EDITORIAL

摘要

As we head towards Christmas, it is not unusual to allow oneself a few indulgences. I have done so in this issue, but I hope that they are treats we can all share. Back in the 1970s, I was an undergraduate at the University of St Andrews and spent my final (fourth since it is a Scottish university) year at the Gatty Marine Laboratory undertaking an investigation into the righting mechanism of Brittle Stars. A few decades later(!!), in the summer of this year, I came across work on using NIR spectroscopy to investigate the physiology of seals during diving; also carried out at the Gatty. This was featured in the News in our June/July issue earlier this year. I wanted to bring readers some more detail, and Chris Knight at St Andrews kindly agreed to help. As well as the versatility of NIR spectroscopy, I was amazed at the technical achievements involved in placing a spectrometer on a seal without harming it and recording data underwater.