Microbial Life
Study Sheds Light on Critically Endangered Beluga Whale Population
A team of scientists from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) and NOAA Fisheries are collaborating to help stem the decline of a critically endangered population of beluga whales in the Cook Inlet, Alaska.
Read MoreWhy Science Labs Love Older Scientists
Sallie Chisholm, a 72-year-old biologist, has been enthralled by a tiny aquatic microbe that she and a team from WHOI discovered in the Atlantic Ocean in 1985.
Move Over, Mars: The Search for Life on Saturn’s Largest Moon
“The great thing about hydrothermal vents is that they provide a lot of energy sources for microbial life that doesn’t include sunlight,” says Julie Huber, a marine chemist at WHOI. Organisms living at hydrothermal vents on Earth’s seafloors, she explains, “can use chemical energy, so that means things like sulphur, iron, hydrogen and methane and they create a base of the food chain.”
MC&G Department Virtual Seminar: Hydrothermal Trace Metal Release and Microbial Metabolism in the Northeast Lau Basin
Natalie Cohen, WHOI Sponsored by: MC&G Department This will be held virtually. Join Zoom Meeting https://whoi-edu.zoom.us/j/92731319251 Meeting ID: 927 3131…
Read MoreBiology Department Virtual Seminar: Return of the Age of Dinoflagellates in the Monterey Bay
Alexis Fischer, WHOI Sponsored by: Biology Department This event will be held virtually. Join Zoom Meeting https://whoi-edu.zoom.us/j/91036740641?pwd=eFJtMjdVK1VLbGF3QjY1a21iWVpEQT09 Meeting ID: 910…
Read MoreWhy is it important to study life in the deep sea and even below the seafloor?
Dr Virginia Edgcomb heads a laboratory at WHOI in the US. She spent three months on a ship in the middle of the Indian Ocean conducting research as part of a quest to find evidence of microbial life within the lower oceanic crust.
Scientists returning to site of 1898 shipwreck off Mass. waters that killed more than 190 people
Scientists on Tuesday will once again explore wreckage from the steamship Portland, which sank in 1898 in waters off Massachusetts, killing more than 190 people in what became known as the “Titanic of New England.” Via Twitter, the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution provided details on the planned expedition.
Biology Department Virtual Seminar: Calanus finmarchicus in the Gulf of Maine
Rubao Ji, WHOI Sponosored by: Biology Department This will be held virtually. Join Zoom Meeting: https://whoi-edu.zoom.us/j/92103761032?pwd=WHJOcGhQQk5qdW45YjFMWnpuN1dsUT09 Meeting ID: 921 0376…
Read MoreScientists revived microbes that were more than 100 million years old
Virginia Edgcomb, a microbial ecologist at WHOI who did not participate in the study, told Science Magazine that the study indicates that “microbial life is very persistent and often finds a way to survive.”
Biology Department Virtual Seminar:A Eukaryotic Heist: Scalable and Automated Approaches for the Discovery of Eukaryotic Genomes
Harriet Alexander, WHOI Sponsored by: Biology Department This will be held virtually. Join Zoom Meeting: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81507947866?pwd=bk5vclFicU5DTWJWdWU4aThzMWJOdz09 Meeting ID: 815 0794…
Read MoreAncient Microbes Spring to Life After 100 Million Years Under the Seafloor
Virginia Edgcomb, a microbial ecologist at WHOI who did not participate in the study, told Science Magazine that the study indicates that “microbial life is very persistent and often finds a way to survive.”
Scientists pull living microbes, possibly 100 million years old, from beneath the sea
Microbes buried beneath the sea floor for more than 100 million years are still alive, a new study reveals. When brought back to the lab and fed, they started to multiply. The microbes are oxygen-loving species that somehow exist on what little of the gas diffuses from the ocean surface deep into the seabed. The new work demonstrates “microbial life is very persistent, and often finds a way to survive,” says Virginia Edgcomb, a microbial ecologist at WHOI who was not involved in the work.
WHOI receives $2.7M from Simons Foundation to study nutrients, microbes that fuel ocean food web
The Simons Foundation has awarded Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) scientists Dan Repeta and Benjamin Van Mooy two grants totaling…
Read MoreBiology Department Virtual Seminar: Application of Metaproteomics for Understanding Marine Microbial Communities and SARS-CoV-2 Detection
Jaci Saunders, WHOI Sponsored by: Biology Department This will be held virtually. Information will be posted when available.
Read MoreMC&G Department Virtual Seminar: Insights Into Host-Microbe Specificity, Co-Evolution and Interactions from Marine Mammals
Amy Apprill, WHOI Sponsored by: MC&G Department This will be held virtually. Event address for attendees: https://whoi.webex.com/whoi/onstage/g.php?MTID=e88c0080aecf0a91ac8e9f9e5e422c8f5 Password: chem
Read MoreThe Ocean’s Carbon Cycle is Controlled by…Tiny Plankton?
The ocean plays a major role in the global carbon cycle. The driving force comes from tiny plankton that produce organic carbon through photosynthesis, like plants on land.
The Long-Lasting Legacy of Deep-Sea
Mining for rare metals can involve a good amount of detective work. It can take time and skill to find the most abundant sources. But in the deep ocean, metallic deposits sit atop the seafloor in full view—a tantalizing sight for those interested in harvesting polymetallic nodules.
The Last Place on Earth We’d Ever Expect to Find Life
Microbial life, almost unbelievably resilient, abides in boiling hot springs and bone-dry deserts, in pools of acid and polar ice, kilometers up into the sky and kilometers below the ocean floor.
NOAA Webinar: What’s in that Mouthful of Seawater: Introducing the Ocean’s Microscopic World
Vera Trainer, NOAA’s Northwest Fisheries Science Center Sponsored by: NOAA With Vera Trainer, NOAA’s Northwest Fisheries Science Center in Seattle,…
Read MoreFormer Falmouth students credited in new study
Rebecca Cox and Sarah Lott were interns at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution when they became a part of the breakthrough study, which found microorganisms living hundreds of meters beneath the seafloor.
Microbes far beneath the seafloor rely on recycling to survive
Scientists from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and colleagues reveal how microorganisms could survive in rocks nestled thousands of feet beneath the ocean floor in the lower oceanic crust.
Read MoreInstitutes Team Up To Deliver New Graduate Field Course
A partnership between BIOS and two Massachusetts-based institutions was strengthened with the addition of a new microbial oceanography course.
Physiology of Lipid-Storing Copepods Along the West Antarctic Peninsula
Ann Tarrant, WHOI Sponsored by: Biology Department
Read MoreOcean Microbes: Novel Study Underscores Microbial Individuality
“Genetic information can teach us a lot about ecology, and these may be photosynthetic organisms that were unnoticed before,” said Maria Pachiadaki, a former Bigelow Laboratory postdoctoral researcher who is now an assistant scientist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, and the lead author on the paper. “If experiments confirm what the genes suggest, this is an important microbial group to consider in ocean carbon studies.”
