01x06 - The Mind of Mattie Rodrigue, Oceanic Inspiration

[bunniefuu]

At yellow bridge, yeah,
you have a green deck.

To me, the ocean represents
the health of our entire planet.

But also, it holds
such mysteries.

There's so much that we
don't know about the ocean

that every time I think about
ocean science and exploration,

I have this sense of
urgency to get out there

and to explore the vastness
of what we don't know.

OceanX is one of the most
technologically advanced operations

on the planet, exploring
the depths of the ocean

and discovering colors, shapes, and
creatures we never knew existed.

And Mattie Rodrigue is the scientific
mind charting into the unknown.

Her curiosity is relentless,

the kind that inspires
new breakthroughs.

Oh, my God! Holy, that's a
lot of 'em. Can we circle?

Yeah, absolutely.

The
exploration, working with genetics,

and how important having people care
about the oceans and what goes on in them.

But it seems like the impulse to
investigate the ocean from science,

but the searching of the depths
seems more technologically recent.

We need to discover what's
in the bottom of the ocean.

Oh, my God.

We founded Arch Motorcycle
to challenge the perception

of what an American
motorcycle could be.

Our ambition is to create a
beautiful, aesthetically interesting,

seductive machine
that you can ride.

Curiosity has been our
lifeblood since the beginning,

and we're fueled by far more than just
a passion for designing motorcycles.

Arch is a mindset,

a lens through which
to see the world.

This is a quest
for inspiration.

To witness visionaries
pushing the bounds of innovation,

to understand why
inspiration strikes

and where human
creativity comes from.

Technology is often
the gateway to innovation.

Working with cutting-edge tools
and the minds who know them best

opens the door to
what's possible.

It's March 22nd, 2022.

We're in Turbenthal,
Switzerland at Suter Industries,

and we're here for the first
fire-up of our new and first...

- As of yet named engine.
- ...named power plant.

- The Arch...
- Something.

Something... engine.

Looks okay.

How you doing, man?

It's running.

- We heard some noise.
- Yeah.

Sounds good.

Sounds good.

Each successful test is a step
closer to creating the technology

that will change the
future of Arch Motorcycle.

And while we're talking about
innovation on the Arch scale...

on board the OceanXplorer,

new technology is changing
the world of ocean exploration

and paving the way for
scientific discoveries.

Let me know
when we're de-energized, please.

De-energized.

Copy de-energized.

The vessel that OceanX operates
is called the OceanXplorer,

and it is the most advanced,
cutting-edge research and media platform

the world has ever seen.

The ship itself,
it's 87 meters long.

Every single deck has
a different purpose.

We've got deep-sea research
and exploration equipment,

so two manned submersibles that bring
humans down to just over 3,000 feet.

And we also have remotely
operated vehicles

to help us explore
even deeper than that.

It has a helicopter
to survey the skies.

It has acoustic sonars to map entire
ecosystems just by using sound.

And it has labs on board where we
can bring all the samples, the data,

everything that we need to actually
understand what the species are,

whether they're brand-new that have
never been seen or discovered before,

right there on board.

So all the way underneath the
seafloor, the whole seafloor itself,

all of the things
living on the seafloor,

the water column, everything
living in the water column,

everything living in the
shallows and the surface,

and then the air and
everything living in between.

And putting that picture all together
and getting a comprehensive view

on what actually is that
environment and what we're seeing,

and then how it might
change for the future.

So the total depth is gonna be...
You can see up here, it's 52 meters.

So that's gonna be the bottom.

Like, 99% of my job on the ship
involves me going to an area

that no human being on the
planet has ever seen before.

Most of the planet is ocean, but only
about 2% has ever actually been seen.

So that is a vast, unexplored space.
We have no idea what's in there.

There's so much that we
don't know about the ocean.

It holds such mysteries.

What actually lives there, and are
there medicinal cures down there?

Is there a species that has a
crazy shape or a crazy adaptation

that could help us with
our own adaptations,

which are gonna be critical for the
health of our species on this planet?

There's limitless
potential in the oceans.

The issue is how
do we get there,

what's there, get there and protect
it before it gets destroyed.

When I started at OceanX, I
started as a research analyst.

Now I'm our science program
director. It's gone okay.

But I will say that every day
is the most humbling experience

and also the most
exciting experience.

It's humbling because you come
face-to-face on the front lines

of the global challenges
that are facing the ocean

and the existential threats
to our existence as a species.

