10 Terrifying Airport Runways

Check out some of the scariest takeoff and touchdown spots around the world

White-knuckle travelers beware: The airports below are notorious for their tricky, and oftentimes terrifying, runways. Whether the shorter-than-average landing strips end with an abrupt drop-off or mountainous terrain makes for a twisting flight path, getting to and from these airports takes some serious know-how. Fasten your seatbelts and read on to learn about the 10 most frightening runways out there.
Paro Airport, Bhutan

Nestled in a valley below the Himalayan Mountains, Bhutan's Paro Airport is notoriously frightening to fly into. In addition to navigating the area's 16,000-foot-high jagged peaks, pilots also must contend with forceful winds that gust around the mountains. But if you find yourself on a flight to Paro, rest assured that you're in good hands: Only eight pilots in the world are qualified to make the landing.

Running wild: San Fermin festival 2011

Those mad adrenaline- (and sometimes alcohol-) infused half-mile dashes dodging 1,800-pound stampeding bulls have begun through the streets of Pamplona, Spain. Part-spectacle, part-tradition, the Running of the Bulls is the most celebrated slice of the nine-day San Fermin Festival. In addition to the daily runs, events include bullfighting and a parade featuring a statue of Pamplona\'s first bishop, St. Fermin. Pleads for safety and prayers of thanksgiving to St. Fermin traditionally begin and end the run through the streets, which was famously depicted in Ernest Hemingway\'s \"The Sun Also Rises.\" Concluding on the 14th of July every year, attendees gather on the town hall plaza at midnight for singing by candlelight.
1. Spanish bull fighter Alberto Aguilar looks at a Dolores Aguirre Ybarra\'s ranch fighting bull during a bullfight at San Fermin fiestas in Pamplona northern Spain, Saturday July 9 (Alvaro Barrientos/Associated Press)

Tonnerre de Zeus - OnRide - Parc Asterix

South Sudan: A new nation rises

The world has a new nation. The Republic of South Sudan officially seceded from Sudan on July 9, ending a 50-year struggle marked by decades of civil war. After a referendum earlier this year on independence passed with the support of 99% of the population of southern Sudan, events were set in motion that led to Saturday's celebration. Joy marked the festivities, but South Sudan faces steep challenges. Although the country has oil reserves and fertile soil, there is much poverty and little infrastructure. Collected here are images from the last several months, showing scenes of daily life, portraits of South Sudanese, and the celebration of independence.
1. Thousands celebrate their country's independence during a ceremony in the capital Juba on July 9, 2011. South Sudan separated from Sudan to become the world's newest and 193rd nation. (Roberto Schmidt/AFP/Getty Images)

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Ash covered landscape

Puyehue volcano in southern Chile has spread volcanic ash far and wide since it erupted in early June. On Monday, Argentina's president announced that economic relief would be provided to residents affected by the ash in the southwestern region of Patagonia. And as recent as July 1 ash in the atmosphere was disrupting flights at the Buenos Aires airport. These images show how the earth's landscape has been affected.
see also http://lollitop.blogspot.com/2011/06/volcano-erupts-in-chile.html 

1. A horse walks on a field covered by volcanic ash from Chilean volcano Puyehue, near Villa Llanquin, a hamlet along route 40 on the banks of Limay river, 50 km from Bariloche, in the Argentine province of Rio Negro, on June 17, 2011. The ash cloud from Chile's Puyehue volcano caused widespread travel chaos in the southern hemisphere since it erupted for the first time on June 4 after lying dormant half a century. (rancisco Ramos Mejia/AFP/Getty Images)

Takabisha: Japan Gets World's Steepest Roller Coaster (Videos)

If you plan to travel to Japan soon and you’re not among the faint of heart, you might want to visit the Fuji-Q Highland, an amusement park that just added a very special new attraction: the world’s steepest roller coaster. The so-called Takabisha [JP] accelerates to 100 km/h, has a 43m drop and a 121-degree freefall.
The Japanese roller coaster beat the former record holder, the Le Timber Drop in France, which measures “just” 113.1 degrees.
Fuji Q Highland invested $37 million in the development of the Takabisha. One ride takes 112 seconds and costs $12.50.

life is too short!

