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These seabirds fly toward cyclones, not away from them

New GPS tracking on petrels reveals a surprising survival strategy hidden in the eye of the storm

Sustainable ocean

Reclaiming knowledge from the sea

WHOI’s Jordan Kennedy draws on Indigenous knowledge, engineering, and observation to rethink how we study and restore coastal landscapes

Sunita Williams

3 questions with a former NASA astronaut

WHOI Corporation Member Sunita Williams discusses space exploration, ocean science, and environmental stewardship

Cargo ships and tankers sitting at anchor outside a busy commercial port Ocean life

Ships in the Strait of Hormuz are becoming invasive species breeding grounds

Beneath the waterline of every ship stalled in the Persian Gulf, a thriving underwater city takes shape—barnacles, algae, mussels, sea squirts. Some of those hitchhikers could reach coastlines they’d never find on their own.

Hercules

Is the ocean carbon sink at risk of faltering?

WHOI scientists explain how the ocean mitigates climate change—and could be compromised by it

whale shark and diver Ocean life

3 questions with Cam Braun

Marine biologist Camrin Braun explains why the world’s largest fish visit waters off Cape Cod—and what their epic migrations reveal about a changing ocean

Lori Hepner Ocean tech

Lux in abyssum

Artist Lori Hepner transforms seafloor data into ethereal light paintings

lobster trap Ocean life

Is underwater noise from construction affecting the American Lobster?

WHOI’s Sensory Ecology Lab investigates whether an industrialized soundscape impacts the health of a New England icon

Answers from the Abyss
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Our Ocean. Our Planet. Our Future.

Bosun Oscar Sisson (left) and WHOI engineers Sean Kelley, Mike Skowronski, and Isaac Vandor deploy the autonomous underwater vehicle Sentry 
Ocean tech

Exploring Atlantic seeps

AUV Sentry leads the way in mapping and monitoring methane bubbling from the seafloor

Quest was purchased by Shackleton
Ocean tech

A once-in-a-generation dive into polar history

40 years after helping reveal the Titanic, Alvin returns to the North Atlantic to document two other legendary shipwrecks

Eyes on the deep submarine background Ocean tech

Eyes on the deep

How ocean imaging is accelerating the pace of deep-sea discovery

Plastic waste entangled beneath the Mediterranean's surface, highlighting marine pollution.

Deep-sea dustbins

The marine debris concentrating in the Northwest Atlantic’s underwater canyons

Hadal Snailfish Ocean life

Squishy survivor

How the snailfish survives the ocean’s most extreme pressures

Mar de Plata canyon Ocean tech

Answers from the abyss

How new discoveries in the deep could change life at the surface

Bathyopsurus-isopod2 Ocean life

A hadal zone mystery solved

An upside-down swimming isopod shows how tightly we are connected to the deep ocean

illustration of weddell seal mother in the water Ocean life

A mother seal dives

Follow a Weddell seal as her body adapts to foraging in deep, frigid waters

Titanic sinking with mummy's tomb Ocean & human lives

A mummy, a myth, and the Titanic

A 1986 handwritten letter to Bob Ballard revisits one of the Titanic disaster’s strangest myths

wave in the ocean Ocean tech

Turning motion into power: Wave energy converters for sustainable ocean monitoring

In the rapidly evolving world of ocean technology, wave energy is emerging as a promising…

Ocean life

The world’s most abundant fish once thrived in an extreme climate

Fossilized teeth show bristlemouth fish evolved during one of the ocean’s hottest periods

Oleander through two rocks Ocean life

How a cargo ship is tracking hidden ocean life in the Atlantic

With funding support from CMA CGM, ocean observations aboard Bermuda Container Line’s M/V Oleander now include a window into microscopic life

Alvin and the swordfish Ocean tech

Alvin vs. the swordfish

During a 1967 dive off Florida, a startled swordfish rammed the famed submersible Alvin—lodging its sword in the hull and forcing the crew to abort the mission

Oceanus-Covers

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We can help you with that. Check out our extensive conglomeration of ocean information.

