Icarus

Beyond the fact that it is sensational, the Fountain Theatre's production of "In the Red and Brown Water" by Tarell Alvin McCraney is important for two reasons: It introduces Los Angeles audiences to a dramatic poet in the process of discovering his singular voice and it shows how magnificently one of L.A.'s better small theaters can serve bold new talent. The play, which is part of McCraney's "Brother/Sister" trilogy, brought the 32-year-old African American playwright a good deal of attention when the cycle was produced off-Broadway at the Public Theater in 2009.

At first reading I was appalled when Times staff writer Frank Clifford labeled an entire room of citizens as "left wing." But the more I think about that idiot phrase "left wing" the more interesting it gets. Left wing, right wing, we're both attached to the same body . . . left wing, caring for peace and working against the arms race, slightly paranoid about the right wing. Right wing, burning with fear and hatred of communism, burning to fight here, there, anywhere, and definitely paranoid about the left wing.

Repertory West Dance Company is one of the few California dance groups dedicated to continuing the heritage of modern dance as well as to creating new works. The eight-member troupe, which is based at UC Santa Barbara, will serve both purposes by offering classic and more recent works by veteran choreographers Lucas Hoving and Anna Sokolow, among other artists, in a dance program at 8 p.m. Saturday at UC Irvine.

Scientists, attempting to accomplish in reality what Daedalus did in myth, said Wednesday that they are trying to build an aircraft powered solely by human energy and fly it 69 miles from Crete to the Greek mainland.

Gene Gutche, 93, internationally known composer of orchestral works. Born to Polish and French parents in Berlin, Gutche came to the United States in 1925 with $500 in his pocket. He was fluent in five European languages when he arrived in America but didn't know a word of English. He supported himself by working on a Texas ranch, then moved north as a migrant worker, finally landing in St. Paul, Minn.

The little brother to the Great Red Spot on Jupiter is getting redder and stronger. Both spots are actually fierce storms in Jupiter's atmosphere. While the Great Red Spot -- three times the size of Earth -- is much more noticeable, strange things are happening to the smaller spot. Just a little more than a year ago, the Earth-sized spot was white. Now it matches the reddish hue of its bigger sibling and boasts 400 mph winds, according to new data from the Hubble Space Telescope.

Forget April in Paris. Instead, try Neptune in spring. On the distant ice planet, spring is no fleeting season. It lasts for 40 years. The discovery has surprised astronomers, who didn't expect seasons to change on a planet where temperatures never rise above 290 degrees below zero and the sun is 900 times dimmer than on Earth. On Neptune, it's not cherry blossoms and chirping warblers that herald the coming of spring. It's a brightening of banded clouds in the planet's southern hemisphere.

Being raised to be exceptional can cause exceptional problems; Alissa Quart should know. The 34-year-old author of a new book "Hothouse Kids: The Dilemma of the Gifted Child," Quart read at age 3 and wrote her first novel when she was 7. In her book, she argues that today's parents' need to enrich children with special classes, jammed-packed schedules and learning tools can leave a lasting legacy. And not one the parents had in mind.