The Guardian recently published an account on Charles Brewer-Carias, a “real-life Indiana Jones” who has spent over 50 years in the Venezuela jungle discovering new species and exploring rare organisms. Indeed, there are suggestion that the 71 year old was the basis for Charles Muntz in Pixar’s most recent feature Up, set amid the area’s Guayana highlands where the real-life septuagenarian has made more than 200 expeditions. Next up: El Dorado…

Meanwhile, the film continues to inspire others: the newspaper’s G2 printed supplement reports that “in June, 37 year old balloonist Jonathan Trappe, from North Carolina, is to prove life mimics animation as he attempts a 22-mile crossing of the English Channel in a chair suspended under a cluster of 57 helium balloons. It’s not a house, but it’s close”. An image can be seen here: