WHOI in the News
How Cheap Robots Are Transforming Ocean Exploration
For researchers, affordable tech opens up new worlds. “Your decision process is fundamentally different when you can use cheaper tools,” says Jim Bellingham, director of the Center for Marine Robotics at WHOI.
Why are birds and seals starving in a Bering Sea full of fish?
Federal and university scientists are trying to better understand why some birds and marine mammals have been unable to find enough food, and whether toxic algae blooms — increasing as the water warms — could have contributed or caused some of the die-offs.
How Interconnected Is Life in the Ocean?
To help create better conservation and management plans, researchers are measuring how marine organisms move between habitats and populations.
In the Blue Holes of the Bahamas, Secrets of Hurricanes Past
Researchers have assembled a 1,500-year history of hurricanes in the Bahamas, based on sand and shell fragments pulled up from submarine caverns known as blue holes.
FEATURE – Maritime Autonomy
REMUS AUVs were developed by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute with later models manufactured by a subsidiary of Norway’s KONGSBERG.
WHOI Study Examines Impact of Sunlight on Degrading Plastics
The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution released a study that found that polystyrene plastics degrade faster in sunlight than what was previously thought.
The US government hydrogen-bombed a chain of islands in the 1950s, and we’re only now getting clues about the radiation effects
Marine radiochemist Ken Buesseler is on a quest to provide fresh answers about how much radiation remains on the islands. “What we want to scientifically understand is, how is it going up or down over time, over the years and decades?” Buesseler said.
Learning how endangered orcas hunt could be the key to saving them
Researchers at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts developed a novel temporary tool to help researchers noninvasively track orcas throughout their day.
Thousands of barrels of oil are contaminating Brazil’s pristine coastline. Authorities don’t know where it’s coming from.
WHOI researcher Christopher Reddy has been trying to crack the mystery. Some Brazilian colleagues recently contacted him to help determine the source of the oil, and he’s now analyzing 14 samples with the hopes of determining the molecular structure of the oil by the end of the week.
Study: Styrofoam Might Last Only Decades, Not Millennia, in the Ocean
Researchers from MIT and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution say that sunlight can break down polystyrene within a few decades.
Scientists in Antarctica train to endure its brutal environment
It’s the coldest environment on Earth, with a mean temperature of minus-76 in winter and minus-18 in summer, according to the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.
What Is a Sea Cucumber?
Sea cucumbers are marine invertebrates that live on the seafloor. Their tube-shaped feet serve mainly to anchor the limbless creatures to the seafloor, according to Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI).
Scientists have discovered stormquakes, where earthquakes and hurricanes collide
The study says that stormquakes are actually a fairly common occurrence, but they just sounded like seismic background noise and went undetected.
In the Sea, Not All Plastic Lasts Forever
Polystyrene, a common ocean pollutant, decomposes in sunlight much faster than thought, a new study finds.
Where do you park when you dive thousands of feet into the ocean?
WHOI biologist Stace Beaulieu forgets all bodily needs when chasing creatures in her tiny submarine.
Coastal Organizations Receive More Than $1 Million In Federal Grants
The second three grantees are Massachusetts Maritime Academy ($176,581 for the Buzzards Bay Stormwater Collaborative), Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution ($298,598 to test permeable reactive barriers) and Buzzards Bay Coalition ($27,695 to prevent nutrient pollution from composting).
Scientists found a 4-propeller solution to a 200-ton question
“Weighing live whales with a drone at sea, we can get growth rates and changes in body conditions,” says Michael Moore, a senior scientist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and a co-author of the study.
Study Finds Saildrone Effective for Air-Sea Interaction Studies
With the ability to transit thousands of kilometers while making surface observations similar to a moored buoy, the unmanned surface vehicle (USV) Saildronecould contribute in important ways to the Global Ocean Observing System (GOOS), in particular for air-sea interaction studies.
Impacts of climate change on the ocean
Rick Murray of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution sees the impacts of climate change on the ocean and the ability of ocean-based activities to mitigate climate change as two sides of the same coin, and says both are critical to responding to climate change. (segment begins at 27:10)
Best of Constant Wonder
WHOI Research Engineer Jeff Kaeli talks about the 2017discovery of the San José, a sunken ship from 1708 loaded with treasure valued up to $17 billion. (segment begins 24:05)
Floating Light Sculpture Will Show New Yorkers Real-Time East River Water Quality
Shawnee Traylor, a science and technology advisor for the project, formerly at LDEO and currently at MIT/WHOI, developed a site-specific algorithm with McGillis that predictively measures the water’s quality based on historical data.
How Drones Are Helping Scientists Figure Out Whales’ Weight
Michael J. Moore, a biologist and director of the Marine Mammal Center at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, tells Jessica Leigh Hester of Atlas Obscura, body mass “tells you about the health of the animal, and in the context of its environment, it gives you a sense of how it’s doing nutritionally.”
Top of Mind with Julie Rose
Associate Scientist Joel Llopiz describes the vast, virtually unexplored ecosystem lurking beneath the surface of the ocean known as the twilight zone. It is deep enough that it hasn’t really been affected by humans yet. But commercial fishing companies are eyeing it now, so scientists who study the Twilight Zone are urging the UN to establish some rules for it soon. (segment begins at 23:08)
Is it too late to do anything about climate change?
