Media Tip Sheet – May 2025

MAY 2025 MEDIA TIP SHEET

Welcome to Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution’s media tip sheet. Our goal is to provide an advanced or detailed look at stories we believe are impactful or trending and offer WHOI experts if you’re interested in a deeper dive.

Seals could provide insights into human health

Could you imagine a human putting a pregnancy on pause? In a recent article, WHOI Biologist Michelle Shero, points out these marine mammals' remarkable physiological reproductive adaptations– and makes a case for helping uncover novel approaches to address human reproductive challenges. For example, in humans, gestational diabetes can be extremely dangerous, but seals and other marine mammals rely on insulin resistance to break down fats while preserving important muscle mass throughout the long fasts they endure while nursing.

Find out what else marine mammals could teach us about reproductive health in the WHOI Press Room.

Images available for use with credit can be found here.

Do you have a whale-y good mom? This season’s North Atlantic right whale calves do too!

North Atlantic right whales – some with their new calves– are migrating north for the summer season! New drone video filmed by WHOI researchers recently in Cape Cod Bay shows a right whale mother named Blackheart with her second calf. This calf is one of the eleven born during the 2024-2025 calving season. The video also shows the whales swimming in a "V" shape, with one whale in the lead—a pattern known as "echelon feeding."

Right whales face threats like entanglement in fishing gear, vessel strikes, and a rapidly changing habitat. At WHOI, researchers are advancing solutions to protect them—ranging from real-time acoustic monitoring to testing fishing gear that reduces the risk of entanglement while supporting coastal livelihoods.

Learn more about the critically endangered North Atlantic right whales.

The recent video of Blackheart and her calf is available for use with credit to “Michael Moore, ©WHOI, NMFS permit 27066.”

Cargo ships aren't just moving goods—they're moving science!

In partnership with WHOI, Arizona State University, and the BIOS Arizona State University, scientific sensors have been collecting data from the merchant vessel Oleander since the 1970s. As the ship makes its weekly trip between New Jersey and Bermuda, it collects data about ocean temperature, salinity, and carbon dioxide concentrations. This information provides researchers with critical information about our changing oceans, including the warming and shrinking of the Slope Sea, and a northward shift of the Gulf Stream

Learn about the larger partnership, housed at WHOI, called ScienceRoCS, which leverages commercial ships to help us learn more about the ocean.

Interviews with researchers are available.

Other Stories:

New global efforts to map and monitor kelp forests extend to South Africa and Namibia

Crustal brines at an oceanic transform fault

Sink or Swim: The fate of sinking tectonic plates depends on their ancient tectonic histories

On the May calendar:

May 2: World Tuna Day: A recent study highlights their reliance on the deep-sea

May 7: Ocean Encounters: Titanic & Beyond

May 11: Mother’s Day

May 16: Endangered Species Day

May 23: World Turtle Day

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