And for the coring,
we are using sub-team and…

Sub-team and R&V team.

- And R&V.
- Yeah.

Okay, I gotta go.

- Thank you, guys.
- Okay. Good luck now, then.

Yeah, thank you.

As the science director
for the organization,

my job is kind of two-fold.

I work with our shore-based
team to do research

and do mission planning for the
areas that we're gonna go to.

So all over the world, wherever the ship
is going, I'm designing a mission plan.

I work with heads of state

and other government agencies
in the areas that we go to.

We work with local scientists and
we design research expeditions

on board the vessel
OceanXplorer.

So that is the other
part of my job.

It sounds a lot more
graceful than it feels like

when I'm running
around the ship.

So we're on our way to the
first mapping location,

and then we'll also take a
Niskin sample here at the start.

I'll be looking for the
biological organisms as well.

So invertebrates,
mollusks, sponges,

different types of things
for the suction sampler.

- Okay.
- Yeah.

Let's do it.

Mattie has a view of the overall
plan and objectives for science.

She'll come to me
and say, "Look, Dave,

we need to do... this is
the plan for the dive.

The scientists want this, the plan
of action for the sequence of events

for the day to get the
most out of the dive."

- Bye, guys.
- Bye!

Bridge SO, standing
by to lift nadir.

The potential for understanding our very
future on this planet and our survival

100% is gonna be
found in the ocean.

When you descend...

the way that light penetration works
in the ocean is the deeper you go,

the less light you have until
the light disappears entirely.

When you're descending
into that total darkness...

you feel, like, overwhelmed.

It gets darker and
darker and darker.

And it's you, the other
passenger, and the pilot.

That's it. It's the three of you
exploring completely in the unknown.

You're about to see for the first time
something that no one else has seen,

and you're not just gonna
be seeing it on camera.

You are gonna be there.

There's so much that
we don't know about the ocean.

There are so many solutions

for the problems that we
face in our very existence.

There's been a ton of critical
drug development for diseases

that have been found
in things like sponges.

So there's so many tools
and pieces of technology

that have been conceived basically
based on observations of something crazy

that we've seen in the ocean.

Nature is always
inspiring innovation.

Even if you, like, think
down to the very core

of the shape of what things
are, shape is everything.

Entire architectural designs
have been based on concepts

that can be found in nature.

Human innovations, human creativity
can be found and inspired by

everything in the natural world.

The ocean is our
biggest shared resource.

Why would we not wanna
understand what's there?

Most of Mattie Rodrigue's
work is done in the deep sea.

But it's here in a marine biodiversity lab
that she makes sense of all she discovers.

Welcome to the ocean
in jars.

- Ocean in jars?
- Yeah!

Every time something gets
collected out in the ocean...

- Gets put in a jar?
- Yeah, it gets put in a jar.

Basically that's how we find out
whether it's a new species or not.

Yeah, so all of these are our
specimen that are actually...

they've been preserved by the
Museum of Natural History.

They have, like, millions
of specimen here.

For me, like, I'm out in the field
collecting and sampling and studying,

so you have to send it to a museum,
and that's how we figure out

why it was where it was, how it
lives, how it spends its day to day.

And then they put their museum
stamp on it and it's a new species.

- Then it exists.
- Yeah, and then it exists.

And we have a better
understanding of our ocean.

- To us.
- Yeah, to us. To our eyes.

- It's official.
- Yeah.

These are just some
examples of some critters

that I pulled out because
I thought they were cool.

So his shell is made of one of the
strongest substances found on the planet,

which is chitin, which
is also what is used...

- Chitin?
- Yeah. A lot of products

and a lot of structures use the same
thing, the same type of substance

found their inspiration
from things like these crabs

to then make these
really strong structures.

But look how much he does not
wanna be eaten by other animals.

- No, he's like, "No, not today. Not me."
- Yeah, exactly.

These animals have
developed these adaptations.

They really do not wanna be
messed with by other animals.

- They wanna be predators, not prey.
- Well, they were bullied for so long.

And then some kind of trait in
a Darwinian sense of a mutation

- was capitalized, and then...
- Yeah.

- Oh, my gosh.
- Yeah.

Essentially, yes.

A unique thing
about urchin is that

some of them are incredibly
long-living as well.

Something like this, for example, these
can live, you know, over 300 years,

- between 150-300 years.
- Wow.

