Multimedia Items
Girls in Science Program: bioacoustics
August 2019: Woods Hole Sea Grant has teamed up with Earthwatch Institute on the Girls in Science Fellowship. This fellowship aims to promote diversity and expose young women to a variety of marine careers in STEM. Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Research Specialist Laela Sayigh is the principal investigator working with the fellows analyzing marine mammal bioacoustics data.
Read MoreUndersea Acoustics
The marks on this figure are acoustic traces, the visual representations of underwater sounds recorded at sea sometime around 1960. Sounds such as these interfered with the U.S. Navy’s ability…
Read More2021 Year in Review
Re-live the best of 2021 with this montage showcasing just some of WHOI’s ocean science, technology, and engineering highlights. WHOI researchers are active in upwards of 800 projects around the world at any time, providing critical information about some of the most urgent challenges facing humanity and the planet we call home. As part of the WHOI community, we thank you for your dedication to our ocean, our future, and our planet. Best wishes for a happy and healthy 2022!
Read MoreI spy a pilot whale
This spy-hopping adult female short-finned pilot whale (Globicephala macrorhynchus) was photographed offshore of Hawai‘i Island while checking out the Cascadia Research Collective field team during one of their field projects…
Read MoreIt’s a Group Thing
WHOI researcher Amy Van Cise and Annie Gorgone of the Cascadia Research Collective photograph pilot whales during field work in the Hawaiian Islands. The study found that short-finned pilot whales…
Read MoreA Cacophony of Sound
Sound waves, like these generated by a whale’s calls, propagate far within the ocean. But in shallow waters, sound is confined into a narrower channel between the sea surface and…
Read MoreWhales Have Their Own Dialects
Like different human social groups, short-finned pilot whales living off the coast of Hawai’i have their own sorts of vocal dialects, according to a new study by WHOI researchers. “It’s…
Read MoreListening in the Depths
Sound carries messages in the watery medium of the ocean. To listen in, scientists use underwater microphones, or hydrophones, to record calls from whales or sound waves from airguns towed…
Read MoreCalling All Whales
In 1949, WHOI biologist William Schevill (right) and his wife Barbara Lawrence used a crude hydrophone and a dictating machine to record beluga whales from a small boat in the…
Read MoreSound Warp
This curious, colorful image may look a little like five bananas, but it is actually a spectrogram of sound waves recorded by a hydrophone in the ocean. More particularly, it…
Read MoreProtecting the Troops
During World War II, WHOI scientists and engineers contributed to the war effort with some 40 projects that advanced understanding of underwater sound, helped predict the movement of currents and…
Read MoreEmbarking on Cruise and Career
More than 400 MIT-WHOI Joint Program students just beginning their oceanographic careers have found their bearings aboard the Jake Peirson Summer Cruise, which began in 1990 as a rich introduction…
Read MoreEngineering Innovation
Mechanical engineer Kaitlyn Tradd attaches a multibeam sonar to the Deep-See, a new sensor platform that she helped design and build. The platform will weigh almost 1.5 tons once fully…
Read MoreFarming the Seas
Researchers survey a kelp farm run by the University of New England in Saco Bay, Maine, using a REMUS 100, a robotic underwater vehicle (not visible) equipped with specialized sonar,…
Read MoreTesting New Technology
Scientists and engineers are building a new vehicle that will be towed from research ships and able to transmit data in real time. The Deep-See will be equipped with instruments…
Read MoreProbing the Seafloor with Sound
To probe the seafloor, scientists send sound waves down through the ocean and seafloor and record reflected echoes with ocean bottom seismographs and hydrophones trailing behind a ship. The time…
Read MoreThe Way Things Were
WHOI’s Bigelow Lab on Water St. in Woods Hole, Mass., was WHOI’s first building and is named for the Institution’s first director, Henry Bryant Bigelow. The original plans called for…
Read MoreTesting Transmissions
This summer, WHOI robotics and acoustics researcher Erin Fischell (right) used autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) called Bluefin SandSharks to record sounds in Ashumet Pond, Falmouth. Before deploying the lightweight, bright…
Read MoreReady, Set, Record
WHOI robotics and acoustics researcher Erin Fischell (right) prepares to launch an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) in Ashumet Pond, Falmouth, while MIT-WHOI Joint Program student EeShan Bhatt (center) and WHOI…
Read MoreCommunicating Under Ice
A lone buoy sits atop Arctic sea ice in the Canadian Basin—a yellow dot in a vast field of white. Suspended in the water below the buoy, a beacon sends…
Read MorePacked for the Ice Pack
Twin Otter planes are packed full of buoys, cables, and other equipment for flights from Banks Island north of Canada onto the Arctic Ocean ice pack. The planes carry 2,000…
Read MoreEavesdropping on Whales
Retrieving a mooring off Nomans Land, an island near Martha’s Vineyard, are (from left) WHOI engineering assistants Steve Murphy and Jeff Pietro, and Tioga crew member Ian Hanley. The mooring was equipped…
Read MoreEavesdropping on an Underwater World
William A. Watkins helped pioneer the field marine mammal bioacoustics, opening our ears to an underwater world of sound. Watkins was a self-taught electrical engineer who initially came to WHOI to help his mentor and…
Read MoreBioacoustic Pioneers
In 1949, WHOI biologist William Schevill, right, and his wife Barbara Lawrence used a crude hydrophone and a dictating machine to record beluga whales from a small boat in the…
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