FROM THE EDITOR
The deep sea is an alien place. It seems that almost every trip to the ocean floor returns with the discovery of a new creature, structure or process that baffles scientists. That’s because, until now, it’s been too challenging to catalogue everything that’s down there. The extreme pressure means we’re limited to brief visits, and with 71 per cent of the Earth’s surface covered in salt water, there’s a lot of area to cover. It seems that might all be about to change. A cocktail of new missions and state-of-the-art technology will enable us to explore the ocean like never before. Robotic explorers will chart the ocean floors and its inhabitants, while research tools like environmental DNA will let us monitor biodiversity in totally unprecedented ways. But it’s a race against…
