Matt Rogers

It turns out that survival is a team sport, and it’s significantly more fun when it involves organized splashing. Ready for the next horizon. ⚓️ 🌊

A group of six people standing at the edge of an indoor training pool, dripping wet and smiling at the camera. In the background, the other half of the class is in the water surrounding a large, orange inflatable life raft.

Just wrapped STCW Basic Safety Training! There’s a specific kind of bond that forms when you and 11 others spend the week discussing maritime fire theory and then immediately transition to flipping life rafts together.

It was a humbling experience as my two teammates and I made our way through smoke-filled shipping containers in an effort to find and extinguish the blaze.

Freaking epic.

A man stands in full firefighting gear, including a respirator and helmet, looking toward the camera. Behind him, the industrial gray steel of a fire training shipping container provides a stark, professional backdrop.

Spent the day training in maritime firefighting. If you ever want to feel small, stand in a steel box while observing "flashover." 🚢🔥

It’s the moment a room gets so hot (approx 500-600°C) that exposed surfaces emit vapors and ignite simultaneously.

There’s an irony in traveling to other people’s idea of paradise to spend the week practicing how to escape sinking ships and extinguish fires. Oh well 💅

Updates from the life rafts soon! ⚓️

Touchdown in Phuket for STCW Basic Safety Training! 🏝️

This is one of the final core requirements for my transition into maritime work. Adding it to the stack alongside my #WFR, #RYA Powerboat Level 2, and Crowd Management certs.

The native bees finally got legal rights in Peru last month to protect their right to exist. I’m still waiting to see how a lawyer subpoenas a swarm of angry invasive hybrids.

In the 1950s, a lab experiment accidentally created “Africanized killer bees.” Oops. Today, they’re violently outcompeting the native, stingless bees of the Amazon. It’s like bringing a knife fight to a honey party. 🍯🥊

Can an AI Lawyer Save a Honeybee? 🐝 Reflecting on a 2.5-year-old debate, the "vicious cycle" of data invisibility, and why the stingless bees of Peru might need an AI mouthpiece.

Sometimes travel is really about being able to notice the invisible “glue” species—the ones that hold environments together—before the data gap loses them entirely. 🌿

withmattrogers.substack.com/p/i-was-wron...

Indigenous communities have used stingless bee honey as a natural pharmacy for centuries, yet because these weren’t on an “official” extinction list, they pretty much didn’t exist in the eyes of the law. No data = no funding. No funding = no protection.

So I guess sometimes the tools we dismiss are the only things loud enough to be heard by the law? 🐝⚖️

Two years ago, I argued in a grad debate that we should never communicate with robots. Now, I’m looking at bee-trained LLMs as an intriguing way to bridge the gap between ecological stressors and a human courtroom.

The Amazonian stingless bee was just granted legal rights in Peru. A world first! It’s a huge win, but how the heck does an insect testify?

Happy Boxing Day to all who celebrate boxfish.

The Eye of the Albatross: Rethinking Consciousness at the End of the World The idea that animals are unfeeling machines is an anomaly of Western science. In the Drake Passage, you don't see a 'something'—you see a 'someone'.

“We can never be certain if another being is conscious—you can’t even be 100% sure about other humans.” 🌊

If subjectivity is private, why has science been so quick to deny it to animals? I’m looking at how our view of animals changes when we assume we're seeing "someones" instead of "somethings."

#Wildlife #WildlifePhotography #Whale #HumpbackWhale #Antarctica

Spindle cells were once thought to be unique to humans and great apes. Finding them in whales suggests that complex social emotions and empathy evolved in the ocean far earlier than they did on land.

A dramatic wide-angle shot of two humpback whales simultaneously breaching in the frigid waters of Antarctica. The massive whales are captured mid-air, their dark, barnacle-encrusted bodies mostly out of the water, revealing the deep ridges of their white ventral pleats. Enormous splashes of white spray erupt around them. In the distance, the landscape is framed by low-lying grey clouds and the jagged, snow-dusted peaks of the Antarctic Peninsula.