The entrance to Room 71. (Photo by Daniel Hentz, © Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)
Ocean tech

Inside Room 71: WHOI history in seven artifacts

Some of the technology, art, and gifts that tell the story of the institution’s early days

Allan Hills, Antarctica
How the ocean works

A scientist’s quest to find Earth’s oldest ice

After recovering ice that dates back 6 million years, Sarah Shackleton hopes to dig deeper into Earth’s history from a remote Antarctic moraine

spilhause projection How the ocean works

It’s the most ocean-friendly map ever created. Why haven’t more people seen it?

Discover the Spilhaus Projection, a radical world map that reveals Earth as one connected ocean—and reshapes how we see the planet.

Climate & weather

Luxury cruises with a side of climate science

A new partnership gives scientists rare access to remote Antarctic glaciers—and a new way to engage the public

Larry Madin and Kelly Sutherland Ocean life

Tiny drifters, massive impact

How salps shuttle carbon to the deep

Ocean & human lives

The unseen toll of war on science

As the changing climate accelerates the spread of toxic algal blooms in the Arctic, the Russia–Ukraine war is cutting off critical international collaboration needed to understand and protect vulnerable ecosystems and communities.

Climate & weather

The human cost of Brazil’s floods

New research maps social vulnerability after the 2024 deluge

medicine bottles Ocean & human lives

Healing on the High Seas

A look back at shipboard medicine on R/V Atlantis

Sunset over Cape Cod Bay (photo by Kara Dodge, © Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)

Tracking the hidden currents of Cape Cod Bay

Scientists are using drifters and ocean models to better understand how water, nutrients, and pollutants move through the bay

Jane Ruckert, a technical diver
Ocean life

From ruin to reef

What Pacific wrecks are teaching us about coral resilience—and pollution

Walking on polar ice Climate & weather

Oceans of Change

“THE SEA NEVER CHANGES, AND ITS WORKS, FOR ALL THE TALK OF MEN, ARE WRAPPED…

Lobster Climate & weather

The Ocean’s Moveable Feast

Over the past few decades, Carin Ashjian, a biologist at Woods hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI),…

Ocean tech

Bioacoustic alarms are sounding on Cape Cod

The International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) and its Marine Mammal Rescue Team in Yarmouth, Mass. have responded to a record high of more than 464 marine mammals stranded on Cape Cod since January this year. Researchers at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) believe patterns from animal sound data may be the key to curbing these numbers.

Orpheus How the ocean works

The Rise of Orpheus

WHOI’s new deep-sea autonomous underwater vehicle moves one step closer to exploring the hadal zone—the deepest region of the ocean—to search for new clues about the limits of life on Earth, and possibly beyond.

Ocean & human lives

Rapid Response at Sea

As sea ice continues to melt in the Arctic and oil exploration expands in the region, the possibility of an oil spill occurring under ice is higher than ever. To help first responders cope with oil trapped under ice, ocean engineers are developing undersea vehicles that can map oil spills to improve situational awareness and decision making during an emergency.

Ocean life

Where the Rivers Meet the Sea

Estuaries are the borderlands between salt and freshwater environments, and they are incredibly diverse both biologically and physically. The diversity and the high energy of the ecosystem make estuaries remarkably resilient.

Blue shark Ocean tech

A tunnel to the Twilight Zone

Scientists track hungry blue sharks as they ride swirling currents down to the ocean twilight zone—a layer of the ocean containing the largest fish biomass on Earth

Climate & weather

Mining climate clues from our whaling past

Climate scientists work with historians to tap weather records from old New England whaling logbooks. They hope to leverage the historical data to gain new insights into modern-day climate conditions.

wind farm - cable Ocean tech

A new way of “seeing” offshore wind power cables

Eager to share best practices and technical know-how with the offshore wind sector, WHOI researchers test out an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUVs)—a staple of oceanographic research—to see if it can perform subsea cable surveys faster and more economically than using large and expensive ships.

glider Ocean tech

Navigating the Changing Arctic

New, fully autonomous glider will collect critical-but-scarce ice thickness measurements from below the surface of the Arctic ocean.

MIT-WHOI Joint Program Student Jessica Dabrowski with MIT EAPS graduate student Mukund Gupta, getting ready for on-deck sampling work in the Arctic. How the ocean works

Tracking Radium in the Arctic

Jessica Dabrowski is an ocean chemist and a second-year graduate student in the MIT/WHOI Joint…

Meet the ChemYak! How the ocean works

Meet the ChemYak!

WHOI scientist Anna Michel discusses our new ocean surface robot.

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