The Hummingbird Whisperer: Meet the UCLA Scientist Who Has Befriended 200 Hummingbirds

in Environment, Life, Nature | October 6th, 2017

Com­mon wis­dom, and indeli­ble mem­o­ries of The Birds, warn that feed­ing seag­ulls, pigeons and oth­er crea­tures who trav­el in flocks is a can of worms best left unopened.

But what about hum­ming­birds?

Melanie Bar­boni is research geo­chemist in UCLA’s Depart­ment of Earth, Plan­e­tary and Space Sci­ences. Near the UCLA Court of Sci­ences she took a break from vol­canos and the moon long enough to hang a feed­er filled with sug­ar water out­side her ground floor office win­dow.

This com­pli­men­ta­ry buf­fet proved such a hit, she hung up more.

Two years lat­er, Bar­boni is serv­ing a colony of over 200 hum­ming­birds from four 80-ounce feed­ers. Their metab­o­lism requires them to con­sume 8 to 10 times their body weight on a dai­ly basis.

Barboni’s ser­vice to her tiny jew­el-toned friends extends well beyond the feed­ers. She’s divert­ed cam­pus tree trim­mers from inter­fer­ing with them dur­ing nest­ing sea­son, and giv­en pub­lic talks on the habi­tat-destroy­ing effects of cli­mate change. She’s col­lab­o­rat­ing with anoth­er pro­fes­sor and UCLA’s Chief Sus­tain­abil­i­ty Offi­cer Nurit Katz to estab­lish a spe­cial gar­den on cam­pus for hum­ming­birds and their fel­low pol­li­na­tors.

The inti­ma­cy of this rela­tion­ship is some­thing she’s dreamed of since her bird­watch­ing child­hood in Switzer­land where the only hum­ming­birds avail­able for her view­ing were the ones in books. Her dream came true when a fel­low­ship took her from Prince­ton to Los Ange­les, where hum­ming­birds live year-round.

Some long­time favorites now perch on their benefactor’s hand while feed­ing, or even per­mit them­selves to be held and stroked. A few like to hang out inside the office, where the warm glow of Barboni’s com­put­er mon­i­tor is a com­fort­ing pres­ence on inclement days.

She’s bestowed names on at least 50: Squeak, Star­dust, Tiny, Shy…

(Show of hands from those who wish she’d named them all after not­ed geol­o­gists: Mary Anning, Eugene Mer­le Shoe­mak­er, Cecil­ia Hele­na Payne-Gaposchkin…)

Get to know the UCLA hum­ming­birds bet­ter through Melanie Barboni’s up-close-and-per­son­al doc­u­men­tary pho­tos. Learn more about the species itself through the Nation­al Geo­graph­ic doc­u­men­tary below.

via The Kids Should See This

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Cor­nell Launch­es Archive of 150,000 Bird Calls and Ani­mal Sounds, with Record­ings Going Back to 1929

Google Uses Arti­fi­cial Intel­li­gence to Map Thou­sands of Bird Sounds Into an Inter­ac­tive Visu­al­iza­tion

Free Enter­tain­ment for Cats and Dogs: Videos of Birds, Squir­rels & Oth­er Thrills

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, illus­tra­tor, the­ater mak­er and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine.  Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.

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India on Film, 1899–1947: An Archive of 90 Historic Films Now Online

in Film, History, Nature, Travel | August 21st, 2017

India, the largest democ­ra­cy in the world, is a ris­ing eco­nom­ic pow­er­house, and a major play­er in the fields of media, enter­tain­ment, and telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions.

But for many arm­chair trav­el­ers, sub­con­ti­nen­tal moder­ni­ty takes a back­seat to post­card visions of ele­phants, teem­ing rus­tic streets, and snake charm­ers.

Fans of Rud­yard Kipling and E.M. Forster will thrill to the vin­tage footage in a just released British Film Insti­tute online archive, India on Film (see a trail­er above).

