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Over the last decade, researchers have learned a lot about the polar night — discovering everything from how tiny marine critters migrate up and down in the sea in response to the weak light of the moon, to seabirds that dive into the pitch-black ocean to feast on bioluminescent plankton and krill.

A previously overlooked factor — the position of continents — helps fill Earth’s oceans with life-supporting oxygen. 

Comprehensive data from several seasons of field research in the Alaskan Arctic will address uncertainties in Earth-system and climate-change models about snow cover across the region and its impacts on water and the environment.

Researchers have developed floating ‘artificial leaves’ that generate clean fuels from sunlight and water, and could eventually operate on a large scale at sea.

While funding is pumped into preventing low-probability scenarios such as asteroid collision, the far more likely threat of a large volcanic eruption is close to ignored – despite much that could be done to reduce the risks, say researchers.