Ocean Life
A Big Decline of River Herring
River herring used to run up coastal streams in great numbers in springtime, returning from the ocean to spawn in fresh water. But their populations have plummeted. WHOI biologist Joel Llopiz is investigating critical gaps in understanding river herring’s larval stage just after they hatch.
Radioactivity Under the Beach?
Scientists have found a previously unsuspected place where radioactive material from the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear…
Eavesdropping on Shrimp’s Snap Chat
At Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, marine ecologist Ashlee Lillis is studying a tiny animal that…
What Happened to Deepwater Horizon Oil?
Officials pumped a huge amount of chemicals into the deep ocean during the 2010 Deepwater…
New Device Reveals What Ocean Microbes Do
Whether you’re a plant, animal, or even a microbe, you generally can’t conduct the business…
How Would ‘On-Call’ Buoys Work?
WHOI engineers are developing a new kind of lobster trap buoy that could help keep whales from…
Whale-safe Fishing Gear
WHOI engineers are developing a new kind of lobster trap buoy that could help keep…
Life Dwells Deep Within Earth’s Crust
Aboard a drillship in the Indian Ocean, geologists pursued their mission to bore a hole…
No Stone Unturned
WHOI iologist Joel Llopiz is taking advantage of information stored in the tiny "ear stones"…
Shark Tales
Sharks are some of the largest fish in the ocean, but their movements and behavior…
Can Animals Live Without Oxygen?
In 2010, a research team garnered headlines when it published evidence of finding the first…
Crabs Swarm on the Seafloor
Expeditions to the tropics and Antarctica have turned up crab populations—for better or worse—in unexpected…
Tagging a Squishy Squid
For more than a decade, researchers have been tagging large marine mammals such as dolphins…
Illuminating an Unexplored Undersea Universe
Twenty-five years ago, the Hubble Telescope was launched to look out to the vast darkness…
Mummified Microbes
Scientists have found evidence that microbes can thrive deep below the seafloor—sustained by chemicals produced…
A New Whale Species Is Discovered in the Wild
Scientists have discovered a thriving population of Omura’s whales—a species that hadn’t even been identified…
Coral Coring
Off a small island in the Chagos archipelago in the Indian Ocean, Woods Hole Oceanographic…
See Those Black Dots? They’re Penguins. Now Count Them.
That’s exactly what a team of researchers from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) did on…
Endangered Whales Get a High-Tech Check-Up
Drones seem to be everywhere these days, from backyards to battlegrounds. Scientists are using them…
Journey Into the Ocean’s Microbiomes
Bacteria in the ocean, including pathogenic ones, often hitchhike on tiny crustaceans called copepods. A…
Two Chemical Roads Diverge in an Open Ocean
An infographicon biomineralization
Minerals Made by Microbes
Some minerals actually don't form without a little help from microscopic organisms, using chemical processes…
A Mighty Mysterious Molecule
What gives sea air its distinctive scent? A chemical compound called dimethylsulfide. In a new…
Recipes for Antibiotic Resistance
MIT-WHOI graduate student Megan May is investigating how microbes naturally develop resistance to antibiotic compounds…