Marine Microbes
A Telescope to Peer into the Vast Ocean
There are more single-celled plankton in the ocean than stars in the universe. A new instrument is about to depart on a mission across the vast Pacific to capture images of what is out there.
Big Questions About Tiny Bacteria
It’s 3 a.m., and Jesse McNichol is struggling to stay awake. Since midafternoon, he’s been…
Uncovering the Ocean’s Biological Pump
Dan Ohnemus clearly remembers the highlight of his fourth-grade class in Bourne, Mass. He and…
Drug Discovery in the Ocean
WHOI scientists are investigating a wide range of unexplored microbes that produce chemicals with potential…
Cystic Fibrosis
Illustration by Eric Taylor, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.
Lush Life, Deep Down
Scientists find an active ecosystem of bacteria, archaea, and fungi in the sediments far beneath…
Behold the ‘Plastisphere’
Plastic debris provides living space for a variety of marine microbes.
What Doomed the Stromatolites?
About a billion years before the dinosaurs became extinct, stromatolites roamed the Earth until they…
An Oddity about Lyme Disease Bacteria
The bacterial species that causes Lyme disease avoids a key human defense by not requiring…
Mining Marine Microbes for New Drugs
The ocean is a combat zone where marine microbes are constantly making chemical compounds to…
The Harshest Habitats on Earth
With help from ROV Jason and a new, high-tech sampling instrument, scientists discover that even…
An Ocean Instrument Is Born
Every new ocean instrument goes through growing pains. But the Submersible Incubation Device, nicknamed SID,…
Fungi Flourish Below the Seafloor
Scientists have discovered a previously unknown diversity of fungi living far beneath the seafloor throughout…
Bacteria Hitchhike on Tiny Marine Life
Amalia Aruda knows that tiny marine creatures have big impacts. Some can kill you. Aruda…
Barnacles and Biofilms
As long as sailors have been going down to the sea in ships, they have…
Bacteria Exhibit Altruistic Behavior
When it comes to bacteria protecting themselves, it’s all in the family. A new study…
Internship Pairs Scientists and Students
Falmouth Academy has established an internship program with scientists at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.…
Symbiosis in the Deep Sea
Mobs of pale shrimp clamber over each other, jockeying for position in the swirling flow…
Marine Microbes vs. Cystic Fibrosis
Microbes that grow in the ocean could one day help doctors combat the deadly disease…
The Ocean’s Tiny Chemists
Once as I was flying cross-country over the middle of the United States, the woman…
A Drop in the Ocean is Teeming with Life
“The universe is made of stories …“ —Muriel Rukeyser There are countless stories in every…
Of Predators, Prey, and Petroleum
Protists are the Rodney Dangerfields of marine microbes. Although marine bacteria emerged as heroes in…
Oil, Microbes, and the Risk of Dead Zones
In the scramble to get to the Gulf of Mexico to study the Deepwater Horizon…
Recycling Rare, Essential Nutrients in the Sea
In the vast ocean where an essential nutrient—iron—is scarce, a marine bacterium that launches the…