: What does it use instead of iron?
Read MoreCorals’ Indispensable Bacterial Buddies
Coral reefs, like human beings, may be superorganisms that depend on communities of microbes living within and around them for their survival.
Read MoreMining Marine Microbes for New Drugs
The ocean is a combat zone where marine microbes are constantly making chemical compounds to kill competitors or protect themselves. Could some of those compounds lead to pharmaceuticals that could help people?
Read MoreDoney receives A.G. Huntsman Award for Excellence in Marine Science
WHOI Senior Scientist Scott Doney has been awarded the 2013 A.G. Huntsman Award for Excellence in Marine Science. He will receive the award later this year at the Bedford Institute…
Read MoreNewly discovered ocean plume could be major source of iron
Scientists have discovered a vast plume of iron and other micronutrients more than 1,000 km long billowing from hydrothermal vents in the South Atlantic Ocean. The finding, published online Aug.…
Read MoreWHOI Announces 2013 Ocean Science Journalism Fellows
Ten science reporters, writers, and multimedia journalists from the U.S., Canada, and India have been selected to participate in the competitive Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) Ocean Science Journalism Fellowship…
Read MoreCorals cozy up with bacterial buddies
Corals may let certain bacteria get under its skin, according to a new study by researchers at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) and King Abdullah University of Science and Technology…
Read MoreScientists Discover Thriving Colonies of Microbes in Ocean ‘Plastisphere’
Scientists have discovered a diverse multitude of microbes colonizing and thriving on flecks of plastic that have polluted the oceans—a vast new human-made flotilla of microbial communities that they have…
Read MoreVan Mooy awarded fellowship at Southampton, U.K.
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) biochemist Benjamin Van Mooy has been awarded one of two inaugural fellowships at the University of Southampton in England. The Diamond Jubilee International Visiting Fellowship…
Read MoreThe Scientist and the Poet
Alice Alpert, a graduate student in the MIT/WHOI Joint Program, studies what the chemistry of coral skeletons can tell us about the ocean in the past. Before coming to WHOI,…
Read MoreBuesseler Appointed to Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Senior Scientist Ken O. Buesseler has been appointed a foreign member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences. Buesseler is one of two foreign…
Read MoreThe Black Sea is a Goldmine of Ancient Genetic Data
Black Sea, sediment, genetic data, past climate, Strait of Bosphorus, Liviu Giosan, Marco Coolen, paleo, DNA, dinocysts, dinoflagellate
Read MoreHow Is Fukushima’s Fallout Affecting Marine Life?
» 日本語版 The Fukushima nuclear disaster delivered an unprecedented amount of radioactivity into the sea over a relatively brief time. How did that pulse of cesium and other radioisotopes make…
Read MoreRadioisotopes in the Ocean
» 日本語版 The release of radioisotopes from the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant in March 2011 amounts to the largest-ever accidental release of radiation to the ocean. It came mostly…
Read MoreABCs of Radioactivity
<!– // –> » 日本語版 To the average layperson, “radioactivity” is a harsh and scary word. But the fact is that radioisotopes, both natural and artificial, are all around us.…
Read MoreJapan’s Triple Disaster
» 日本語版 The chain of calamity now known as Japan’s Triple Disaster began with a massive rupture in the ocean floor. At 2:46 p.m. on March 11, 2011, below the…
Read MoreLyme Disease Bacteria Have Quirky Needs
Scientists have confirmed that the pathogen that causes Lyme disease—unlike any other known organism—can exist without iron, a metal that all other life needs to make proteins and enzymes. Instead…
Read MoreScientists Reveal Quirky Feature of Lyme Disease Bacteria
Scientists have confirmed that the pathogen that causes Lyme Disease—unlike any other known organism—can exist without iron, a metal that all other life needs to make proteins and enzymes. Instead…
Read MoreGlaciers Contribute Significant Iron to North Atlantic Ocean
All living organisms rely on iron as an essential nutrient. In the ocean, iron’s abundance or scarcity means all the difference as it fuels the growth of plankton, the base…
Read MoreThe Synergy Project, Part II
Back in my high school, and maybe yours too, kids naturally separated into cliques—jocks, punks, preppies, hippies, and at the extremes of the mythical left- and right-hemisphere brain spectrum, nerds…
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