"I have just returned from lecturing on a cruise ship in Antarctica. Every day, while we went ashore to gawp at penguins, our underwater experts deployed a Remotely Operated Vehicle that recorded life on the nearby seabed, below the depth where it is scoured by ice. For someone whose schooling in marine biology was based on line drawings in BEPS or, at best, pickled specimens in jars, the videos of underwater life presented in the ship's lounge in the evening were an eye-opener."