World's Most Scariest Runways

Arriving at any international air terminal is rarely a memorable occasion. All the more reason to book a flight touching down at one of these hairy or awesome air strips.

11. Princess Juliana International Airport, St. Maarten, Caribbean

Vacationers flock to the Caribbean for a laid-back vacation. But arriving at the region's airports can have the opposite effect the compact, rugged nature of many of the islands forces runways to be built in inventive locations. Maybe everything sense all the more serene after landing. On St. Maarten, Princess Juliana Airport named after Dutch royalty has people gnawing their fingernails in the air and on the ground whenever a plane lands. The runway begins just meters from the edge of the ocean, with aircraft coming in almost low enough over the beach to spike a volleyball set. Princess Juliana airport was started as a military airstrip in 1942, but converted to a civilian airport in 1943. In 1964 the airport was remodeled and relocated, with a new terminal building and control tower. Airport facilities were upgraded in 1985 and 2001. The airport is probably best known for very low-altitude flyover landing approaches due to one end of its runway being extremely close to the shore and Maho Beach.

Princess Juliana International Airport, St. Maarten, Caribbean

10. Courchevel Altiport, France

Not like Caribbean-bound passengers, skiers and snowboarders touching down at Courchevel are typically geared up for an adrenaline fix. They would better be. In winter, the tarmac air strip at the French resort's altiport, over 2,000 meters above sea level, is often the only thing not covered in snow. Aircraft fly in through a channel between mountains, landing on a short, steeply sloping runway, complete with vertical drop off, that could almost double as a ski jump. The sight is so spectacular, and it was special featured as a stunt location in the James Bond movie "Tomorrow Never Dies."

Courchevel Altiport, France

Courchevel Altiport, France

09. Matekane Air Strip, Lesotho

There's modest chance of extending this runway very far it ends suddenly at the edge of a 600-meter drop. Only light aircraft make use of the airstrip on this isolated tabletop plateau in the tiny southern African kingdom. Planes sometimes fail to ascend at the end of the runway, conjuring images of a Wile E. Coyote hover and fall before, thankfully, achieving flying speed and soaring away.

Matekane Air Strip, Lesotho

08. Juancho E. Yrausquin Airport, Saba, Caribbean

Rivaling St. Maarten for Caribbean airport excitement, Juancho E. Yrausquin Airport, on the island of Saba, has one of the world's shortest landing strips, wedged on a rocky outcrop at the foot of a mountain and with the finish of the tarmac plunging into the sea; touchdown melodramatic experience here.

Juancho E. Yrausquin Airport, Saba, Caribbean

07. Gibraltar International Airport

You just hope that your pilot has landed at Gibraltar before flying toward an enormous limestone monolith on a landing approach is never easy on the nerves, but in the 6.2-square-kilometer British overseas territory of Gibraltar there's nowhere else to put an airport except in the shadow of the Rock. In adequate apace on the southern tip of the Iberian peninsula that the runway bisects the territory's main highway. As aircraft get priority over automobiles in the vehicular pecking order, most amazingly the road is closed every time a plane takes off or arrives.

Gibraltar International Airport

06. Barra International Airport, Outer Hebrides, Scotland

Where else in the world can you pick cockles on a runway? Rather than think about where to build a tarmac airstrip when you are limited of space, the Outer Hebridean island of Barra took a different approach it didn't bother with one. Pilots wait until the tide is out and then land on the beach reportedly the only airport in the world where scheduled flights touch down on sand. In between flights to and from Glasgow, the public have open access to the beach-runway.

Barra International Airport, Outer Hebrides, Scotland

05. Paro Airport Bhutan’s

Bhutan's Paro Airport deserves an award for beautiful airport surroundings. If there were awards for remote airways surrounded by remarkable scenery, the Himalayas would be filling a shelf. In pride of place might stand the only international airport in the mountainous kingdom of Bhutan Descending into a slender, high-altitude bowl amid 6,000-meter peaks, pilots who have to be particularly trained to land this difficult airport bank their jets in a sharp right turn before swooping in low over farm houses?

