Nature on PBS (April 12, 2023) – Discover how tiny hummingbirds influence their many flowering kingdoms and their ripple effects on macaws, quetzals, monkeys, tapirs and more. Set in the exotic landscapes of Costa Rica.
Costa Rica’s motto is Pura Vida – Pure Life – and this deceptively small country is bursting with some of the most spectacular wildlife and pristine ecosystems in the world. All this diversity thrives, in part, thanks to one surprising little creature: hummingbirds.
Venture across Costa Rica’s wild and rugged landscapes, from volcanic peaks to coastal jungle to misty cloud forests, and discover the nation’s dazzling diversity of hummingbirds. There are more than 50 species of hummingbirds here, and they play an outsize role in maintaining some of the richest and wildest environments on Earth.
The Hummingbird Effect premiered on April 12, 2023.
Nature on PBS (March 27, 2023) – No bigger than a human thumb, the volcano hummingbird exists only in the Talamancas.
The volcano hummingbird (Selasphorus flammula ) is a very small hummingbird, native to the Talamancan montane forests of Costa Rica and western Panama.
This tiny endemic bird inhabits open brushy areas, paramo, and edges of elfin forest at altitudes from 1850 m to the highest peaks. It is only 7.5 cm long. The male weighs 2.5 g and the female 2.8 g. The black bill is short and straight.
The adult male volcano hummingbird has bronze-green upperparts and rufous-edged black outer tail feathers. The throat is grey-purple in the Talamanca range, red in the Poas-Barva mountains and pink-purple in the Irazú-Turrialba area, the rest of the underparts being white. The female is similar, but her throat is white with dusky spots. Young birds resemble the female but have buff fringes to the upperpart plumage.
The female volcano hummingbird is entirely responsible for nest building and incubation. She lays two white eggs in her tiny plant-down cup nest 1–5 m high in a scrub or on a root below a south or east facing bank. Incubation takes 15–19 days, and fledging another 20–26.
Corcovado National Park in Costa Rica is the backpacking experience of a lifetime. It encompasses the only remaining old growth wet forests on the Pacific coast of Central America, and 13 major ecosystems including lowland rain forest, highland cloud forest, jolillo palm forest, and mangrove swamps, as well as coastal marine and beach habitats.
There is a good chance of spotting some of Costa Rica’s shyest and most endangered inhabitants here; Baird’s Tapirs, Jaguars, Scarlet Macaws, Harpy Eagles, Red-backed squirrel monkeys and White-lipped Peccaries. It is wet, remote and rugged, but the trails are relatively good, and the camping areas near the ranger stations are grassy and well drained.
Costa Rica is a rugged, rainforested Central American country with coastlines on the Caribbean and Pacific. Though its capital, San Jose, is home to cultural institutions like the Pre-Columbian Gold Museum, Costa Rica is known for its beaches, volcanoes, and biodiversity. Roughly a quarter of its area is made up of protected jungle, teeming with wildlife including spider monkeys and quetzal birds.
Video timeline: 0:00 intro of costa rica 0:03 Yellow snake curled 0:06 Aerial view of irazu volcano 0:08 Snake python 0:11 Cinematic view of oak tree 0:16 Close up view of iguana 0:22 skydiving in Costa Rica 0:26 nauyaca waterfalls 0:31 galloping horse 0:39 Aerial view of pavon bay 0:46 waterfall rio celeste 0:50 Close up iguana 0:53 Drone view of palm oil 0:58 tree frog 1:01 Trachycephalus 1:04 Montezuma Beach 1:09 Oka tree 1:13 naped snake 1:18 Blue Yellow Macaw 1:23 Green Python 1:28 Rio celeste waterfall 1:35 meanders river 1:45 Bilobatum 1:49 punta banco Beach 1:57 irazu volcano 2:05 Close up view of butterfly 2:08 Corcovado 2:13 Playa Zancudo 2:21 manuel antonio 2:32 Green iguana 2:46 tortoiseshell 2:59 Costa Rica rainforest 3:05 quetzal Bird 3:11 Sloth 3:16 Irazu volcano 3:22 paragliding 3:29 skydiving 3:34 la paz waterfall 3:43 whales 3:50 Coto river Aerial view 4:02 Aerial costarica 4:10 Beautiful parrots 4:18 Forest Frog 4:25 Rain forest 4:29 iguana 4:35 Wild lizard 4:40 flamingos 4:47 capucinus 4:55 Rain forest 5:02 capuchin 5:09 Violetear
Four bike riders travel to the verdant lands of Costa Rica. With 90% humidity and an average daily temperature of 31º, the conditions posed a challenge but it was the terrain that proved the biggest test. From unexpected river crossings and unrelenting rainstorms to forging new friendships and fortuitous cafe finds, the Costa Rican climate and its contagious ‘Pura Vida’ perspective set up one very special trip.
