PRA CARAMBA from Cedar Wright on Vimeo.

Brazil is the fifth largest country in the world. It is as large as… Brazil. The big fat crown jewel of South America has no comparison. It hosts five types of climates, the largest river (by flow) in the world, and as many as 4 million plant and animal species, not to mention one of the most vibrant cultures on earth.

It should be no surpise then that Brazil is home to some of the best rock climbing and BASE jumping sites on earth. Cedar Wright captures the thrill in Pra Caramba, a 10-minute short he filmed 3 years ago, but that is just now available to view for free.

For more of Wright’s extreme HD works, check out his Vimeo page.

Inside Quebec’s repurposed St.-Esprit Church lives the Quebec Circus School—one of a very few venues in North America outfitted to host the avant-garde sport known to as “wall trampoline”.

Described in a recent New York Times article as “part gymnastics, part parkour…” wall trampoline’s practitioners are called “bouncers” and are crossing their fingers for an eventual X-Games birth (though a rule-book for the sport has yet to be written). Apparently, wall trampolining allows bouncers to perform a much wider gamut of tricks than the stuff they could do on a traditional backyard apparatus.

The (painful) downside? Landing outside the platform. Also ceilings.

For those who missed it, The Super Bowl was yesterday. Many of you Adrenalist readers tuned in to watch the Giants DESTROY the Patriots in Indianapolis, IN on your big screen HDTVs. NBC beamed those images to you live using any number of cameras, and four of those are NAC’s incredibly cutting-edge Hi-Motion II.

You shouldn’t have to be told that everything these puppies capture is in 1080p, but it is. That’s nothing though compared to the slow-mo capabilities these things can kick out. We’re talking about an astounding 1000 frames per second. That’s why those instant replays looked ridiculous, like “holy crap, did you see how those individual blades of grass were turned aside when the ball landed?!?!” levels of ridiculous.

The original Hi-Motion camera was used in broadcasts of the 2008 Beijing Olympics and the 2010 World Cup. The Hi-Motion II made its live broadcast debut at the big game Sunday.

Never undersell the importance of a good haircut.

Nerlens Noel is one of the top recruits in the country for his defensive dominance — watch him swat shots like he’s a surface-to-air missile in this clip — but it’s hard to deny that high-top fade, the most unimpeachable of basketball coiffs. Sporting a style like that makes the average player at least 15% better. Oh, and being 6’10” doesn’t hurt.

More wingsuit footage? Yes please. And this time the good people in the Norway tourism bureau have made it interactive.

Swivel 360 degrees with your arrow keys as a jumper topples over a cliff in Flo, near the western Norwegian town of Stryn. Be sure to look behind at the start to see camera-toting comrades on the peak disappear into the distance. It’s a view that real-life flyers never get to experience themselves… with the exception of owls, perhaps.

Even birds catch a rush. No, really. They have adrenal glands that produce epinephrine (adrenaline) just like us. So it makes complete sense that this Russian crow likes to snowboard. Complete sense.

The Republic of Vanuatu rests west of Fiji and Soutwest of the Solomon Islands in the South Pacific Ocean. The archipelago (around 82 volcanic islands make up the Republic) sits more than a 1000 miles from the northern part of Australia, and the inhabitants of the island are indigenous descendants of aboriginal Melanesian people.

Pentecost Island is a popular spot in the middle-of-nowhere Vanuatu archipelago, and that’s because the men of the southern portion of the island practice what’s known as “Land Diving.” The locals refer to the practice in the Sa language as “gol,” and in the Bismana language as “Nanggol.” Gol is recognized as the progenitor of contemporary bungee jumping. So what is this ceremonial practice and how is it the first iteration of bungee jumping?

First, the land diving performed on Pentecost Island is a centuries old practice. The ritual stems from a local legend of a wife, who flees from her husband, Tamalie, into the forest after his lascivious advances become too much to bear. Tamalie follows his wife into the forest, and she eventually climbs a banyan tree to escape. Tamalie continues to follow her up the tree, so she ties lianas (vines) to her ankle, and jumps off. Tamalie neglects the liana when he follows her, he falls to his death.

As you might have guessed, the practice of gol is said to provide health and vigor for the village men, and to remind them never to make the same mistake Tamalie did.

Both the practice of jumping, and the wooden towers the Vanuatu men jump from, are known as gol. The construction of the gol is done in conjunction with the annual yam harvest in the dry season when monsoons can’t destroy the towers and the liana vines are more embedded with sap.

Construction generally takes between 2-5 weeks, and the core of the tower is made around a looped tree as a sort of scaffolding that bends in on itself to cushion the diver’s fall. There are also various tiers on the structure, starting at around 10 meters, that go all the way up to the top; the levels the men jump from align with how many nahgol’s they’ve jumped in before. Everything in the tower is tied off with the liana vines from the legend.

The liana vines used to both protect the jumper and help construct the gol are also more elastic in the dry season (more sap), which is good because the recoil from the vines is said to be the highest g-level reached by non-industrial nations. The men also till the soil and remove any rocks from the landing area.

During the tower’s construction, the women and men are cloistered in separate areas and forbidden to interact or have sex. The women aren’t allowed to go near the tower for fear of angering Tamalie and endangering the male jumpers.

The shredded lianas tied to the divers feet are selected by the village elder and matched with each villager’s weight without any mechanical instrumentation. If the vines are too short, the jumper can bounce back into the structure; if they’re too long, the diver hits the ground too hard.

