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On the hunt for 370 million year old fossil

29 September 2016

The first of these adaptive radiations ocurred 370 million years ago, when the earliest tetrapods modified their fins into legs and emerged onto dry land. By 250 million years ago this process had reversed, and the tetrapod walking limb was once again remodeled into a fin for a return to life in the sea. But what was it that drove vertebrates to leave the water 370 million years ago? And why did some reptiles return to the water 150 million years later?

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Can we break the ice?

13 September 2016 | Martin Heyn

Ice is a complicated and very fascinating material. If you freeze water at home in a freezer, you get a very solid ice cube, that is wonderful to use in a cold drink. This is already the first surprising property of ice; it swims on top of water.

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This is how researchers reveal the history of the Arctic

12 September 2016

The sediment on the sea floor is like an archive, it reveals past environmental conditions in the the Arctic history. The researcher Grace Shephard is now on board icebreaker Oden on the Arctic Ocean 2016 expedition, and she explains how they collect samples of sediment to be able to see what the Arctic conditions was millions of years ago and how it has changed until today.

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Sun dog physics

10 September 2016 | Ian Brooks

Summer in the central Arctic Ocean is usually overcast and grey, with low cloud or fog being present for more than 90 % of the time. Occasionally, however, the sun does come out, and when it does it can sometimes be spectacular.

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Measuring aerosol particles

3 September 2016 | Piotr Kupiszewski

Part of the meteorological work package on board Oden involves measuring the properties of aerosols, i.e. tiny particles suspended in the air. Aerosols are very important for the climate because they act as nuclei on which cloud droplets and ice crystals form.

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Seismic lines

27 August 2016 | Åsa Lindgren

The last couple of days, we have been busy with seismic lines. This means that Oden is breaking ice in straight lines through heavy, massive ice with ridges while the Canadian icebreaker Louis S. St-Laurent is following and shooting off seismic signals.

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Radiosonde hacking

23 August 2016 | Lars Lehnert

As part of our research programme during the Arctic Ocean 2016 expedition we were planning to launch meteorological radiosondes every six hours, with the data being used both for research and sent to the EUMETNET service for use in initialising forecast models. Unfortunately, the receiver of the sounding system failed at the beginning of our expedition.

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