And there's a group that's
looking at the properties of aging

and really understanding what
makes them able to live so long.

And can that be applied to our
own questions about longevity?

I guess our relationship from
studying nature to creating other...

for lack of... I'm gonna
say "things" or "products"

- and other ways to do things...
- Yeah. Like biomimicry, kind of?

Biomimicry, or just...
What are the...

Even other kinds
of... not patinas,

but, like, how do we create these
other colors or other kinds of paint?

- Yeah.
- Or why do we...

I mean, it's just a
terrible question.

- No, it's a great question!
- But, I mean, in terms... Like,

I'm sure we're finding all of these
kinds of things about minerals, and...

I don't know. I'm just...
Let's look at something else.

No, it's happening all the
time. That's a great question.

- No, it's happening all the time.
- No, okay.

I'm confident that solutions
to those types of big problems,

those big human problems,
are found in the ocean,

and we're finding new ways of
innovating from the ocean all the time.

There are cures for diseases
that can be found in the ocean.

The green fluorescent protein
in coral or in jellyfish

can be used in biomedical fields to
light up parts of the human brain.

- Mmm!
- Yeah. So it happens

all the time, all the time.
It's not a dumb question.

It happens all the
time, all the time.

Every day at work for
me is seeing something

that no human being
has ever seen before.

And I see something
new every time.

So we just don't know
anything about the ocean

and about how it works and about
what creatures are found there.

I know from, you know,
like, a design perspective

that's inspired by things from
nature that when you look at it,

it's such an amazing thing
that nature has created

that we haven't figured
out how to reproduce.

It was cool just to spend time and
hear just how the natural world...

You know, the idea of adapting

and the variety of species and how
they can live in different environments

and how little we
know about it all.

Nature is constantly
adapting and constantly evolving.

I have to believe that we as a
species are gonna find the solution

against our own
demise on this planet,

right here in our own ocean.

For Mattie Rodrigue,
growing up in the Arizona desert

created a fascination
with the world around her,

one that took root very far from
the oceans she now explores.

So I grew up in a
suburb outside of Phoenix.

It is in the middle of the
Sonoran Desert.

It is dry. It is hot.

Whenever I come back to land,
I always come home to Arizona

to see my family, but then also to get
some elevation, to get some perspective.

Coming out here, it
reminds me of really, like,

why I started doing what I do.

Seeing all of the wildlife around,
seeing all of the different species

and seeing all of the different ways
that they have learned how to adapt

and survive to these really,
really harsh environments.

Walking somewhere and having
the destination be different

from where you started,
that's exploration.

That's why I do what I do, but
it's also why I always come home,

because I always come back
to what first inspired me,

what first really, really drove me to
get out and to take risks and to explore.

We're doing this, like,
big home reno thing,

so there's a lot of, like, cleaning out
my childhood home closet at the moment,

and so we're going through
a bunch of pictures.

Growing up, I was
always curious.

I just always remember
needing to know things.

And, you know, we
had a dog growing up,

and I would be taking notes about what
the dog was doing, like his behavior.

And my parents would call it,
like, "Mattie worrying face."

'Cause I would wrinkle my
brow and I'd think really hard about

all the things that were
happening outside and around,

and I would just wanna know.

My mom got me a little
microscope when I was little,

so I would bring
stuff in the house.

Looking at weird, cool
bugs really early on.

Now I work with the most
advanced technology on the planet

to uncover brand-new species
and new geological features,

and it's actually
completely wild

how similar that feeling was
to when I was a little kid,

when I was running around with
that little yellow microscope.

This one is really special.

This is, like, my first memory
of actually seeing the ocean.

I was digging around in the
beach for invertebrates.

That was, like, the first
time that I was like,

"Okay, like, being a
scientist is a thing.

Like, it's a career. Like,
I could totally do that."

Looking through all these is...
it's a little overwhelming.

Um...

I think I've always been really lucky
and really privileged in my life.

And I just had this, like...

North Star kind
of, like, feeling.

It had to be science.

And looking at all these photos, I'm like,
"Oh, wow, like, actually all the things

that I've done have laid the foundation
for, like, who I am and how I am

and why I'm able to do this crazy,
crazy, epic, awesome job with OceanX."

And for someone to be able to say
that, it's a pretty lucky person.

So, yeah. Pretty
lucky.

Once Mattie found the
water, it became her obsession.