Costa Rica is a rugged, rainforested Central American country with coastlines on the Caribbean and Pacific. Though its capital, San Jose, is home to cultural institutions like the Pre-Columbian Gold Museum, Costa Rica is known for its beaches, volcanoes, and biodiversity. Roughly a quarter of its area is made up of protected jungle, teeming with wildlife including spider monkeys and quetzal birds.
Can the aging process be reversed – or even halted, altogether? If we manage to decode this final mystery of our human biology, we might soon be able to eradicate age-related illnesses like cancer, dementia and heart problems. The race to invent the miracle pill is well underway.
Today, international researchers are getting astonishingly close to realizing humanity’s dream of immortality. The hunt for immortality gained traction with the discovery of Costa Rica’s so-called “Blue Zone,” by Luis Rosero-Bixby. In the “Blue Zone,” on the Nicoya Peninsular, he found a remarkable number of centenarians.
Here, male life expectancy is the highest in the world. Their healthy lifestyle is one factor, but the promise of longevity is probably also because their telomeres – sections of DNA found at the end of chromosomes – are longer than those of the average person. It’s a field of research currently being explored by Maria Blasco in Madrid.
But this is just one of many possible factors influencing the process of aging. Senescent cells may also play a key role. Also known as “zombie cells”, these attack our body in old age and flood it with alarm signals until, at some point, we collapse under their weight. That’s a theory proposed by another researcher in Spain, Manuel Serrano. A billion-dollar industry is already knocking impatiently at the lab doors.
The first to market the miracle pill is guaranteed incredible wealth. That’s why investors are sponsoring young bio-startups in Hong Kong. Keen not be left out, US Big Tech is vying for the world’s best scientists. Alex Zhavoronkov has secured a slice of that pie, with a cash injection of more than 250 million dollars for his company’s work on aging research. Whereas some pioneers’ visions burst like bubbles, others rush to get other, rather more dubious products onto the market. But their efficacy is now measurable.
The epigenetic clock devised by Steve Horvath can measure our biological age, regardless of our actual age in years. With his research on the thymus gland, California’s Greg Fahy managed to not only decelerate the aging process, but reverse it. His initial study on humans showed that a particular drug cocktail took an average two-and-a-half years off their age.
Young biohackers like Nina Khera from Boston want everyone to benefit from this research. Together with friends, she’s working on the “epigenetic clock for all”. But while we’re busy trying to counter the aging process and all the illnesses it entails, fundamental questions arise: Should we be messing with nature like this? Are we about to overwhelm the planet with more and more people? Criminal biologist Mark Benecke in Cologne says that these questions are coming far too late.
Costa Rica is a rugged, rainforested Central American country with coastlines on the Caribbean and Pacific. Though its capital, San Jose, is home to cultural institutions like the Pre-Columbian Gold Museum, Costa Rica is known for its beaches, volcanoes, and biodiversity. Roughly a quarter of its area is made up of protected jungle, teeming with wildlife including spider monkeys and quetzal birds.
Costa Rica is a rugged, rainforested Central American country with coastlines on the Caribbean and Pacific. Though its capital, San Jose, is home to cultural institutions like the Pre-Columbian Gold Museum, Costa Rica is known for its beaches, volcanoes, and biodiversity. Roughly a quarter of its area is made up of protected jungle, teeming with wildlife including spider monkeys and quetzal birds.
In this video you can see rainforest butterflies, lizards, blue jeans poison dart frog, treefrogs, glass frogs, squirrel monkey, capuchin monkey, red colobus monkey, silvery gibbon, peccary, lemur, chameleon, jaguar, three toed sloth and beautiful colored birds as jacobin, toucan, maccaw, parrot, hummingbirds, tanager, motmot, quetzal, from different rainforest areas as Caribbean, Costa Rica, Brazil, Madagagascar.
Costa Rica is a rugged, rainforested Central American country with coastlines on the Caribbean and Pacific. Though its capital, San Jose, is home to cultural institutions like the Pre-Columbian Gold Museum, Costa Rica is known for its beaches, volcanoes, and biodiversity. Roughly a quarter of its area is made up of protected jungle, teeming with wildlife including spider monkeys and quetzal birds.
News, Views and Reviews For The Intellectually Curious
Boomers Daily 