Right Whales
Harnessing the Power
Can wind developers and ocean scientists work together to get US offshore wind cranking?
Read MoreEavesdropping on Whales
WHOI scientist Mark Baumgartner has installed a mooring in New York waters that listens for whales and sends back alerts. The prototype advance-warning system could one day help reduce shipping collisions with whales.
Read MoreHow Would ‘On-Call’ Buoys Work?
WHOI engineers are developing a new kind of lobster trap buoy that could help keep whales from getting tangled in fishing gear.…
Read MoreEndangered Whales Get a High-Tech Check-Up
Drones seem to be everywhere these days, from backyards to battlegrounds. Scientists are using them too: in this case, to assess the health of endangered North Atlantic right whales. Since drones are small and quiet, they can fly close to whales without disturbing them, bringing back incredibly detailed photographs and samples of microbe-rich blow.
Read MoreA 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.
Read MoreCall of the Whales
Robotic gliders equipped with acoustic monitoring devices can now eavesdrop on whales, enabling researchers to locate the elusive animals before they surfaceâÂÂand to warn ship pilots in the area to slow down to reduce the chances of a deadly collision.
Read MoreFrequency Ranges of Marine Animal Sounds
Marine Mammals: Whales North Atlantic Right Whale. Photo courtesy of WHOI Archives. North Atlantic Right Whale sound frequency: 0.4kHz https://www.whoi.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/NorthAtlanticRightWhale.mp3…
Read MoreThe Great South Channel
When people are hungry, they go to a place where they know they can find their favorite food. Right whales…
Read MoreWhale Heads and Tales
It’s a Saturday morning at Herring Cove Beach in Provincetown, Mass., the farthest point on the Cape. I am sleepy,…
Read MoreTracking an Elusive Chemical: Estrogens
On a crisp October morning, our small boat bobbed gently 10 miles offshore. The sun glinted off the dark blue…
Read MoreAre Whales ‘Shouting’ to be Heard?
When we’re talking with friends and a truck rumbles by or someone cranks up the radio, we talk louder. Now…
Read MoreTara Hetz
Tara Hetz has gotten to see a different side of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) from her Summer Student Fellow…
Read MoreWHOI Scientists Earn Laurels
WHOI geochemist Stanley Hart is the 13th recipient of the Arthur L. Day Prize and Lectureship, awarded by the U.S.…
Read MoreMelting Ice Threatens Polar Bears’ Survival
The Department of Interior’s imminent decision on whether to place polar bears on the federally protected endangered species list has…
Read MoreFollowing Whales Up a Creek
Michael Moore is accustomed to working solo (or nearly so) in remote places, but this was a very public endeavor.…
Read MoreWHOI Scientists Provide Congressional Testimony
Susan Humphris, chair of the Geology and Geophysics Department, testified May 4, 2006, before the House Committee on Resources, one…
Read MoreTo Find Whales, Follow Their Food
The average adult right whale consumes about a ton of food a day, eating billions of tiny crustaceans called copepods…
Read MoreDiving into the Right Whale Gene Pool
Like forensic detectives, a multi-institutional team of scientists has followed a thread of DNA from the highly endangered right whale population across the oceans and back through generations.
Read MoreDoing the Right Thing for the Right Whale
The situation is urgent: Seventy years after whaling was banned, the North Atlantic right whale population has not recovered. Only…
Read MoreIn and Out of Harm’s Way
Just a few more miles or a few more minutes. That’s what scientists and some federal managers think it would…
Read MoreOcean Life Institute
The oceans cover 70 percent of the planet?s surface and constitute 99 percent of its living space, and every drop of ocean water holds living things. Without its oceans, Earth would be a rock in space, and life may never have appeared on our planet.
Read MorePlaying Tag with Whales
The challenge of designing a device to learn what marine mammals do on dives is the stuff of dreams for an electronics engineer.
Read MoreRed Tides and Dead Zones
The most widespread, chronic environmental problem in the coastal ocean is caused by an excess of chemical nutrients. Over the past century, a wide range of human activities—the intensification of agriculture, waste disposal, coastal development, and fossil fuel use—has substantially increased the discharge of nitrogen, phosphorus, and other nutrients into the environment. These nutrients are moved around by streams, rivers, groundwater, sewage outfalls, and the atmosphere and eventually end up in the ocean.
Read MoreWhither the North Atlantic Right Whale?
“Today only a remnant of the population survives, no more than 350 whales clustered in calving and feeding grounds along the eastern seaboard of North America. Only occasional right whale sightings in the Gulf of St. Lawrence or in the waters between Iceland, Greenland, and Norway give echoes of their once substantially greater range.
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