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Culture Club

Culture Club

These flasks contain different types of Synechococcus, single-cell photosynthetic bacteria that are one of the most abundant and critical organisms in the ocean. They are, however, notoriously difficult to culture in…

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Record Retrieval

Record Retrieval

WHOI geologists Konrad Hughen and Colleen Hansel core into a Porites lobata coral colony on the leeward side of Danger Island in the Chagos Archipelago of the British Indian Ocean Territory.…

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Ready to Dive

Ready to Dive

The human-occupied submersible Alvin achieved certification from the U.S. Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA) to dive to depths of 4,500 meters (about 2.8 miles) during tests off the coast of…

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World Oceans Day 2015

World Oceans Day 2015

Today is World Oceans Day. The global ocean is one of the keys to life on Earth. It helps regulate our climate and our water supply, supplies oxygen to the atmosphere, provides…

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Keeping Warm

Keeping Warm

The Clothing Distribution Center of the U.S. Antarctic Program in New Zealand provides one-stop shopping for polar explorers. If you are going south to the Antarctic continent on their watch, then you…

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Layers of Knowledge

Layers of Knowledge

A young visitor to WHOI’s Ocean Science Exhibit Center watches a water density demonstration that explains how layers can form in the ocean. To participate in activities like this and…

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Congratulations Graduates

Congratulations Graduates

In June 1970, WHOI personnel watched the first commencement ceremony of the MIT-WHOI Joint Program. Since then, the program has graduated more than 900 students, many of whom have gone…

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Under the Waves, June 7

Under the Waves, June 7

Visitors to a 2013 WHOI public event listened as research engineer Gwyneth Packard explained the workings of a REMUS 100 autonomous underwater vehicle like the one that was featured during…

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Seafloor in Stereo

Seafloor in Stereo

NOAA’s HabCamV4 imaging system was developed by WHOI scientists and engineers and captures six stereo image pairs per second resulting in one million images per day as it is towed 3 meters…

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Fire in the Hole

Fire in the Hole

A small sample of sediment contained in a tin “boat” burns in a flash of light and 1700ºC (3092ºF) heat at the WHOI Organic Mass Spectrometry Facility. Gases released during combustion…

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Living Laboratory

Living Laboratory

The colors in coral come from symbiotic algae cells living inside individual corals organisms, or polyps. This  “bleached” coral has expelled much of its algae in response to the stress of unusually…

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Gone Fishin’

Gone Fishin'

In August 2011, an interdisciplinary team launched a SeaBED-class autonomous underwater vehicle named Mola Mola from the NOAA research vessel Henry B. Bigelow. Scientists on the team came from NOAA, Rutgers…

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Not a Creature Was Stirring

Not a Creature Was Stirring

In 2008, the research vessel Atlantis passed a quiet night tied up in the glow of the Bay Bridge between San Francisco and Oakland. Not every night on the water can be this peaceful,…

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Spring at the Beach

Spring at the Beach

Research specialist Stace Beaulieu points to the location of worm burrows on the bottom of a tide pool during an early spring field trip as part of the Biological Oceanography…

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Out with the Old

Out with the Old

Research specialist Carl Johnson carefully removes a quartz liner from the sample combustion chamber of an elemental analyzer glowing at 1000°C (1,832°F) just six inches below his fingertips. Compressed pellets…

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Surfing In

Surfing In

In August 2014, a team that included WHOI biologist Michael Moore was called to examine a decomposing right whale carcass on an isolated rocky beach in Newport, R.I. The team…

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Art in the Details

Art in the Details

Like each speck of paint in a piece of art, minerals, animal skeletons, and remnants of sea sponges provide a colorful mix when sediment samples from the the Sealoor Samples…

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Royal Pain

Royal Pain

Gliding on hundreds of tiny suction-cup feet, a crown-of-thorns sea star roams the reef, consuming immobile corals and leaving bare coral skeleton behind. Common in the Pacific and Indian Oceans…

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Rescue Mission

Rescue Mission

WHOI engineer John Kemp supervised deployment of the towed vehicle Camper from the fantail of the Swedish research vessel Oden during the 2007 Arctic Gakkel Vents Expedition. The vehicle was mobilized to find the autonomous underwater…

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Snow Below

Snow Below

Crew on the RV Atlantic Explorer enjoyed a spectacular sunset during a research cruise in September 2009 in the Sargasso Sea as part of the Twilight Zone Explorer research project led by Ken Buesseler. The…

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Barnacle Hunt

Barnacle Hunt

On a chilly spring trip to a rocky beach near Woods Hole, Ping Zuo (left) from Nanjing University and WHOI research specialist Annette Frese Govindarajan look for barnacles recently settled on rocks exposed…

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No Autographs

No Autographs

Alvin generates excitement, no matter where it goes. The deep-diving submersible and its support ship, R/V Atlantis, happen to be in Woods Hole at a time that coincides with the Institution’s…

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