THE CHIMERA

I personally love mythology and mythological creatures, I am captivated by it and it kindles my imagination. Among the vast array of creatures, I love one savage beast the most – the CHIMERA.

In Greek mythology, the Chimera (Greek Χίμαιρα (Chímaira); Latin Chimaera) was a monstrous fire-breathing creature of Lycia in Asia Minor, composed of the parts of multiple animals: upon the body of a lioness with a tail that terminated in a snake's head, the head of a goat arose on her back at the center of her spine. The Chimera was one of the offspring of Typhon and Echidna and a sibling of such monsters as Cerberus and the Lernaean Hydra: "a thing of immortal make, not human, lion-fronted and snake behind, a goat in the middle, and snorting out the breath of the terrible flame of bright fire".

"She was the mother of Chimaera who breathed raging fire, a creature fearful, great, swift-footed and strong, who had three heads, one of a grim-eyed lion; in her hinderpart, a dragon; and in her middle, a goat, breathing forth a fearful blast of blazing fire. Her did Pegasus and noble Bellerophon slay" The Chimera was defeated by Bellerophon, with the help of Pegasus (a winged horse), at the command of King Iobates of Lycia. Since Pegasus could fly, Bellerophon shot the Chimera from the air, safe from her heads and breath and brought peace to Lycia.

DARK ANGEL

Speaking of dark angels! My favourite yet –JESSICA ALBA, she was the protagonist in Dark Angel, an American biopunk/cyberpunk science fiction television program created by James Cameron and Charles H. Eglee.

Alba portrayed an unforgettable female superhero in Max Guevera. As a genetically enhanced super soldier Max divides her life between evading her secret government Manticore creators, looking for other 'transgenic' fugitives and supporting the cyber social activist 'Eyes Only' in his efforts to protect the innocent and expose corruption.

Max is an intriguing female hero who never in two seasons of Dark Angel uses a gun. It is Max's ability to use her body as a weapon which significantly contributes to her status as superhero (the sexiest I’ve ever seen).

The power of Max Guevera is essential in the consideration of superheroes. She is proof not only that "girls kick ass" but significantly, that they can do it on their own terms and without guns.

VALKYRIES

Valkyries were originally sinister spirits of slaughter, corpse goddesses, dark angels of death who soared over battlefields like birds of prey, meeting out fate in the name of ODIN. Chosen heroes were gathered up and borne away to Vahalla, the heavenly abode of Odin’s ghostly army. Represented by the carrion-eating raven, the Valkyrie is related to the Celtic warrior-goddess, the Morrigan, who likewise may assume the form of the raven.

The name in Old Norse, valkyrja, means literally, "chooser of the slain."

Valkyries made an on-screen appearance in the movie MAX PAYNE starring MARK WAHLBERG, adapted from the hit video game of the same name.

FULGURITES - PRODUCTS OF LIGHTNING

What does happen when lightning strikes the ground? It transforms the soil it hits into something unique and artistic!! The end result - Fulgurites

Fulgurite is scientific Latin for "lightning stone." Fulgurites are made when lightning strikes the ground. When a bolt strikes the ground, it vaporizes a thin wormhole and melts the zone around it, creating an instant froth of natural hollow glass tubes formed in quartzose sand, or silica, or soil. These fulgurites can be up to several centimeters in diameter, and meters long, but they're quite fragile. Their color varies depending on the composition of the sand they formed in, ranging from black or tan to green or a translucent white. The interior is normally very smooth or lined with fine bubbles; the exterior is generally coated with rough sand particles and is porous. They are rootlike in appearance and often show branching or small holes. This process occurs over a period of around one second, and leaves evidence of the lightning path and its dispersion over the surface.

Finding one is quite rare!

AURORA BOREALIS

Has anyone ever witnessed these dancing fluorescent ribbons that light up the night sky? Well, I can’t blame you if you haven’t, coz it aint visible from where we Indians live! it is only visible in the sky from the Northern Hemisphere, the chance of visibility increasing with proximity to the North Magnetic Pole, which is currently in the arctic islands of northern Canada.

The northern lights have had a number of names throughout history. The Cree people call this phenomenon the "Dance of the Spirits." The aurora was named after the Roman goddess of dawn, and the Greek name for north wind, Boreas by Pierre Gassendi in 1621. It was long thought to be produced by sunlight reflected from polar snow and ice, or refracted light much like rainbows. But in reality, the phenomenon of aurora is an interaction between the Earth's magnetic field and solar wind. The Earth is constantly immersed in the solar wind, a rarefied flow of hot plasma emitted by the Sun in all directions.

The aurora may last 10-15 minutes, twisting and turning in patterns called "rayed bands", then whirling into a giant green corona in which rays appear to flare in all directions from a central point, and finally fade away.

I’ve been fascinated bout these amazing lights since I was a little kid! I do hope I witness it someday

THE MINI GUN II

IN THE MOVIES:

1. Jesse "The Body" Ventura and Bill Duke carried it (connected with truck batteries) in Predator (1987).  
   
2. The T-800 (Arnold Schwarzenegger) uses it to fire at police cruisers in Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)
3. Neo (Keanu Reeves) fought Agent Smith with an M134 mounted in a helicopter in The Matrix (1999).

THE MINI GUN

THE MINIGUN:

The most Bad-Ass machine gun that i've ever come across, it packs a mean punch and makes swiss cheese out of anything that gets in its way.

It is a 7.62 mm, multi-barrel machine gun with a high rate of fire (over 3,000 rounds per minute), employing Gatling-style rotating barrels with an external power source. In popular culture, the term "minigun" has come to refer to any externally-powered Gatling gun of rifle caliber.

HISTORY:

The original Gatling gun was a field weapon, which used multiple rotating barrels turned by a hand crank, and firing loose (no links or belt) metal cartridge ammunition using a gravity feed system from a hopper. The Gatling gun's innovation lay neither in the rotating mechanism nor the use of multiple barrels to limit overheating; rather, the innovation was the gravity feed reloading mechanism, which allowed unskilled operators to achieve a relatively high rate of fire of 200 rounds per minute.

The ancestor to the modern minigun was made in the 1860s. The Gatling gun (1861) was one of the most well known rapid-fire weapons to be used by the Union forces of the Civil War. Contrary to popular belief, the Gatling gun was not the first true machine gun. While it allowed for a high volume of fire, it used an external force to reload and fire the gun, and as a result, was not truly an automatic weapon. Richard J. Gatling replaced the hand cranked mechanism of a rifle-caliber Gatling gun with an electric motor, a relatively new invention at the time.