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Research Highlights

Oceanus Magazine

Will More Acidic Oceans Be Noisier?

Will More Acidic Oceans Be Noisier?

October 8, 2010

In 2008, a group of marine chemists raised a red flag: As the ocean becomes more acidic over the next century, they said, noise from ships will be able to travel farther and possibly interfere with whales and other animals…

A Titanic Tale

A Titanic Tale

September 2, 2010

<!– –> In June of 1985, news came that Bob Ballard aboard the research vessel Knorr had found the RMS Titanic. Almost immediately, the rumors started that an expedition from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) would go back to the…

A Robot Is Resurrected at Sea

A Robot Is Resurrected at Sea

May 5, 2010

Barely a month after the undersea robot ABE imploded and was lost in the depths, ABE’s “son,” Sentry, suffered fire and flooding that destroyed critical internal components. But a team of engineers rallied to rebuild its electronics at sea and…

R.I.P.  A.B.E

R.I.P.  A.B.E

March 19, 2010

A pioneering deep-sea exploration robot—one of the first successful submersible vehicles that was both unmanned and untethered to surface ships—was lost at sea March 5, 2010, on a research expedition off the coast of Chile. The Autonomous Benthic Explorer, affectionately…

A Robot Starts to Make Decisions on its Own

A Robot Starts to Make Decisions on its Own

February 22, 2010

It’s a lot easier to send a bloodhound to track a criminal, or your kid to pick up groceries, than it is to get a deep-sea robot to find something on the seafloor. The dog will pick up the scent…

News Releases

Streaming off the ice shelf

WHOI receives $1.6 Million to build revolutionary Antarctic ice shelf monitoring system

August 13, 2024

SAMS will operate autonomously for years in hostile, difficult-to-reach locations that are Ground Zero for global sea-level rise

Researchers improve satellite surveillance of emperor penguins

May 29, 2024

New method will provide accurate counts and breeding success of the threatened species in the light of climate change

Sargassum Patch

Study Clearly Identifies Nutrients as a Driver of the Great Atlantic Sargassum Belt

October 11, 2023

Findings could lead to locating nutrient sources and providing management options

El Gordo hydrothermal chimney

WHOI tapped by NSF to lead OOI Program Management for an Additional Five Years

September 21, 2023

The OOI collects and serves measurements from more than 900 autonomous instruments on the seafloor and on moored and free-swimming platforms.

The Shared Autonomy for Remote Collaboration (SHARC)

A new framework for oceanographic research

August 24, 2023

The Shared Autonomy for Remote Collaboration (SHARC) framework “enables remote participants to conduct shipboard operations and control robotic manipulators.

News & Insights

A robot lives in this Antarctic penguin colony. It’s trying to save them

May 6, 2022

Fisherman strengthen science

January 27, 2022

Fishing community and OOI scientists unite to study how the ocean is changing & what it means for global fishing industries

WHOI builds bridges with Arctic Indigenous communities

February 10, 2021

NSF program fosters collaboration between indigenous communities and traditional scientists, allowing WHOI’s autonomous vehicles to shed light on a changing Arctic

WHOI-assisted study finds ocean dumping of DDT waste was “sloppy”

October 29, 2020

An investigative report this week in the LA Times features the work of WHOI’s marine geochemistry lab in identifying the discarded barrels and analyzing samples from the discovery.

DUNEX Pilot Program map allows you to explore an intensive coastal study

July 6, 2020

DUNEX is a multi-agency, academic and stakeholder collaborative community experiment to study nearshore processes during coastal storms. Use this ArcGIS map to learn more about all the project sites along the North Carolina coastline.