Multimedia Items
Monitoring the Tides
Crew on the R/V Connecticut load an Environmental Sample Processor (ESP) for deployment in the Gulf of Maine to monitor for harmful algae, which can cause illnesses in humans when…
Read MoreHarmful Algae & Red Tide Research
WHOI scientists Dennis McGillicuddy and Ruoying He created a computer simulation of the historic 2005 toxic algae bloom in New England. Red denotes high algae concentrations; blue the lowest. Algal cells germinated from cyst beds in the Bay of Fundy and along the Maine coast. They were swept south and west by currents. McGillicuddy and He entered a range of factors into their model: the speeds and directions of ocean currents, water temperature and salinity, winds, surface heat exchanges, tides, river runoff, and the distribution and behavior of cells in the water and in seafloor sediments. (Data visualization by Ruoying He and Dennis McGillicuddy, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)
Read MoreForecasting Biology
WHOI senior scientist Dennis McGillicuddy prepares a CTD (conductivity, temperature, depth) rosette as part of a 2008 cruise to study conditions leading to periodic blooms of harmful algae in New…
Read MorePower-hitting Microbiologist
Summer brings catching chemists, fielding physicists, and batting biologists—like Louie Wurch (here), to McKee Field at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution to play in the long-running WHOI softball league. Since 2007,…
Read MoreA Cyst in Time
WHOI researcher Kerry Norton uses fluorescence microscopy to identify and count dormant cysts of Alexandrium fundyense, the alga that produces a toxin that accumulates in shellfish and can cause paralytic…
Read MoreSwing Low, Sweet Chariot
The coastal research vessel Tioga takes shelter in late June at a dock in Rockport Harbor, Mass., where the tides can rise and fall by as much as eight feet.…
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