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Research Highlights

Oceanus Magazine

unlikely friendships

5 unlikely ocean friendships

May 24, 2024

How certain marine species keep each other safe, fed, and healthy through symbiosis

wind farm

Are offshore wind farms harming whales?

May 9, 2024

WHOI whale biologist Mark Baumgartner weighs in

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

News Releases

Whales may owe their efficient digestion to millions of tiny microbes

December 4, 2019

A study by researchers at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) shows that the microbial communities inside whales may play an important role in the digestion of one of the ocean’s most abundant carbon-rich lipids, known as a wax ester.

SeaWorld & Busch Gardens conservation fund commits $900,000 to protect critically endangered North Atlantic right whales

November 14, 2019

The funding provided by the SeaWorld Conservation Fund will be primarily used to test alternative non-lethal fishing gear.  Whales and sea turtles commonly entangle in ropes that connect crab or lobster traps on the sea floor to buoys on the sea surface.

Corals

New study measures how much of corals’ nutrition comes from hunting

September 17, 2019

A new study reveals that more of corals’ nutrients come from hunting than previously expected, information that may help predict the fate of coral reefs as global ocean temperatures rise.

Blue shark

Blue sharks use eddies for fast track to food

August 7, 2019

Blue sharks use large, swirling ocean currents, known as eddies, to fast-track their way down to feed in the ocean twilight zone—a layer of the ocean between 200 and 1000 meters deep containing the largest fish biomass on Earth, according to new research by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) and the Applied Physics Lab at the University of Washington (UW).

Basking shark

SharkCam reveals secret lives of basking sharks in UK

August 6, 2019

An autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) known as the REMUS SharkCam has been used in the UK for the first time to observe the behaviour of basking sharks in the Inner Hebrides, off the west coast of Scotland.

News & Insights

Predatory fish could lose 40 percent of habitat by 2100, study finds

August 9, 2023

Shark superpowers, science, and social media

July 27, 2023

MIT-WHOI Joint Program student Jaida Elcock celebrates Shark Week and shark awareness in this Q&A

Life In the Dark: The Polar Night

July 5, 2023

At the northernmost year-round research station in the world, scientists brave frigid temperatures and perpetual night to solve an ocean mystery. The team is trying to figure out how some of the tiniest animals survive at a time of year when their main food source is not available.

Deep Sea Parasites Flourishing in Marine Ecosystems

June 29, 2023

WHOI’s Jaida Elcock and Lauren Dykman explain why parasites may be a sign of ocean health

Dolphin moms use baby talk with their young

June 29, 2023