During graduate school,
she conducted research

around fish conservation
and worked with fisheries.

I finished graduate
school, I had these degrees

in marine biology, marine
policy, two master's degrees,

and I ended up working at NOAA, National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

It was the first time that
I really saw the import

of what it was that I was
doing on a global scale.

Come on, fish.

I think there's this
misperception that

in order to tackle global
problems and challenges,

you have to be this age, or
you have to be this stereotype.

What really I hope changes
is this perception that

just because you're young, you
can't have a global impact.

It feels so awesome
being out here.

And I get to stand on
land! And be in the water!

What a time.

All right, Mattie, we're
dropping down about 500 feet.

Turning on course.

All right, we're at
500 feet. On course.

- Copy that.
- Let me know if you see anything.

We're gonna be looking
for whales, dolphins, sharks,

things today that might
be a little challenging.

It's not just we're looking at
every layer of the actual ocean

underneath the surface,

but we're also looking at
everything that exists in the air.

So all of the things that you can only
see effectively using aerial surveys.

So lifting off on the
helicopter and driving around

and looking for
whales, for turtles.

Looking at the extent of coral
reefs, looking for seagrass beds.

All these critical
components to understanding

this full picture
of the environment.

It's super important
to get up in the air

and get a little bit of
perspective about the environment.

One of our scientific objectives is to do
these transects, these aerial transects,

to do a standardized
search for megafauna.

So whales, dolphins, large
sharks, large rays, turtles.

There's never really been a baseline
aerial survey for megafauna in Indonesia.

When you go and explore, it's
this great mystery to me,

and you never know
what you're gonna see.

And that to me is the embodiment
of my curiosity, essentially,

is what I'm doing and how I'm
exploring in the ocean space.

You cover so much more distance.

You see so much more
about the environment.

You see where habitats
change from coastal to deep.

It helps me really design from the
air all the way down to 6,000 meters

what we need to be achieving
with our scientific operations.

Ah, fish!

- Can we circle?
- Yeah, absolutely.

Seeing that fish in the area, also
right next to the ship, really,

is a really good sign for the
health of the overall area.

I am a scientist, but I am
also very much an explorer.

I have always been really, really curious
about the natural world around me,

and that just fires all of
those chemicals in your brain

that just brings you that feeling
that makes you feel invincible,

that makes you feel like
you can do anything.

if there's a lot of fish,

- there's gotta be something chasing 'em.
- That's right.

- Hopefully it's something big.
- I know!

Where are you, exactly?

We are in Batam.

So, we're in Indonesia.

We just came over from where
the ship was in Singapore.

OceanX founder, Ray
Dalio, and his son, Mark,

put their resources
behind it all,

with the belief that Mattie's
discoveries can impact

all facets of human life.

So, what are we doing
now, this morning?

So the first leg of this mission

is really focused
on paleoclimatology,

geology, and extreme
environments.

So, one of the main themes
is hydrothermal vents.

So, we have to do the
search area first.

And we're gonna use the mapping,

and our sub-bottom profiler,
which looks underneath the seabed.

And then we're gonna
be looking at the data

in real time, to see if we can see
plumes in the acoustic data sets.

So it's like a whole...
a whole orchestra,

that we're trying
to pull off here.

Make sure you get great
shots of the hydrothermal...

- Yeah.
- Yeah, I mean,

because that's really exciting.

Just imagine,

72% of the world's
surface is the ocean.

And the highest point on Earth

is equal to the deepest depths,

so, the water level
is about halfway up.

And that means that
there's this whole area

that's more than twice the
size of all continents combined

that is not explored.

So you'd have to... you
know, we have to explore it.

We have to show it.

And of course, it's invaluable.

So it's a... you know,
it's a good thing to do,

and it's an exciting
thing to do.

While we're at sea, we're not just
exploring and collecting data.

We're actually making real
discoveries along the way.

And we do that using tools like
environmental DNA sequencing,

so... or whole
genome sequencing.

So, you know, taking a sample of
something that we don't know what it is,

and then reassembling its entire
genome right there on board.

And then getting a full
picture of what that animal is,

and whether it's
brand-new to science.

Those discoveries include brine
pools 5,000 feet below the surface.

And a rare jellyfish
lake in Indonesia.

These world-changing discoveries

empower Dalio Philanthropies
to support sub dives

like the one Mattie
is leading today.

This is gonna be good!

