Troubled waters

In May, the American explorer and businessman Victor Vescovo piloted a submarine into the Mariana trench, descending almost 11km beneath the surface of the Pacific Ocean. His dive took him deeper underwater than any human has been before (albeit only breaking the previous record by a few metres). On his journey he discovered four new marine species and, at the bottom of the Earth’s deepest trench, thousands of kilometres from the nearest human population, a plastic bag.