Knorr Shoots the Moon (Pool) to Drill for Coral

For Graduate Student, Research Is a Gas

When you spend 40 days on a ship in the South Atlantic, enduring equipment failures, icebergs, and the occasional surly shipmate, you should at least get to see a few…

Ocean Life

Seabirds Use Their Sense of Smell to Find Food

Until about 40 years ago, people thought birds had no sense of smell. John J. Audubon, the great bird artist and naturalist, had said so in 1826, after conducting experiments…

How the Ocean Works

DMS: The Climate Gas You’ve Never Heard Of

For generations of mariners, a tangy, almost sweet odor served as a signal that land was nearby. What sailors called “the smell of the shore” had the opposite meaning to…

How the Ocean Works

Crack! A Lake Atop Greenland Disappears

In late July 2006, a 2.2-square-mile lake atop the Greenland Ice Sheet sprung a leak. Like a draining bathtub, the entire lake emptied from the bottom, sending water through a…

How the Ocean Works

Antarctic Andrea

The sound of boots crunching on brick-red gravel filled the thin Antarctic air. Three scientists—geologists from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI)—had been climbing for 30 minutes, staring at their feet…

How the Ocean Works

Earth, Wind, and Fire in Antarctica

From a windy, isolated camp in southern Victoria Land, Antarctica, three scientists from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution explore how the waterless, lifeless, volcanic terrain formed and evolved. Read the story…

Climate & Weather

Will Climate Change Disrupt the Arctic Ecosystem?

After long, dark winters, sunlight returns to the Bering Sea in spring, re-launching a bountiful food chain that fills the Arctic with life. In March 2008, an ambitious research team,…

How the Ocean Works

Knorr Skirts Ice to Search for ‘Arctic Haze’

In the late 1950s, pilots flying over the Arctic began having trouble seeing long distances, their vision cut short by a mysterious, reddish-brown fog. What they were seeing is now…

Ocean Tech

She’s Got the Whole Fleet in Her Hands

For oceanographers, going to sea isn’t as simple as driving to the dock, climbing on board a ship, and motoring away. The process takes an average of two or more…

Ocean & Human Lives

Popular Way to Assess Oil Spills Can Be Misused

Environmental assessment teams increasingly may be using a method to assess oil spill contamination in situations where it doesn’t work well and are in danger of reaching false conclusions, a…

Ocean Life

Pilot Whales the ‘Cheetahs of the Deep Sea’

Scientists tag whales and find they sprint-dive to forage, hunting like undersea cheetahs.

Ocean Tech

Can’t Bring Deep-sea Samples Up? Send a Lab Down.

Much of what is surprising about the deep ocean results from the extraordinary conditions found there—frigid temperatures, crushing pressure, unusual chemical and biological processes, and the complete absence of sunlight.…

Ocean Tech

Ocean Observatories Initiative Poised to Launch

Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) was awarded a $97.7 million grant to help build a decades-long dream of ocean scientists: networks of ocean observatories that can monitor conditions in critical…

How the Ocean Works

The Oceans Feel Impacts from Acid Rain

The release of sulfur and nitrogen into the atmosphere by power plants and agricultural activities is making seawater more acidic, especially in coastal waters, according to a study published September…

How the Ocean Works

WHOI Scientists Earn Laurels

WHOI geochemist Stanley Hart is the 13th recipient of the Arthur L. Day Prize and Lectureship, awarded by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences for making lasting contributions to the…

Capital Campaign Heads into Homestretch

With $180 million already committed, the WHOI $200 million Depth of Leadership campaign has reached 90 percent of its goal, heading into its final year. “This is a remarkable achievement,…

Susan Avery Takes the Helm at WHOI

With the first hints of autumn reaching Woods Hole last October, change of a different sort was in the air. On the same day that Harvard University trumpeted the installation…

How the Ocean Works

Arctic Voyage Tests New Robots for Ice-covered Oceans

In the summer of 2007, an international team led by scientists at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution sailed to the Arctic Ocean aboard the Swedish icebreaker Oden. Their missions: to test…

Ocean & Human Lives

DNA in Shipwrecked Jars Reveals Clues to Ancient World

Scraping inside clay jars recovered from a 2,400-year-old shipwreck, two researchers found DNA fragments that revealed the jars’ long-disappeared probable cargo: oregano, olive oil, and wine. The genetic technique, developed…

Ocean Tech

Happy as a (Newly Discovered) Clam

Aboard a research ship in 1997, Janet Voight was amazed when she examined a small log that researchers just happened to trawl up from the bottom of the sea: It…

Ocean & Human Lives

Making Nanotubes Without Harming the Environment

They are 10,000 times thinner than a strand of human hair, yet stronger than steel, more durable than diamonds, and able to conduct heat and electricity with efficiency that rivals…

How the Ocean Works

Protecting Public Health by Preventing Pollution

Growing up in Maine, Desirée Plata watched her grandmother suffer from illnesses that she suspected were related to trichloroethylene—a colorless liquid, used as a solvent for cleaning metal parts, that…

Ocean Tech

A Sea Change in National Ocean Policy?

Early in the new century, two national commissions conducted the first thorough reviews in a generation of the nation’s policy for the oceans. Their two reports were received with fanfare…

Ocean Life