Here at a depth
of over 2,000 feet,

Mattie utilizes scaling
lasers to determine the size

of the specimens
she's observing,

while also collecting sediment to
bring back to the lab for testing.

- Find a spot for scoops?
- Yeah.

Some fine sediment you've
brought us to, Dave.

- So, we're here.
- Yep.

And then we need to
go to this spot here,

and take two more cores.

Okay.

- Oh, look at the blue bioluminescence.
- Oh!

- Did you see that?
- Yeah.

- There's some weird stuff down here.
- Yeah, there is.

Yeah. This is so cool.

It's honestly like being on
the surface of another planet,

except that there's life
everywhere we're looking.

Wow!

It's incredible seeing all
these organisms down here.

Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh!

- A Dumbo! It looks like a Dumbo.
- Octopus.

Yeah.

Look at it.

Do you know how rare that is?

Right there.

Dumbo octopus.

Just, like, gliding along.

When you get to
your target depth,

there is absolutely
no feeling like it.

You feel enormous.

You feel invincible.

You want to spend the rest
of your life down there

just looking at that
one little piece.

And then you remember, oh, crap,

I actually designed
this entire dive plan,

and I need to make sure I
hit all of these checkpoints,

so I can actually
characterize this habitat.

So we've gotta get moving.

Whoa. Whoa.

- Do you see that?
- Yeah.

Oh, my God.

- Is that an isopod?
- Ah... okay...

Oh, it's a giant one.

There's literally
one in every hole.

They're terrifying.

Far beneath
the ocean's surface,

seeing something new is what makes
Mattie's wheels turn creatively,

and inspires her to ask more
questions about what a new creature

could mean for life on Earth.

These are the
craziest deep-sea scavengers.

They've adapted to
survive crushing pressure.

I've never seen
one alive before.

I've only seen them in jars.

There's one up there,
and two in that hole.

Do you think that's what
all these holes are?

This is insane.

Growing up in Arizona,

there's something that
you learn as a kid,

where you never, like, put
your hand in the burrow.

There's probably
something in there,

it probably isn't going
to like you very much.

But now it's, like, completely
the opposite for me.

Like, in the sub or the ROV,
if I see, like, these kinds

of, like, burrows on the ground,

usually something totally awesome
is going to be inside those burrows.

What the...

What the hell is that?

Yeah, come in closer.

We got the weird thing!

One alien abduction.

Look at that.

I've never seen some of the
different types of animals

and organisms that
we're seeing down here.

And I think, for me, being able

to be completely immersed in nature
is the most inspiring thing for me.

I feel like I need to be
submerged here in this space,

and to be in this environment,

to really continue to
drive my own curiosity,

and my own passion,
and my own outlook,

on how nature can
inspire innovation, even.

We might get some
flash back, Dave.

Okay.

Go ahead.

Eee! Okay, ready.

Three, two, one. Flash.

Flash. Open your eyes.

Oh, my God.

- Oh, my God.
- How about that?

What the hell?

This is so awesome.

Subs have thrusters,

and so when the pilots
use the thrusters,

you see bioluminescence,
the light,

the animals that
make their own light.

Suddenly, you're in this orb,

and there's just a light
show happening around you.

There's so much life
in this water column.

I feel like I'm just going
through the stars right now.

Oh!

For me, like, there's
been several sub dives

that I've been so overwhelmed
that I've actually, like, cried,

because what we've
seen down at depth,

and what we've gotten to
experience is so powerful,

and just reminds me so
fully why I do what I do,

and the importance of what our
team and our organization is doing.

It's powerful.

It's incredibly,
incredibly powerful.

Like, we're just
doing one descent,

and we're seeing all of this,
and it makes me feel very small.

Just knowing how much
else is out there.

This is the first dive.

- Yeah.
- You set the bar really high.

You're at the surface for a little
while, until they recover you,

and you're thinking
about your dive,

and it's an incredible feeling to
be able to process all of that,

and to say, okay,
like, wow, like,

I... I just made history in my
very, like, small, personal way,

but I just made history, that I was
the first person to ever see that.

Mattie was saying that
when she's on the ship,

she gets to see, oftentimes,
and more often than most,

just things that people
have never seen before.

- That was incredible.
- Oh, yeah?

Hundreds
of giant isopods.

Maybe that creates even more
curiosity, or something.

Something that catches
you, draws you in,

and then you want to
know more about it.

I could relate to that.

