Blowhards

Four researchers sit in an inflatable boat waiting for a sperm whale to surface. From left, Michael Moore, Director of the WHOI Marine Mammal Center; Andreas Fahlman, Texas A&M University; Luis Lamar, WHOI Advanced Imaging and Visualization Laboratory; and veterinarian Micah Brodsky are using a prototype device of a whale “breathalyzer” designed to fit over a whale’s blowhole and capture and analyzes the whale’s exhaled breath. The cruise was part of a March 2013 expedition on the research vessel Alucia to study sperm whales near New Zealand’s deep Kaikoura Canyon. (Photo by Julie van der Hoop, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)