1914’s The Won­der­ful Fruit of the Trop­ics, a sten­cil-coloured French-pro­duced primer on the edi­ble flo­ra of India offers just the right blend of exoti­cism and reas­sur­ance (“the fruit of a man­go is excel­lent as a food”) for a new­ly arrived British house­wife.

A Native Street in India (1906) speaks to the pop­u­lous­ness that con­tin­ues to define a coun­try sched­uled to out­pace China’s num­bers with­in the next 10 years.

An East­ern Mar­ket fol­lows a Pun­jabi farmer’s trek to town, to buy and sell and take in the big city sights.

The archive’s biggest celeb is sure­ly activist Mahat­ma Gand­hi, whose great nephew, Kanu, enjoyed unlim­it­ed film­ing access on the assur­ance that he would nev­er ask his uncle to pose.

The Raj makes itself known in 1925’s King Emper­or’s Cup Race, a Han­d­ley Page biplane arriv­ing in Cal­cut­ta in 1917, and sev­er­al films doc­u­ment­ing Edward Prince of Wales’ 1922 tour

Explore the full BFI’s full India on Film: 1899–1947 playlist here. It fea­tures 90 films in total, with maybe more to come.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Par­vati Saves the World: Watch a Remix of Bol­ly­wood Films That Com­bats Rape in India

Google’s Mov­ing Ad About 1947 Par­ti­tion of India & Pak­istan Tops 10 Mil­lion Views

1,150 Free Movies Online: Great Clas­sics, Indies, Noir, West­erns, etc. 

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, illus­tra­tor, the­ater mak­er and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.

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Watch 50 Hours of Nature Soundscapes from the BBC: Scientifically Proven to Ease Stress and Promote Happiness & Awe

in Nature | July 27th, 2017

A recent study from BBC Earth and UC-Berke­ley has shown that watch­ing nature doc­u­men­taries can inspire “sig­nif­i­cant increas­es in feel­ings of awe, con­tent­ed­ness, joy, amuse­ment and curios­i­ty” and con­verse­ly “reduce feel­ings of tired­ness, anger and stress.” In short, they can engen­der what the authors of the study call ‘real hap­pi­ness’ – a kind of hap­pi­ness that leads to actu­al improve­ment in indi­vid­u­als’ health and well­be­ing,

With that in mind, the BBC has just released 50 hours of HD “visu­al sound­scapes” on YouTube, using left­over footage from their Plan­et Earth II TV series. Ten hours of moun­tains; ten hours of jun­gle; ten hours of islands; ten hours of desert; and ten hours of grass­lands–they’re all fea­tured in the long, sooth­ing sound­scape playlist fea­tured above. Use them well.

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. It’s a great way to see our new posts, all bun­dled in one email, each day.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

via Metafil­ter

Relat­ed Con­tent:

New Study: Immers­ing Your­self in Art, Music & Nature Might Reduce Inflam­ma­tion & Increase Life Expectan­cy

How Walk­ing Fos­ters Cre­ativ­i­ty: Stan­ford Researchers Con­firm What Philoso­phers and Writ­ers Have Always Known

Moby Lets You Down­load 4 Hours of Ambi­ent Music to Help You Sleep, Med­i­tate, Do Yoga & Not Pan­ic

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Google Uses Artificial Intelligence to Map Thousands of Bird Sounds Into an Interactive Visualization

in Computer Science, Nature | June 26th, 2017

If you were around in 2013, you may recall that we told you about Cor­nel­l’s Archive of 150,000 Bird Calls and Ani­mal Sounds, with Record­ings Going Back to 1929. It’s a splen­did place for ornithol­o­gists and bird lovers to spend time. And, it turns out, the same also applies to com­put­er pro­gram­mers.