I think the more I get to learn,

even in our industry,

the more interested I am
in pursuing, you know,

more information about things,

so that's at the heart of
the spirit of exploring.

And curiosity opens
the doors creatively,

because it spurs
you to go further,

and do more, and learn more.

Mattie grew up in the desert,

didn't really have any
contact with the ocean,

but somehow was drawn to it, so.

Yeah, a
childhood curiosity.

That led her creativity to
this pretty amazing opportunity

she has to be
sitting in that seat,

to be able to discover things

- that nobody's discovered yet.
- Mm-hmm.

I mean, we're...
we're primitive,

- compared to that, but...
- Our little ship here.

Yeah, our little
ship, Arch, HMS Arch.

Hey, Mattie!

Hi, Gard.

- How are you?
- Good, I'm good.

It's a little crazy this morning,
but I'm doing really good.

- How are you?
- I'm good.

I'm sorry to interrupt,
but where are you?

Um, so, we're just north
of Banda Aceh in Indonesia.

Have you seen
anything that's...

inspiring or new to you?

Okay, this is gonna
blow your mind.

So, I had a sub
dive the other day,

and we saw... it
looked totally alien,

it looks like it could
just latch on to you,

and, like, grow inside
your body, basically.

So, how many of these little,
like squid-things were you seeding?

There were
thousands of them.

- Wow.
- Yeah.

How do you think
all of these experiences,

and all of this information,

discovering all of
these new things,

feeds the idea of
human creativity,

and how it affects it?

Yeah, I mean that's
a big question.

That's definitely something
I think about a lot,

just, especially
because of where we are

being on the front
lines of seeing things

that aren't currently part of the
shared human experience, right?

So, like, for hundreds of years,

science and scientists could think
that an animal behaves one way,

and you do one sub dive,

and you see it in its
natural environment,

and suddenly the whole hypothesis
is completely flipped on its head.

Maybe you're finding...

part of what you're doing
is finding more questions

while you're finding
some answers, yes?

Yeah, that's exactly it.

And I guess the hope is that
people get even more excited

because of the questions, right?

And people get
more enthusiastic,

because we're finding
answers to lots of things,

and we're finding new species,

and new, you know, observations

on weather phenomenon,

climate phenomenon,
geological formations.

But then all of, then, the
new questions that we have,

then, hopefully, that is
what, like, really excites

and inspires the next generation
of researchers to say, okay,

now they've set this,

they've taken us along this far,

like, what can we learn,
and observe, and do next?

Well, I know,
for me, that, you know,

having this experience of meeting
you and learning a little bit

about OceanX has
definitely made me

more curious,

and more interested in it,
so, thank you for that.

Yay, that's awesome,
I love to hear that.

On this journey to
understand human creativity,

it's natural to
focus on artists,

and to discount the
scientific world.

But it's here at the
boundaries of human existence

that innovators
like Mattie Rodrigue

discover new ways to
view the world around us.

So, sorry, I just want to
show you, just the creepy crawly guy.

- Oh, you like creepy-crawlies!
- Isn't that cool? Yeah.

- Isn't that cool?
- Look, look, look!

Do you want to see
the creepy-crawly?

Look, they just got bigger,

- look at the bigger creepy-crawly.
- Look at...

This guy can live all the way
at the bottom of the ocean.

- Let's see.
- Look at this.

What is it? What's
the abyssal...

This is an isopod, it can
live in the hadal zone.

- In the hadal zone, in the trench.
- Yeah.

In the trench.
Aren't they creepy?

Why do I have,
like, this primeval thing

where I'm just like, ewwwww!

I did the same thing
with a centipede.

Massive.

It's big.

And then I pulled out this one,
because I just thought it was cool.

What's... what is it?

- It's a fireworm.
- A fireworm?

This is a
fireworm, look at...

can you see the mouth?

I would not want to
encounter one of those.

No!

Like, a worm that can actively
swim towards you in the water.

I mean, we
think of the ocean...

- Yeah.
- ...you know, and the unknown depths.

And we think of the ocean of the
self, and the ocean of the mind.

What is the primeval
aspect of, like, ewwww!

And these guys were found in
the Pacific, so they're super,

super volatile environments.

And so only these extremophiles
can survive there,

because they're
ultra, ultra hot.

Are you an extremophile?

This is a mantis shrimp.

- Have you heard of these guys?
- It's an alien.