Paro Airport Bhutan’s

Paro Airport Bhutan’s

04. Kansai International Airport, Osaka, Japan

Landing on an aircraft carrier seems thrilling, but you usually have to link the armed services to do it. You may familiarity a good second best at Japan's Kansai International Airport, where the 2 runways appear to float on the water way out in Osaka Bay. Actually positioned on a purpose-built artificial island, to minimize noise pollution for city residents, the runways are in fact sizeable affairs both over 3 KM long and connected to the mainland by a four-kilometer bridge. But from the air, this is the best way to get that "Top Gun" feeling on a commercial carrier.

Kansai International Airport, Osaka, Japan

Kansai International Airport, Osaka, Japan

03. Harstad Airport/Narvik, Norway

On the approach to Harstad/Narvik Airport in the region of Evenes, planes skirt through fjord-land, over frozen lakes and between snow-covered mountains. Arriving at the settlement of Hammerfest, in the country's extreme northeast, feels like touching down on an ice rink at certain times of the year. Atlantic turbulence and a runway extended on stilts make for a touchy touchdown in Madeira.

Harstad Airport/Narvik, Norway

02. Madeira Airport, Funchal, Portugal

Madeira's international airport seems as if it's been cheating in a tricky-runway competition. Sandwiched among a steep hillside and the sea, its radically short tarmac strip is extended on stilts over the water to make it long enough for a safe touchdown. Throw in incessant Atlantic turbulence and you have got an arrival striking enough to make the calmest passenger reach for the fortified wine.

Madeira Airport, Funchal, Portugal

Madeira Airport, Funchal, Portugal

01.   Malé Airport, Maldives

Malé Airport seems a perfect drama, built on its very own atoll, Hulhulé, the runway is a only six feet feet above sea level. After descending over the 26-island Maldives archipelago, undercarriages feel so close to the sea on touchdown it's as if they are skimming along the water.

Malé Airport, Maldives

Opal – World's Most Tremendous Gemstone

Opal is known as one of the most beautiful of gemstones, which can flashes in every color of the spectrum with a intensity that can even exceed that of diamond. The worthless opal stone ranges from clear through white, gray, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, magenta, rose, pink, slate, olive, brown, and black. Of these hues, the reds against black are the rarest, while white and greens are the most frequent. A few rare specimens make dazzling color flashes when turned in the light. For example, a new Opal was unearthed in the Welo district of Ethiopia freshly that took the gem world by storm. Discovered in the Welo Amhara Regional State Highland plateau 2.500 – 3.200 meters above sea level, this novel gemstone looks like a miniature underwater scene from the ocean when held against the light. Opals such as the Welo Opal can command prices per carat that rival the most luxurious diamonds, rubies and emeralds.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Psychotria Elata or Hooker’s Lips: The Most Kissable Plant

Wow, you might be never seeing this plant in your life, because this is most elegant pair of red, luscious lips belong to a plant well-known as Psychotria elata, a tropical tree found in the rain forests of Central and South American countries like Cost Rica, Colombia, Eucador, and Panama. Lovingly, Psychotria elata is called Hooker’s Lips or the Hot Lips Plants. However; this beautiful plant has apparently evolved into its present shape to be a magnet for pollinators including hummingbirds and butterflies. According to Oddity Central, the bracts are only kissable for a short while, before they spread open to expose the plant’s flowers. So if you wanted to plant this amazing Mother Nature, find yourself a Hot Lips plant and do it while you still can, but make sure the bracts are only kissable for a short time. 

United States Company offering Space Travel of 30 km-high balloon flights

Such a mind-blowing idea of space travel, and you don’t have pocket deep enough, Arizona based space travel company World View Enterprises plans to offer a trip to the edge of space in a luxurious eight-seat capsule for $75,000 per ticket. A balloon trip to space and back might be the somewhat affordable includes three days of training and two and half hour in space. The capsule will be lifted by a high altitude balloon that will go up up to about 98,425 feet or almost 20 miles (30 Kilometers) and stay aloft for two hours before returning back to Earth. That is not as high as Baumgartner's jumping point 128,100 feet or around 39 kilometers last year but much higher than one can usually reach the average altitude for commercial flights is about 9 to 10 KM above ground, or 30,000 to 40,000 feet. So passengers will be in the midst of the few to have seen the curvature of the Earth with their own eyes, can gaze at the astounding views, the blackness of space, the brilliance of stars and the thin veil of atmosphere enveloping our planet. Most interesting the first flight is planned for 2016. Component testing has already begun and sub-scale testing will soon be carried out as well. The space capsule will be build up by Paragon Space Development Corporation, which is developing technology for Inspiration Mars, a 501-day mission around Mars

World's Smallest Monkey

The pygmy marmoset is a petite monkey that is native to rainforests of the western Amazon Basin in South America. About just 100 grams, the pygmy marmoset is well-known to be the smallest species of monkey in the world. Pygmy marmoset is averages about 15cm in height with a 20cm long tail behind it. The tiny pygmy marmoset has sharp claws which make the pygmy marmoset superb at climbing trees and the long tail of the pygmy marmoset gives this little monkey unbelievable balance when jumping between tree branches.