Even though the Vanuatu people are mainly Christian (missionaries first visited the island in the 1800 and 1900’s), the practice of gol is an ancient belief unaffiliated with any Christian dogma. Before the jump, the men undergo a ritual wash and spread coconut oil on their naked torsos. They wear penis sheaths called nambas, and a boars tusk adorns their necks. The women of the village wear traditional dresses without tops, and even though they’re not allowed to participate, they watch and cheer on the men.

The naghol begins with the least experienced jumpers on the lower tiers and extends to the experienced jumpers at the top. Around 10-20 men in the village will jump each year during the ceremony.

Before the jump, the men give speeches or say prayers, and often settle any outstanding accounts, in case they perish during the jump. The higher and more dangerous jumps reward a more bountiful harvest in the coming year. The goal is for the diver’s shoulders to touch the ground, so they cross arms and bend their heads, which leaves a jumper prone to paralysis because the neck and spine is exposed. During the dive, the jumpers reach speeds of up to 45 mph, and after the dive is done, villagers rush in to care for the jumper in case they’re injured during the impact with the soil; hence, land jumping.

For young Vanuatu boys, the land jump is a rite of passage, where they become men by jumping in front of their elders. Like a much scarier bar mitzvah.

Land diving was briefly outlawed during the missionary movement in the mid-20th century, but anti-colonialism thinking brought the practice back as a cultural touchstone, and the Vanuatu Republic’s independence in 1980 meant renewing the ancient ritual that continues to present day.

There have been instances of land diving in recent history and popular culture. During French colonial skirmishes in 1952, some Vanuatu people were imprisoned. The French Resident Commissioner released the prisoners only after a special land diving performance was arranged. Kal Muller, a journalist with National Geographic, is considered the first white man to land jump. He spent more than a year with the Bunlap village before they asked him to participate in the early 1970’s. In more recent popular culture, Karl Pilkington went to the island to film a segment for the BBC show, Idiot Abroad, but he only jumped from about 4 feet up.

Land diving is not bungee jumping, but it’s the basis for the contemporary practice; especially since a lot bungee jumping can be performed in the South Pacific nation of New Zealand. A 2006 decision by the tribal chiefs in Vanuatu to limit the amount of exposure to the practice has stifled a lot of coverage; there’s been a blackout on video portrayals of land diving since then, and only a select group of tourists or adventure seekers are allowed to participate each year. This is to uphold the ceremony’s relevance to the local people without stifling the tourism trade, which supports the local economy.

If you’re lucky enough to participate, remember the legend of Tamalie, and don’t neglect the vines. Happy land diving!

Here’s an item that falls into the category of “Utterly Ridiculous Things You Couldn’t Possibly Ever Need, But Must See To Believe.”

SuitSuit’s Boombox rolling suitcase is made to resemble a stereo speaker… for some reason. Presumably to make picking it out at the airport baggage claims area an easier process, but in the oddest way possible.

The Boombox isn’t an ACTUAL speaker, so it’s not like you can plug your music player in and blast out some tunes while you’re waiting for whatever mode of transport you’ve decided to book travel on. It looks like one though, which should help you confuse everyone!

The bag stands at just under two feet tall and it’s got the usual wheels and extendable handle that you’d expect from a rolling suitcase. There’s also a TSA lock, should you want to check it. Since that seems to be the point and all.

It’ll only set you back around $130. Assuming speaker-looking cases are your thing, that is.

Great white shark attacks are on the rise. Over the past decade, an average of about 6 unprovoked attacks took place every year in North American waters, more than 5-times as many annual attacks as occurred during the 20th century.

Can technology stem the red tide?

The Marine Conservation Science Institute hopes so. Or at least the small California nonprofit hopes to use technology to better inform ocean enthusiasts about the big fish lurking offshore.

This month the institute released Expedition White Shark, an iPhone and iPad app that tracks a dozen great whites currently swimming Pacific Ocean between Oregon and Mexico.

The app tracks sharks whose dorsal fins have been tagged with transmitters. Every time a shark “fins,” or approaches the surface, the shark’s location is updated by satellite, provided there is a satellite somewhere overhead.

Needless to say, this app isn’t a foolproof tool to ward off shark attacks, but it’s a cool application of technology and a great way to raise awareness about a species not so much threatening as it is threatened.

More appropriate might be an app to track unlicensed shark fisherman trawling the Pacific. As of this time there is unfortunately no app for that.

Expedition White Shark can be purchased at the App Store for $3.99.

Old Mutual Barefoot Kili Expedition Promo from D4 Productions on Vimeo.

Most say Africa’s tallest mountain is the easiest of the Seven Summits to climb. Most have never attempted the 19,341-foot volcano without the aid of footwear.

On Saturday, the 9-person Old Mutual Barefoot Kilimanjaro Team (also called Barefoot Impi) reached the peak without a single artificial sole stomping down on the mountain’s rough terrain.

The team spent months preparing for the ascent, toughing up the callouses on their feet on the streets of Cape Town and the trails of The Drakensberg, the highest mountain range in South Africa.

The work paid off. Other groups climbing ahead of the team were forced to turn around as the weather got nasty.

“On the way up we had a couple disheartening encounters with climbers that had failed to summit and were visibly delirious and vomiting,” writes adventurer Andrew King at the group’s official site.

But the team pressed on and soon arrived at Stella Point, where “the mystical feel of the swirling clouds only added to the almost spiritual experience of being on top of Africa.”

The barefoot climb raised money for The Children’s Hospital Trust, the only specialist hospital in South Africa dedicated to treating chronically ill children. You can donate to the cause through the Impi site.