The mantis shrimp, is that the
one that has a thing that can...

- Yes.
- ...break through the shells

- of snails and other kinds of...
- Exactly.

The punch, like, breaks
the sound barrier.

- That's the headline.
- That's the headline.

But what a lot of people don't
know about mantis shrimp,

they're made up of so many
colors on their exoskeleton

that we don't even... we can't
identify those colors with our...

- No, no, no, no, no.
- Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

- No, what does that mean?
- Yeah, it means...

- It's an orange. It's a red. It's a blue.
- We did... no, no.

There are colors that they... and
they can see with their special,

specialized eyes, they
can see those colors.

- What?
- Yeah.

What does that even... What?

So they're seeing different light spectra
that we're not seeing, but then also...

We can't even
comprehend them with...

No, come on, serious...

With the sensors
that we have... We can't.

- We have no...
- Oh, I see.

So if you do other spectrographs on them,
you will see other wavelengths reflected

that we can't see
with our naked eye.

- Yeah, and that...
- But that, in the marine world,

can identify.

This animal can, in
the marine world.

Yeah. Easy.

I've read that there's just
discoveries in different bacteria,

different viruses.

There's a kind of classification system
that's going to that level as well, right?

- Yeah, exactly.
- With those kinds of species.

- Yeah.
- Or whatever you want to call it.

Mostly it's in the
areas that we've never explored

that we're the most likely
to find something new.

- Of course.
- And then,

there's new... we find
things that can do new things

that we never knew
existed all the time,

- like bacteria...
- Right.

...that only eat magnesium,

or like bacteria
that can eat plastic,

- or bacteria that can eat oil.
- Right.

Right. So, those
types of discoveries

are, like, really
encouraging. Yeah.

All right, I'm really like,
okay, let's go eat some plastic.

Yeah, exactly.

But what I wanted to show you
is this lattice structure.

- This is a sock, right?
- It's...

This is like... This is
when I broke my finger.

- Yeah.
- Okay.

So what is this? What
is this categorized?

- What is this? This...
- Yeah, so this is a glass sponge.

- It's a sponge.
- Yeah.

This... You can touch
it if you want to.

Um, but essentially,
these structures,

you can see it's
this perfect lattice.

And it's basically, it's giving
the whole animal the shape

of the actual structure.

So it can withstand
these big currents.

So it's bending, but it's not
actually fracturing or breaking.

You can get it really good...
in this microscope here.

If you come around here, you can
see we have it projected here.

Yeah.

Yeah. Cool, right?

In terms of how does
it organize itself?

I mean, I don't know.

For some reason, I guess the color,
I'm thinking of snowflakes. But...

Oh, that's cool. I
never thought about that.

You know, it's building
a kind of architecture.

It's organizing a kind of...

How does it... How does this...

This is one of the simplest
forms of life on the planet.

But how does it know to create,
like, one of the most complex

and indestructible structures?

How... how does it know that?

So, if you want any answers,
you know, just look at nature.

And then you're just
gonna get more questions.

- Well, that's the idea.
- Which is the beauty of it.

That's the idea.

There's so much
inspiration from nature

that can affect design.

Mm-hmm.

Did you see things that you
could connect to not only design,

but engineering, and...

Yeah, I mean, she was... we were
looking at some of the shells

on these crabs that were some
of the hardest materials.

The marine creatures
adapting to environment.

Colors that certain animals
can see, and we can't see.

And...

means of communication, they're
communicating in the water.

Like, they're solving these
problems in different ways.

- You know, protection.
- Mm-hmm.

Generational mutations,

and trying things that
work, and refinement.

Nature is like the original
design inspiration,

or something.

Technology and
nature working in tandem

allowed Mattie Rodrigue

to uncover new worlds,

and inspired her to become
a modern-day explorer.

It's that drive to explore,
and draw inspiration

from the natural world that
defines the very soul of art.

To me, it has always just
been about the feel of riding.

Oftentimes, when you
get a custom bike,

you know, they can be extraordinary
in so many different ways.

For me, the way
that Gard tells it

with the simplicity,

and even if it's an
exotic simplicity,

something that each
element, you know,

the earth, wind, and
fire, the engine,

the wheels, the
frame, the shape,

all are playing
together, I think,

in a... in an authentic way.

The sound, the wind, the smell,

and have that, you
know, experience,

that we hope to give to people.

I'm able to go for a ride
on something beautiful.