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Research Highlights

Oceanus Magazine

scallop and starfish

Is underwater construction noise leaving scallops defenseless?

March 7, 2024

Sea scallops expend a lot of energy reacting to noisy pile drivers

Maria Pachiadaki

Our eyes on the seafloor

February 29, 2024

A Q&A with WHOI marine microbiologist Maria Pachiadaki on sampling the deep ocean with Jason

Common Eider

Wintering Waterbirds

February 22, 2024

Winter doldrums? Take a local birding trip to encounter a diversity of seabirds this season

Puzzling over a mollusk mystery

November 21, 2023

What’s causing a contagious cancer to spread among clams?

iologists Heidi Sosik (left) and Joel Llopiz (right) examine shadowgraph images of plankton

AI in the Ocean Twilight Zone

May 31, 2023

Deep Learning techniques are revealing new secrets about the mesopelagic

News Releases

Suzi Clark

Woods Hole Center for Oceans and Human Health Receives Additional Five Years of Funding

April 19, 2024

The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) and National Science Foundation (NSF) have announced that the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) will receive funding to continue operating the Woods Hole Center for Oceans and Human Health (WHCOHH).

Squid

A new tagging method for fragile marine species

April 16, 2024

Newly developed bioadhesive sensors (BIMS) are effective and less invasive than traditional tagging. Scientists can attach them with a thin layer of dried-hydrogel in less than 20 seconds.

Stony Coral Tissue Disease

Study: eDNA methods give a real-time look at coral reef health

April 5, 2024

Researchers from WHOI studied the microbes in coral reef water by examining eight reefs in the U.S. Virgin Islands over a period of seven years, which included periods of hurricane and coral disease disturbance.

Degraded coral

Sonic Youth: Healthy Reef Sounds Increase Coral Settlement

March 13, 2024

Researchers at WHOI demonstrated that replaying healthy reef sounds could potentially be used to encourage coral larvae to recolonize damaged or degraded reefs.

Aerial Imagery of Penguins

High Resolution Imagery Advances the Ability to Monitor Decadal Changes in Emperor Penguin Populations

March 13, 2024

High resolution satellite imagery and field-based validation surveys have provided the first multi-year time series documenting emperor penguin populations.

News & Insights

Book reading event: “We Are All Whalers”

November 24, 2021

Join us tonight for a special event with author Michael Moore, Nov. 30, 2021 7:00 p.m. ET

A virtual exhibit

October 19, 2021

Get your free ticket and join guest speaker, MIT researcher Aditi Wagh PhD tonight for a discussion about the importance of art in communicating science to youths, Oct. 21, 2021 from 7:00-8:30 p.m. EDT

Critically Endangered North Atlantic Right Whales Getting Smaller, New Research Finds

June 10, 2021

A report out this week in Current Biology reveal that critically endangered North Atlantic right whales are up to three feet shorter than 40 years ago. This startling conclusion reinforces what scientists have suspected: even when entanglements do not lead directly to the death of North Atlantic right whales, they can have lasting effects on the imperiled population that may now number less than 400 animals. Further, females that are entangled while nursing produce smaller calves.

right whales

Rare Drone video shows critically endangered North Atlantic right whales

May 10, 2021

May 10, 2021

 

During a joint research trip on February 28 in Cape Cod Bay, Mass., WHOI whale trauma specialist Michael Moore, National Geographic photographer Brian Skerry, and scientists from New England Aquarium, witnessed a remarkable biological event: North Atlantic right […]

A checkup for the oceans reveals threats to human health

December 7, 2020

The health of the world’s ocean is in serious decline—and human health is suffering as a result. A comprehensive report from the Monaco Commission and co-authored by several WHOI researchers investigates the impacts of ocean pollution and recommends actions to safeguard human health.