Zaz - Je Veux

Music and mud: Glastonbury Festival 2011

Glastonbury, a festival held at Worthy Farm in England, has become Europe's largest such gathering for music fans. Its five-day run ended Sunday, after entertaining nearly 175,000 fans. Heavy rain and mud greeted the attendees, who paid 195 pounds (about $310) for a basic ticket compared to the 1 pound when the show began in 1970. The next festival will take place in 2013
1. Festival-goers dance to Jarvis Cocker and his band Pulp as the sunsets during the third day of the Glastonbury Festival June 25, 2011. This year's festival featured headline acts U2, Coldplay and Beyonce. Now in its fifth decade, the event has grown from a humble gathering of 1,500 people on Michael Eavis's Worthy dairy farm in 1970, each paying 1 pound and receiving free milk, to a giant five-day celebration of music costing 195 pounds for a basic ticket. (Adrian Dennis/AFP/Getty Images))

la précision japonaise vous connaissez !

summer in UK !!! (yeah!!!)

OK Go

This Too Shall Pass - Rube Goldberg Machine version - Official

Schiller - Let Me Love You (with Kim Sanders)

Riot police clear 'indignant protesters' in Athens, June 2011, rare photos

People of Clouds

In the Mixteca, one of the most impoverished regions in Mexico, migration to the United States has arrived like a storm. In a place so insular that pre-columbian languages like Mixteco, Trique, and Asmuzgos are still spoken more widely than Spanish, and where cars, electricity and indoor plumbing are recent introductions, if they exist at all, northern migration has emptied communities and transformed the lives of those left behind. Some villages have lost as much as 80% of their population to the north and have become little more than ghost towns, home to just a handful of old men, women and the left-behind children of migrants.

In San Miguel Cuevas -- or Nuyuco, Face of the Mountain, in Mixteco -- just 500 people out of 3000 remain. Its streets are largely empty, its fields stand deserted, its century-old way of life lies in shambles as families dissolve to the north, rending the social fabric of this traditional agrarian society. Old women raise grandchildren left behind by their mothers, teenage girls do the work of absent fathers, and old men sit alone, abandoned by their children. "I only think about dying," one 70 year old said, "my only worry is how my funeral will be."

Photographer Matt Black first photographed the mixteca in 2000. He has since made 12 trips to the region, and plans more. To contribute to the project, visit his Kickstarter project site.

1. Fog settles on the deserted streets of San Miguel Cuevas, a Mixtec village in the highlands of Oaxaca. Over 80% of its population has emigrated to the United States, leaving it little more than a ghost town. (Matt Black)

Obama: US troop withdrawal to begin

President Barack Obama told war-weary Americans in a 15 minute address from the East Room of the White House that the United States had largely achieved it's goals in Afghanistan and that a withdrawal of American troops would be set in motion. He said Afghanistan no longer represented a terrorist threat to the United States and that the "tide of war is receding." He announced plans to withdraw 10,000 troops from Afghanistan by the end of this year. The remaining 20,000 troops from the 2009 "surge" would leave by next summer. He added that the drawdown would continue "at a steady pace" until the US handed over security to the Afghan authorities in 2014. President Sarkozy, of France, said he would also begin drawing down the 4,000-strong French contingent in Afghanistan. In keeping with 5,000 years of Afghan history, President Hamid Karzai said, “Afghans would take responsibility for the preservation of their soil, the security of their people and educating their children by the end of 2014.” In this post, we offer more glimpses of the troops and the Afghan people as they coexist, for now.
1. U.S. President Barack Obama is seen on live television screens in the Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House, June 22, 2011 in Washington, DC. Obama announced he will order 10,000 troops to pull out of Afghanistan this year and another 20,000 troops by the end of next summer. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

