generally parallel to, and spaced apart from, the diaphragm 142. The conductive plate 252 and the diaphragm 142 form two plates of a variable capacitor 254. The capacitance of capacitor 254 is determined in part by the gap, or spacing between, the diaphragm 142 and the conductive plate 252. Since the diaphragm flexes up and down (thereby changing the spacing between diaphragm 142 and conductive plate 252) in response to pressure changes in tube 144, the capacitance of capacitor 254 is indicative of the pressure within tube 144.
FIG. 10 shows only one of the many known ways of configuring a capacitive pressure sensor 140. However, capacitive pressure sensors 140 generally include one or more conductors that are held in spaced relation to a flexible, conductive, diaphragm. The diaphragm“Extraordinary” amounts of toxic chemicals that were banned in the 1970s have been discovered in the bodies of sea creatures living at the bottom of the deepest ocean trench in the world.

Scientists were stunned to discover that such high levels of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and other persistent organic pollutants were to be found more than 10km (six miles) below sea level in the Mariana Trench in the Pacific Ocean. It is about 1,300km from the nearest major land mass, Japan.

And a similar situation was found about 7,000km away in the Kermadec trench, which is also more than 10km deep and about 1,500km north of New Zealand, the researchers reported in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution.

Dr Alan Jamieson, who led the study, said: “The fact that we found