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Research Highlights

Oceanus Magazine

How Does Toxic Mercury Get into Fish?

How Does Toxic Mercury Get into Fish?

October 1, 2010

Most everyone has heard by now that we should limit our consumption of certain fish because they accumulate high levels of toxic mercury. But nobody-not even scientists-knows how that toxic mercury gets into the ocean in the first place. Here’s…

Plastic Particles Permeate the Atlantic

Plastic Particles Permeate the Atlantic

August 20, 2010

Recent reports of a “Great Pacific Garbage Patch” in the subtropical waters of the North Pacific Ocean described a floating island as large as Texas—so thick that one could potentially walk on plastic debris for miles and miles. The image…

The Once and Future Corals

The Once and Future Corals

March 12, 2010
Bacterial 'Conversations' Have Impact on Climate

Bacterial ‘Conversations’ Have Impact on Climate

March 5, 2010

It’s wondrous how the vast and the infinitesimal combine to make our planet work. Scientists at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) have found that bacteria in the ocean, gathering in sort of “microbial block parties,” communicate and cooperate with each…

Ocean Acidification: A Risky Shell Game

Ocean Acidification: A Risky Shell Game

December 4, 2009

A new study has yielded surprising findings about how the shells of marine organisms might stand up to an increasingly acidic ocean in the future. Under very high experimental CO2 conditions, the shells of clams, oysters, and some snails and…

News Releases

Ben Van Mooy and a Sediment Trap

Microbe Dietary Preferences Influence the Effectiveness of Carbon Sequestration in the Deep Ocean

September 13, 2024

A series of seemingly small processes helps carry carbon dioxide from the ocean’s surface to the deep sea, where it can be stored away for decades.

Can adding iron to the ocean help it absorb CO2?

September 9, 2024

A newly published article spells out the work needed to assess the potential of ocean iron fertilization as a low cost, scalable, and rapidly deployable method of mCDR.

Open Ocean

Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Announces Shift of Ocean Alkalinity Enhancement Field Trials to Summer 2025

August 14, 2024

Change was made in response to changing ship availability and to resulting changes in ocean conditions later in the year

USVI Reef

WHOI Scientists ‘read’ the messages in chemical clues left by coral reef inhabitants

June 10, 2024

What species live in this coral reef, and are they healthy? Chemical clues emitted by marine organisms might hold that information

A Kids Book

Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Marine Chemist Authors ‘A Kids Book About Being a Scientist’

May 21, 2024

In his new book, A Kids Book About Being a Scientist, award-winning author and WHOI chemist Chris Reddy encourages young people to explore the world around them

News & Insights

Japan releases treated water from ruined nuclear plant

August 24, 2023

WHOI marine radiochemist Ken Buesseler weighs in on the discharge of wastewater from Fukushima

What happens to natural gas in the ocean?

October 6, 2022

WHOI marine chemist Chris Reddy weighs in on a methane leak in the Baltic Sea

Ocean Encounters: Ocean Pollution

March 2, 2022

In case you missed it… From plastic to oil spills, experts discuss ways to control ocean pollution in our last Ocean Encounters

The power of the ocean

December 23, 2021

An op-ed in the national news outlet The Hill by WHOI senior scientist Ken Buesseler reinforces the power and importance of the ocean in carbon dioxide removal strategies

Rapid microbial methanogenesis during CO2 storage in hydrocarbon reservoirs

December 22, 2021