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| The Toulouse Tragedy |
| MANY years ago, as a young Jewish boy in Paris, and on the verge of becoming an adult in the eyes of Judaism, I sat with my community for Friday night prayers.
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| POLITICS AND MORALITY |
| CONSERVATIVES may not like liberals, but they seem to understand them. In contrast, many liberals find conservative voters not just wrong but also bewildering. |
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 | One year on, a slew of films on Japan disasters IT has long been assumed that filmmakers should tread carefully in the wake of tragedy. Whether confronting war or genocide, a terrorist attack or a natural disaster, the importance of bearing witness bumps up against the danger of trivialisation and exploitation....
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| | Rainfall calms storms | | RAINFALL soothes the atmosphere, atmospheric scientists have found.
They calculate that a substantial portion of the energy that drives wind and air circulation in the atmosphere is dissipated as friction by raindrops falling through the air.
The atmosphere acts like a heat engine, generating mechanical energy by moving heat from Earth's surface, where air has been warmed by the sun, to the colder air above. Some of that becomes kinetic energy of air, driving movements ranging from large-scale flows such as the jet streams down to small gusts and eddies. Ultimately this energy is dispersed in turbulence: air molecules swirling around chaotically 'rub together', warming up slightly.
But some of the dissipation of mechanical energy happens when a falling raindrop (or snowflake or hailstone) experiences friction as it passes through the surrounding air.
The friction on an individual raindrop is so small that it is tempting to dismiss it as a significant source of dissipation.
But atmospheric scientists Olivier Pauluis at New York University and Juliana Dias at the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Boulder, Colorado, have found that, on a global scale, so much precipitation falls that it dissipates almost as much atmospheric energy as does turbulence.
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| | NASA orbiter finds frosty dunes on Mars | | THE bulbous lobes of the H o m u n c u l u s Nebula surround the binary star system known as Eta Carinae in a picture from the Hubble Space Telescope.
Eta Carinae increased in brightness in the 19th century in an event that became known as the Great Eruption.
Astronomers now know that the larger star in the system is very massive and highly unstable. The outburst in the 1800s – which released the material that formed the dumbbell-shaped nebula – was likely a precursor to the star's imminent death in a powerful supernova.
FROSTY DUNES Bright frost gathers in the ripples on Martian dunes in a picture from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.
The image was taken when it was late fall in the red planet's southern hemisphere, and carbon dioxide frost was just beginning to accumulate on the pole-facing slopes.
The dunes are now being monitored for changes such as gullies as Mars experiences southern winter.
GOING BOOM Russian cosmonauts Oleg Kononenko and Anton Shkaplerov are seen during a spacewalk on February 16 as they work on maintenance and upgrades for the International Space Station.
During the spacewalk, which lasted six hours and 15 minutes, the pair worked on a telescoping boom – used to move massive components outside the station – that's being prepared for replacement next year.
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| | Hometown honour for Octavia Spencer | | OS C A R - W I N N I N G actress Octavia Spencer promised Alabama fans on Wednesday that she would do everything possible to make sure some of her future movies are made in her home state.
Spencer, who won this year's best supporting actress Oscar for her performance as the maid Minnie in The Help, told the crowd in Montgomery that her home would always be in Alabama.
Wearing a purple dress, she rode up to the Statehouse in a pink limousine for the ceremony. She was serenaded by the band from her alma mater, Jefferson Davis High School. She even paused for a moment to lead the band.
The Montgomery native thanked representative Terri Collins, R-Decatur, for sponsoring a bill, approved by the state House, to increase the incentives the state offers for movies to be made in Alabama. The bill was approved later on Wednesday by the Senate.
Multiple speakers, including Governor Robert Bentley and leaders of the House and Senate, greeted Spencer at a joint session of the Legislature. Bentley proclaimed Wednesday as 'Octavia Spencer Day in Alabama.' "We want to make sure your next Oscar is on a film shot right here in Alabama," Speaker Mike Hubbard told the actress.
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