Snap! Rhythm Is A Dancer

Eliot - All I'm Made Of

the 2011 ultimate gadget

The 360 Pen

Much lighter and only slightly less dangerous than twirling around a pair of scissors, the 360 pen is perfect for all those times you get stuck on a conference call or simply feel the need to spin something! People will stand in awe as they wish they had whatever it is you're delightfully twirling around, but be careful: if left out in the open, your 360 pen could involuntarily find itself a new home, thus leaving your finger sad and lonely. Buy one and take it to your next team meeting!

More gadgets at http://www.zdnet.com/blog/btl/gallery-of-galleries-top-10-sights-of-the-month/51604?tag=mantle_skin;content

Got milk

addressing beefing

Kid Moxie - Tsunami

Take a Trip to Queensland Australia

Here Comes the Sun

June 21 marked both the summer and winter solstice, the longest or shortest day of the year for sunlight depending on which hemisphere you reside. Here are some glimpses of the power, beauty, and transforming presence of the sun, taken since the beginning of June.
1. In this handout photo released by Nasa Earth Observatory on June 7, 2011 and taken from Nasa's Solar Dynamics Observatory, sunspot complex 1226-1227, shows the Sun unleashing an M-2 (medium-sized) solar flare, an S1-class radiation storm and a coronal mass ejection resulting in a large cloud of particles mushrooming up and falling back down giving the impression of covering an area of almost half the solar surface. An unusual solar flare observed by a NASA space observatory on June 7 could cause some disruptions to satellite communications and power on Earth over the next day or so, officials said. The potent blast from the Sun unleashed a firestorm of radiation on a level not witnessed since 2006, and will likely lead to moderate geomagnetic storm activity by Wednesday, according to the National Weather Service. (NASA)

the exorcist

Is weather becoming more extreme?

Extreme weather events have always been with us, and always will be. One can't point to a single severe storm, or even an entire harsh winter, as evidence of climate change. But a trend of weather intensity, and oddity, grows. Droughts linger longer. Hurricanes hit harder. Snowstorms strike long after winter should have ended. World record hailstones fall. China endures a crippling drought, and then punishing floods. Millions are displaced in a flood of historic proportion in Pakistan. The U.S. sees the Mississippi River reach historic flood crests, and then sees the largest wildfire in Arizona history. None of these events on their own mean anything. Collectively, do they mean we're seeing the earth's climate change before our eyes?
1. A huge swath of the United States is affected by a winter storm that brought layers of dangerous ice and blowing snow, closing roads and airports from Texas to Rhode Island in this February 1 satellite image. The storm's more than 2,000-mile reach threatened to leave about a third of the nation covered in harsh weather. Ice fell first and was expected to be followed by up to two feet of snow in some places. (NOAA/AP)

Immigration

Their homelands are torn by war, economic distress, political strife, or environmental collapse. They choose to leave, or have no choice. They're called migrants, refugees, or internally displaced people. The labels are inadequate as often circumstances could allow all three descriptions, or some combination of them. Once in their new countries, they face difficult transitions, discrimination, or outright hostility. Host countries are burdened with the economic and political repercussions of the arrivals, while home nations are sometimes saddled with a "brain drain" of their most important human resources. Immigration is a hot-button issue in the American presidential race, and a wave of new arrivals from Libya to Italy has left the European Union struggling with decisions over the Schengen policy of borderless travel between member nations. Gathered here are images of some of the estimated 214 million people worldwide in the process of redefining what "home" means to them.

1. Rescuers help people in the sea after a boat carrying some 250 migrants crashed into rocks as they tried to enter the port of Pantelleria, an island off the southern coast of Italy, on April 13. Italy is struggling to cope with a mass influx of immigrants from north Africa, many of whom risk their lives by sailing across the often stormy Meditteranean in makeshift vessels. (Francesco Malavolta/AFP/Getty Images)