Each winter, large white sharks leave the California coast and swim halfway to Hawaii, congregating in an area known as the “White Shark Café.” By attaching a miniature video camera tag to a white shark’s fin, researchers at the Monterey Bay Aquarium and the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) hope to collect video footage that shows—for the first time ever—exactly what the sharks are doing out there.

During MBARI’s annual Day of Engineering, Science, and Technology, the staff presented new research and development to the institute’s board of directors. Wide-ranging presentations and a “tools of the trade” walking tour comprised this year’s special day, which focused on the theme “extending our reach”.

This week MBARI joins the Monterey Bay Aquarium, Science Friday, and other organizations in celebrating Cephalopod Week 2016.

In early June researchers from MBARI and the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary traveled to Sur Ridge to study the corals and sponges that grow on this fascinating underwater mountain.

This unusual hydrothermal vent is one of many discoveries from a Gulf of California expedition highlighted in the 2015 Annual Report. The publication also features several science and engineering projects conducted close to home in Monterey Bay and includes a preview of some of the institute's emerging technologies.

Engineer Thom Maughan created a lot of buzz at MBARI when he left a blue fiberglass shark fin in the upstairs lobby.

Five axes are better than three when it comes to milling parts for complex technology. Ray Thompson, MBARI’s machine shop supervisor, remarked that a 5-axis machine allows our scientists and engineers to “design around the technology”.

The smallest member of the MBARI seagoing fleet, the R/V Paragon, often runs multiple missions in a day.

Over the past week, a team of engineers from the Schmidt Ocean Institute (SOI) have been testing their new remotely operated vehicle (ROV), SuBastian, in MBARI’s test tank.

About a week ago, MBARI marine chemists Hans Jannasch and Ken Johnson went on a little boat ride, chasing an open-ocean profiling float that was drifting in the California Current, about 100 miles offshore.

MBARI Scientist Ken Johnson and his Chemical Sensors Group are part of a large collaborative effort to place sensors in the Southern Ocean to monitor changing conditions. The video explains the technology used in this project.

A large piece of surplus MBARI equipment will go a long way to helping some local students. In early March, MBARI donated a mill from its machine shop to nearby Monterey High School.

Some sea cucumbers may experience huge population booms following deep-sea “feasts.”

Researchers at MBARI have learned a lot about Monterey Bay using robotic submersibles to look deep below the bay’s surface. Now they can listen to the bay as well, using an ultra-sensitive underwater microphone.

The deep sea is full of strange and little-known worms. A new paper coauthored by MBARI molecular biologist Robert Vrijenhoek describes four newly named species of worms in the genus Xenoturbella that have mouths, but no eyes, brains, stomachs, or anuses.

MBARI research vessel Western Flyer will spend the first few months of 2016 in dry dock while two of its engines are rebuilt as part of their scheduled service.

On Friday, January 15, an event on the floor of Monterey Canyon triggered two sediment transport event detectors. A few days later, a benthic event detector, originally deployed at a depth of 200 meters in the canyon, drifted ashore in Santa Cruz.

MBARI has launched an entirely new version of our website, with expanded access to our data, technology, and research projects.

Underwater avalanches and turbidity currents carry huge amounts of sediment, organic material, and pollutants down submarine canyons and into the deep sea. Yet geologists know very little about how sediment moves during these events.

Submarine canyons are notoriously difficult to study because underwater avalanches periodically surge down the bottoms of many canyons, often burying or destroying scientific instruments.