Late last year, Google launched an exper­i­ment where, draw­ing on Cor­nel­l’s sound archive, they used machine learn­ing (arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence that lets com­put­ers learn and do tasks on their own) to orga­nize thou­sands of bird sounds into a map where sim­i­lar sounds are placed clos­er togeth­er. And it result­ed in this impres­sive inter­ac­tive visu­al­iza­tion. Check it out. Or head into Cor­nel­l’s archive and do your own old-fash­ioned explo­rations.

Note: You can find free cours­es on machine learn­ing and arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence in the Relat­eds below.

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. It’s a great way to see our new posts, all bun­dled in one email, each day.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Cor­nell Launch­es Archive of 150,000 Bird Calls and Ani­mal Sounds, with Record­ings Going Back to 1929 

Neur­al Net­works for Machine Learn­ing: A Free Online Course 

A Free Course on Machine Learn­ing & Data Sci­ence from Cal­tech

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Dr. Jane Goodall Will Teach an Online Course About Conserving Our Environment

in Environment, Nature, Online Courses | June 5th, 2017

FYI: If you sign up for a Mas­ter­Class course by click­ing on the affil­i­ate links in this post, Open Cul­ture will receive a small fee that helps sup­port our oper­a­tion.

A quick heads up: The great pri­ma­tol­o­gist and anthro­pol­o­gist Dr. Jane Goodall–now 83 years old–will soon teach her first online course ever. Host­ed by Mas­ter­class, the course, con­sist­ing of 25 video lec­tures, will teach stu­dents how they can con­serve the envi­ron­ment. It will also share Goodal­l’s research on the behav­ioral pat­terns of chim­panzees and what they taught her about con­ser­va­tion. The course won’t get start­ed until this fall, but you can pre-enroll now. The cost is $90.

Oth­er cours­es cur­rent­ly offered by Mas­ter­class include:

Find more cours­es taught by star instruc­tors here.

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. It’s a great way to see our new posts, all bun­dled in one email, each day.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

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Watch Clouds Roil Through the Grand Canyon: A Beautiful Timelapse Film Captures a Rare Full Cloud Inversion

in Nature | May 28th, 2017

From pro­duc­er and edi­tor Harun Mehmedi­novic comes a pret­ty breath­tak­ing time­lapse film of a rare phe­nom­e­non at the Grand Canyon. Writes Mehmedi­novic:

Mil­lions of vis­i­tors a year come to Ari­zon­a’s Grand Canyon Nation­al Park, one of the sev­en nat­ur­al won­ders of the world and the most vis­it­ed nation­al park in the west­ern Unit­ed States. How­ev­er, on extreme­ly rare days when cold air is trapped in the canyon and topped by a lay­er of warm air, which in com­bi­na­tion with mois­ture and con­den­sa­tion, form the phe­nom­e­non referred to as the full cloud inver­sion. In what resem­bles some­thing between ocean waves and fast clouds, Grand Canyon is com­plete­ly obscured by fog, mak­ing the vis­i­tors feel as if they are walk­ing on clouds.

This video was filmed as part of SKYGLOW (skyglowproject.com), an ongo­ing crowd­fund­ed quest to explore the effects and dan­gers of urban light pol­lu­tion in con­trast with some of the most incred­i­ble dark sky areas in North Amer­i­ca. This project is being pro­duced in col­lab­o­ra­tion with Inter­na­tion­al Dark-Sky Asso­ci­a­tion (darksky.org), a non-prof­it fight­ing for the preser­va­tion of night skies around the globe.

The film was shot on Canon 5DSR & 5DIII cam­eras and lens­es. You can down­load high res­o­lu­tion stills via this zip file. Enjoy.

via Twist­ed Sifter

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Mes­mer­iz­ing Time­lapse Film Cap­tures the Won­der of Bees Being Born

Google Street View Takes You on a Panoram­ic Tour of the Grand Canyon

Albert Ein­stein Sports a Native Amer­i­can Head­dress and a Peace Pipe at the Grand Canyon, 1931

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