A high-resolution, close-up shot of a humpback whale’s fluke (tail) as it lifts vertically out of the water before a deep dive. The underside of the fluke is visible, showing a unique pattern of stark white and black patches, resembling a marbled ink painting. The trailing edge is jagged with small, distinctive notches and scars. Water cascades off the tips of the fluke in thin, crystalline streams against the deep navy blue of the Southern Ocean.

A close-up identification shot of a second humpback whale’s fluke. Unlike the previous one, this fluke is predominantly dark charcoal grey with only a few small white flecks near the center. The "V" shaped notch in the middle of the tail is deep and sharp. The surface of the fluke is glistening with seawater, and small bits of ice are visible floating in the choppy, dark water in the foreground.

Humpbacks in the Southern Ocean cooperate on another level. 🐋 Their "bubble-net feeding" is a team sport requiring timing and intent. Given they have neural spindle cells—the same ones humans use for social cues—is their teamwork a sign of shared consciousness? 🌊

Those sounds are actually used to defend territories and navigate. Some scientists believe the seals might have a cognitive "map" of the ice that is more detailed than our GPS.

A long shot of a Weddell seal resting on a flat shelf of white sea ice in Antarctica. The seal has a plump, silver-grey body with dark spots and a small, blunt face with large, dark, expressive eyes. It appears to be looking to the horizon with a gentle, serene expression. In the background, the vast, frozen landscape meets a soft gray sky.

Weddell seals sound like 80s sci-fi synthesizers under the ice. They navigate dark Antarctic tunnels by "seeing" with sound. When you hear those chirps, you have to wonder: what’s the internal experience of mapping a frozen world through sound? ❄️🦭
#Antarctica #MarineLife #Nature #Bioacoustics

A majestic Black-browed Albatross in mid-flight over the dark, churning waters of the Drake Passage. The bird has a crisp white head and body with a signature dark, smoky "eyebrow" streak across its eyes, giving it a determined expression. Its long, slender wings are dark grey on top and stretched wide. The large, hooked beak is a vibrant yellow with a reddish-pink tip. In the background, the deep blue Southern Ocean is visible with white sea foam from the wind-whipped waves.

Absolutely captivated by this black-browed albatross floating over the Drake Passage. It was awesome to see them glide inches above the swells without even trying. Total masters of the Southern Ocean. 🦅✨

#BlueSkyScience #NaturePhotography #Antarctica #MarineLife

Abraham Lincoln allegedly said, "In the end, it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years.” Maybe it's cliche.

But science is beginning to show that it's actually true.

I wrote about it in this week's Substack. withmatt.substack.com/p/the-novelt...

Ah I see what you mean now that you mention it, but ultimately still stunning. I would love to get more into underwater photography with some better equipment than a GoPro alone.

That lighting! How does one know whether the crab is right- or left-handed? Is it the size of their claw?

The oddball effect: novel events slow perceived time. Maybe that explains why a single dive feels like a week. And why my 10 seconds photographing this aggressive clownfish felt like eternity. #diving

💡 Post-dive: Mystery solved when I removed my BCD. My weights were sitting right there… in an EMPTY tank holder. I was so focused on everyone else’s gear, I skipped my own final check. Lesson learned: The last gear you check is YOUR OWN. 🙏

Have you ever had a diving oversight like this? Tell me! 👇

💪 Crisis mode initiated. I remember I’d put emergency weights into my fellow DM’s pockets. I signal “weight” to her, she flashes back “cool!” 🤦‍♂️ I finally stop her, extract a weight from her pocket, and slip it into mine. Instant relief and a safe ascent secured. 😮‍💨 (3/4)

🚨 Mid-dive, I realize: I have ZERO weights in my BCD. My tank is getting lighter, and we’re nearing the surface where there’s heavy boat traffic. 🤯 k signal “weight” to my instructor, and he just shrugs like “figure it out.” Okay. Fine. (2/4)

*The time I forgot my weights on a dive in #Roatán*

🌊 I was helping a #Divemaster set up the boat, got everyone sorted, and back rolled in. Felt great, pointing out critters, keeping the group together from the back. Everything was normal until we started our turn… (1/4 #scuba #divelife

Merry Taskmas! We're piling three scoops of Taskmaster fun onto your plates this festive period. Champions of Champions 4 and a double helping of New Year Treat are all coming soon to Channel 4 and YouTube around the world. 

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