Ocean & Human Lives
A Rusting Oil Tanker Off the Coast of Yemen Is an Environmental Catastrophe Waiting to Happen. Can Anyone Prevent It?
Viviane Menezes, a marine scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute in Massachusetts, has described the Red Sea as being like a “big lagoon” with “everything connected.” An oil spill at any time of year would be disastrous, she says, but seasonally variable weather and tidal patterns make contingency planning difficult. In the summer, Red Sea currents would drag an oil slick south, threatening Eritrea and Djibouti, and potentially entering the Gulf of Aden. In winter, circular currents would swirl more of the oil north.
Oil spill response beneath the ice
Successful test deployment of WHOI vehicle Polaris expands U.S. Coast Guard response to oil spills in the Arctic
There Are Massive Chemical Dumps In The Gulf We Know Almost Nothing About
Starting in 1973, the Environmental Protection Agency issued chemical giants permits to discard thousands of drums of industrial chemical waste at the offshore site.
If there is an oil spill tomorrow, will we be ready? Woods Hole engineer says yes
WHOI worked with the U.S. Coast Guard on Thursday on how deploying the robot would work and to test retrieving it with a helicopter.
Japan to release contaminated Fukushima water into sea after treatment
The first release of water will take place in about two years, giving plant operator Tokyo Electric Power time to begin filtering the water to remove harmful isotopes, build infrastructure and acquire regulatory approval.
Fukushima and the Ocean: A decade of disaster response
Deep Sea Science: Deep Sea Reveals Insights On Human
Scientists have discovered bacteria from the deep sea with components that are unrecognizable by the human immune system and may hold important properties in the development of cancer treatments and vaccines, according to a collaborative study published in Science Immunology.
Five books WHOI researchers are reading right now
10 Years After Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi Meltdown, I’m Still Worried | Opinion
It’s been encouraging to watch the marine life rebound without the pressure of local fisheries.
A decade after Fukushima nuclear disaster, contaminated water symbolizes Japan’s struggles
Running out of space to build more tanks, the government wants to gradually release the water into the sea – after it has been decontaminated and diluted – over the next three decades or more.
Mauritius oil spill: questions mount over ship fuel safety
Researchers discover an immense hydrocarbon cycle in the world’s ocean
Hydrocarbons and petroleum are almost synonymous in environmental science. After all, oil reserves account for nearly all the hydrocarbons we encounter. But the few hydrocarbons that trace their origin to biological sources may play a larger ecological role than scientists originally suspected.