Student Research
Oceanus Magazine
Dye Sheds Light on Jet-Propelled Salps
The boat loaded, we push off from shore. We are headed out for a nighttime blue-water scuba dive in search of salps off the Pacific coast of Panama. Salps are…
A Most Ingenious Paradoxical Plankton
Everybody has a unique place in the world, a job to do, a niche to fill. When you are a tiny phytoplankter, your place is in the ocean, and your…
Shellfish’s Mysterious Pathways to Adulthood
With a cool ocean breeze under a cloudless sky, children weave small sailboats through the channel. Larger boats scurry out of Waquoit Bay to fish in Nantucket Sound or spend…
A Tag Fit for a Porpoise
In 2003, Stacy DeRuiter arrived as a graduate student at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), where a new device developed at WHOI was sparking a revolution in marine mammal research:…
One Man’s Swamp Is a Fish’s Nursery
A parade of schoolmaster snapper swims by me, their neon yellow fins directing traffic. Echoing in the background is the rhythmic crunch of striped parrotfish nibbling on coral polyps. I’m…
Testing the Waters and Closing Beaches
On a warm, tranquil evening this summer, Falmouth resident Annette Hynes took a friend down to Wood Neck Beach. It is one of Annette’s favorite local beaches, with a long,…
Biochemical Warfare on the Reef
Just beneath the tranquil, clear waters of the tropical Caribbean, unseen by all but a few keen-eyed divers, two foes have engaged in a life-and-death struggle every day for thousands…
Eavesdropping on Whales’ Mealtime Conversation
Like a knife slicing through denim, the black dorsal fin broke the surface of the icy water quickly, and then disappeared into the depths. “Off the port bow,” yelled Ari…
What Does It Take To Break a Whale?
The ship hit the whale with a force that snapped her 14-foot jawbone like a toothpick and left a 4-foot-long crack in her skull. Known as 2150 among scientists, she…
Graduate Student Discovers an Unusual New Species
Sheri Simmons gets into the rugged wilderness as often as she can, backpacking in Newfoundland, the Sierras, the Adirondacks, and Alaska—where she once encountered a grizzly bear on a trail.…