The low weight of the pygmy marmoset permits to get to the canopy tree tops, a place where a lot of larger species of monkey cannot reach. They are also having ability to turn their heads 180 degrees, an adaptation which permits them to scan the environment for predators while vertically clinging to a tree. Pygmy marmoset lives on on a specialized diet of tree gum. It gnaws holes in the bark of suitable trees and vines with its specialized dentition to elicit the production of gum. When the sap puddles up in the hole, it laps it up with its tongue. It also lies in wait for insects, particularly butterflies, which are fascinated to the sap holes. It supplements its diet with berries, nectar and fruit.

The pygmy marmoset has been progressively more well-liked as an exotic pet, but they are extremely hard to keep. Therefore; when a baby pygmy marmoset is taken away from his family it can commonly die quickly due to depression. Baby pygmy marmosets also require feeding every two hours for their first two weeks in the world so they can be very time-consuming pets. Pet pygmy marmosets can take a grave dislike towards their owners and some have been known to bite their owners and throw feces at them, as a form of attack.

Beautiful Sea Creature “Nudibranch”

The bottom-dwelling, jelly-bodied Nudibranch might look an unlikely canvas for Mother Nature to express her wildest indulgences of color and form. But these shell-less mollusks, part of the sea slug family, bear some of the most mesmerizing shapes, sumptuous hues, and complicated patterns of any animal on Earth. There are over 3,000 well-known species of Nudibranch, and newest are being recognized almost daily. They are originate throughout the world's oceans, but are most plentiful in shallow, tropical waters. Their scientific name, Nudibranchia, means naked gills, and explains the feathery gills and horns that most wear on their backs. Usually oblong in shape, Nudibranchs can be thick or flattened, long or short, ornately colored or drab to match their surroundings. They can grow as small as 0.25 inches or as large as 12 inches long.

They are carnivores that slowly ply their range grazing on algae, sponges, anemones, corals, barnacles, and even other Nudibranchs. To recognize prey, they have two highly responsive tentacles, Named “rhinophores”, situated on top of their heads. Nudibranchs get their coloring from the food they eat, which assist in camouflage, and some even retain the foul-tasting poisons of their prey and secrete them as a defense against predators. Nudibranchs are instantaneous hermaphrodites, and can mate with any other mature member of their species. Their lifespan are varies generally, with a few living less than a month, and others living up to one year.

Gisborne Airport; Railway Line Intersecting the Runway

Gisborne Airport is a undersized regional airport that is situated on the western outskirts of Gisborne, the East Coast of the North Island of New Zealand. The unique thing about this airport is one of the very few airports in the world that has a railway line intersecting the runway. The beautiful Gisborne airport covers a land of 160 hectares has three grass runways and one main runway that are intersected by the Palmerston North - Gisborne Railway Line. The airport has a single terminal with two tarmac gates.

The Tasmania’s North Western Coast, Wynyard Airport also had a railway crossing on the runway but moribund rail traffic forced the closure of rail traffic in early 2005, and thus the Wynyard airport rail crossing is no more operational. At Gisborne Airport on the other hand, the rail route functions actively and so does the airport everyday between 6:30 in the morning and 8:30 at night. After that, the runway is sealed off till morning. 

One of the more appealing aspects of the Napier-Gisborne railway line is when the line passes directly on top of the Gisborne Airport runway; trains have to stop and look for clearance from the air traffic control tower to cross the runway and continue down the line. The railway tracks splits the runway approximately in the middle and very often trains or aircraft are stopped until one of them moves on. 

Indeed it is a very challenging job for the airport authorities to manage landing at the intersecting runway along the operational rail route which has scheduled departures and arrivals itself. The Gisborne airport is a main link to enter the little region of Gisborne and hosts more than 60 domestic flights, and over 150,0000 passengers fly through this airport each year.