Ocean Life
Cell-sized Thermometers
Climate shifts are a repeating feature in Earth’s history, but humans have added so much greenhouse gas (especially carbon dioxide) to the atmosphere that climate is warming in our lifetimes. […]
Dead Corals Do Tell Tales
Sometime around the beginning of the 17th century, a tiny drifting larva found the perfect…
Would a Hagfish By Any Other Name Smell as Sweet?
It’s not hard to figure out how hagfish got their name, since they aren’t exactly…
Deep-sea Tubeworms Get Versatile ‘Inside’ Help
Cross sections of the tubeworm Riftia pachyptila. (Courtesy of Enduring Resources for Earth Science Education)…
Ocean Circulation and a Clam Far From Home
In my first year of graduate school, I was stumped by a big question on…
What Other Tales Can Coral Skeletons Tell?
In 2003, we traveled by ship to the New England Seamounts—a chain of extinct, undersea…
The Coral-Climate Connection
Are the climate changes we perceive today just part of the Earth system’s natural variability,…
WHOI Scientists Provide Congressional Testimony
Susan Humphris, chair of the Geology and Geophysics Department, testified May 4, 2006, before the…
The Oceans Are Filled with Microbes. Some Are Nasty
Every time you swim at the beach, you are surrounded by zillions of bacteria. There…
Legions of Legionella Bacteria
Salty ocean water can be a nuisance. It’s undrinkable and it corrodes nearly everything it…
New ‘Eyes’ Size Up Scallop Populations
Part of the fun of fishing is never knowing exactly what might be swimming around…
Lullaby for Larvae
Like many babies, these tiny offspring arrived this spring amid much fanfare and a little…
Ocean Microscope Reveals Surprising Abundance of Life
Towing an underwater video microscope across the Atlantic Ocean, two scientists found unexpected abundances of…
Voyage Takes a Census of Life in the Sea
Scientists collected more than 1,000 shrimplike creatures, swimming snails and worms, and gelatinous animals, including…
A Modest Proposal to Sustain Lobsters and Lobstermen
A new study by a WHOI scientist and a former lobsterman suggests a provocative lobster…
Transparent Animal May Play Overlooked Role in the Ocean
Salps don’t get much respect. They’ve been around for millions of years, but hardly anyone…
Abandoned Walrus Calves Reported in the Arctic
Researchers on an oceanographic voyage in the Arctic Ocean report, for the first time, baby…
Mass Strandings Keep New Marine Mammal Facility Busy
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution’s new Marine Research Facility (MRF) opened its doors just in time…
Caught in the Middle of the Marine Mammal Protection Act
In the past few years, several research projects have been halted because of conflicting interpretations…
What Brings the Food that Brings the Whales?
Watching the gray, pitching ocean from the beach in Barrow, Alaska, Carin Ashjian, a biologist…
Graduate Student Discovers an Unusual New Species
Sheri Simmons gets into the rugged wilderness as often as she can, backpacking in Newfoundland,…
To Find Whales, Follow Their Food
The average adult right whale consumes about a ton of food a day, eating billions…