Feature on News & Insight
On the Verge of Extinction, These Whales Are Also Shrinking
Most of the 360 or so North Atlantic right whales alive today bear scars from entanglements in fishing gear and collisions with speeding ships and, according to new study, they…
Read MoreA Rusting Oil Tanker Off the Coast of Yemen Is an Environmental Catastrophe Waiting to Happen. Can Anyone Prevent It?
Viviane Menezes, a marine scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute in Massachusetts, has described the Red Sea as being like a “big lagoon” with “everything connected.” An oil spill…
Read MoreSlowdown of powerful current system could negatively impact climate patterns, study says
A new study says the powerful system of currents that are the flywheel of Earth’s climate might be weakening. WHOI president and director Peter de Menocal joined Elaine Quijano on CBSN with details.
Read MoreA Gruesome Feeding Frenzy in the Atlantic Ocean
Even when a whale dies an unnatural death, its body joins the ocean’s vast circle of life. And very often, that circle is very messy, and it involves sharks. WHOI’s…
Read MoreA Quick Dive Into How Submarines Work
Submarines can descend thousands of feet below the surface of the ocean, but to do so, they have to deal with an enormous amount of pressure. NPR caught up with…
Read More‘Ropeless’ Lobster Fishing Could Save The Whales. Could It Kill The Industry?
Unexpected life is discovered in a deep, dark Antarctic world
Study: Acidic ocean could devastate Cape Cod and Islands shellfish industry
From north to south pole, climate scientists grapple with pandemic disruptions
Carin Ashjian, a biological oceanographer at WHOI who studies the impact of climate on ecology, was also on the ship then and remembers that “there were a lot of mixed feelings” when news of the pandemic hit them in March
Read MoreHow safe is the water off the coast of the San Onofre nuclear plant?
Surfrider teams with Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution to conduct their own tests of San Onofre’s radioactive wastewater.
Read MoreEndangered right whale population down to 360 as they begin migration toward Florida coast
As the critically endangered North Atlantic right whales begin their southward migration from New England and Canada toward the coast of Florida, including Volusia and Flagler counties, researchers are marking the beginning of calving season with uncertainty and urgency.
Read MoreSea Ahead
The game-changing technologies that will transform our ability to understand and manage Earth’s last great frontier. Monitoring instruments—and ocean technologies in general—have come a long way. We now have Artificial…
Read MoreWoods Hole Organizations Consider Impact Of Sea Level Rise
WHOI, the Northeast Fisheries Science Center and National Marine Fisheries Services presented the Woods Hole village climate change vulnerability assessment and action plan to the Falmouth Select Board on Monday, November 23.
Read MoreAncient storms could help predict future shifts in tropical cyclone hotspots
To get a better sense of how climate change might alter the patterns of major ocean storms, shifting the parameters of tropical cyclone hotspots, scientists reconstructed 3,000-years of storm history in the Marshall Islands.
Read MoreRemembering one of history’s greatest whale explosions
“The risk of a spontaneous explosion is always there with a decomposing whale,” says Michael Moore, a senior scientist at WHOI.
Read MoreCould Listening to the Deep Help Save it?
Some researchers are working to improve listening technology. At WHOI, Ying-Tsong Lin is building a starfish-shaped contraption of hydrophones that can tune into certain sounds hundreds of miles away, like a…
Read MorePandemic Quiet Is Helping Humans Eavesdrop on Rare Dolphins
According to WHOI’s Laela Sayigh, who was not involved in the Burrunan research, identifying which dolphin in a pod is vocalizing at a particular time is key to deciphering their communication systems.
Read MoreHow the waters off Catalina became a DDT dumping ground …
A scientist involved in the discovery of the Titanic happened to be on board, so he helped them program the robots on where to go and how to search for the barrels. A marine geochemistry lab at WHOI ran the samples.
Read MoreThe Earth-Shaping Animal Migration No One Ever Sees
“All the vehicles on the road in the United States produce around 1.5 PgC per year,” says Kevin Archibald, a biological oceanographer at WHOI and lead author of that study.
Read MoreMove Over, Mars: The Search for Life on Saturn’s Largest Moon
“The great thing about hydrothermal vents is that they provide a lot of energy sources for microbial life that doesn’t include sunlight,” says Julie Huber, a marine chemist at WHOI.
Read MoreLooks Like Japan Is Going Ahead With Plan to Dump Radioactive Fukushima Water Into the Ocean
A study from WHOI warned of the possibility that other potentially hazardous contaminants in the wastewater could be released into the Pacific.
Read MoreIs seaweed the future of fuel?
“Macroalgae needs to scale up to the point where it’s economically feasible for biofuel, and to do this we are going to have thousands of hectares of farms,” says Erin Fischell, an assistant scientist at WHOI.
Read MoreDecoding The Black Box: The 2015 US Disaster That Revolutionized Ship Crash Investigations
The first challenge for the El Faro was to locate and extract the VDR. It took three expeditions over 11 months and the use of novel video telepresence, to be able to go down, retrieve it the VDR.
Read MorePandemic Quiet Means We Can Eavesdrop on Rare Australian Dolphins
According to Laela Sayigh, from WHOI, who is not involved in the Burrunan research, identifying which dolphin in a pod is vocalizing at a particular time is key to deciphering their communication systems.
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