Tail

The alarm over potential bank runs in Greece and Spain this week has highlighted an often-overlooked fact: Europe's debt crisis is also, in many ways, a major banking crisis. In capitals such as Athens, Madrid and Rome, large portions of the sovereign debt racked up by spendthrift governments are owed to the countries' own banks, locking governments and the banks in an embrace so tight that disaster for one would almost certainly spell doom for the other. International bailouts for Greece, Ireland and Portugal have helped to keep not just their governments but also their banks afloat, as well as financial institutions in other parts of Europe with large exposure to those nations' debts.

Dullahan ran down Hansen in the final furlong to insert his own name among the Kentucky Derby favorites in the $750,000 Blue Grass Stakes at Keeneland in Lexington, Ky. Dullahan went off at 3-1 odds, running the 1 1/8 miles on the Polytrack in 1.47.94 under Kent Desormeaux to beat the near white colt that was the center of attention because his owner, Dr. Kendall Hansen , had arranged for the horse's tail to be partially dyed royal blue,...

For centuries, historians, political theorists, anthropologists and the public have tended to think about the political process in seasonal, cyclical terms. From Polybius to Paul Kennedy, from ancient Rome to imperial Britain, we discern a rhythm to history. Great powers, like great men, are born, rise, reign and then gradually wane. No matter whether civilizations decline culturally, economically or ecologically, their downfalls are protracted. In the same way, the challenges that face the United States are often represented as slow-burning.

Well, now we've seen it all: Scientists from UC Davis and San Diego State University have released a video of a venomous rattlesnake attacking a robotic squirrel. And we thought robojelly, the robotic jellyfish was weird. The video was made by Rulon Clark , a biology professor at San Diego State who is trying to determine how squirrels and rattlesnakes communicate in the wild. When a squirrel thinks a rattlesnake is nearby, rather than running away, it will raise its tail, heat it up, and wag it. Scientists call this "flagging behavior.

I love seeing other comments from residents regarding the blatant destruction of the beautiful "Tail O' the Cock." It is irritating that for years we all lined Sheldon A. McHenry's pockets and he displayed no concern or loyalty either to his patrons or his loyal staff of many years who were discarded like old shoes with neither a bonus nor a "thank you." Developer Herbert M. Piken should have investigated more throughly the feelings of the community before consummating his purchase.

Election day has arrived -- at Frontier Airlines . For the first time, the Denver-based airline on Monday asked fliers to vote for the next animal  that should grace the tail of one of its planes. And here's a game-changer in this election: Not all 18 contenders follow the cute-and-cuddly model. In fact, some are downright off-putting. Fans may cast their ballot for hopefuls such as Paula the Pig and Duke the Arctic Dog (high on the cute index) or Doug the Dung Beetle and Samson the Sloth (uh, freakish and strange)

Cats have them, dogs have them, even baby frogs have them. But a star with a tail? That was a new one for Caltech scientist Christopher Martin. The star, Mira, which means "wonderful" in Latin, has a tail 13 light-years long, three times the distance to our nearest stellar neighbor, Proxima Centauri. NASA's Galaxy Evolution Explorer spacecraft scanned the star part of its survey of the heavens in ultraviolet light.

Betcha Aaron Betsky wasn't born in Los Angeles! Betcha Mr. Betsky has little or no sense of humor! Betcha Betsky never had a hot dog at the Tail o' the Pup! (Times, July 2) Why is it that something that's fun, that's part of the L.A. scene for decades, has to bear the brunt of a naysayer? Mr. Betsky, may we suggest you visit the Tail for a hot dog . . . they're great. The atmosphere is fun and very Los Angeles. Granted, it isn't the Guggenheim . . . but we natives love our eccentricities, and we're not so stodgy that we have to put everything down!

Astronomers have found that the moon has a tail. Like the luminous plumes that stretch out from comets, a glowing 15,000-mile tail of sodium atoms streams from the moon, blown away from the sun by the solar wind--the constant flow of particles, including protons and electrons, that stream out from the sun. The tail is not visible to the naked eye, but instruments can see the faint orange glow of sodium.

The tailless Manx cat ends with the unsettling abruptness of a sawed-off shotgun, but makes up for this anatomical shortage in an abundance of love and loyalty. And the absence of a tail has made the Manx the stuff of legend. Its tail got caught in the doors of Noah's Ark. It's part cat, part rabbit. It escaped minus its tail from a Spanish shipwreck and threw a litter on this little island in the Irish Sea. Viking invaders cut off the tails to adorn their helmets. . . .

Election day has arrived -- at Frontier Airlines . For the first time, the Denver-based airline on Monday asked fliers to vote for the next animal  that should grace the tail of one of its planes. And here's a game-changer in this election: Not all 18 contenders follow the cute-and-cuddly model. In fact, some are downright off-putting. Fans may cast their ballot for hopefuls such as Paula the Pig and Duke the Arctic Dog (high on the cute index) or Doug the Dung Beetle and Samson the Sloth (uh, freakish and strange)

Parts of a U.S. Coast Guard helicopter that crashed Tuesday evening in Alabama's Mobile Bay have been recovered and brought to the surface, a Coast Guard official said Thursday. Three crew members remain missing. Lt. Eric Wilson, a Coast Guard pilot and spokesman, said in a telephone interview from Mobile, Ala., that the aircraft's tail has been recovered and that the main fuselage is being raised. The search for the three missing crew members is continuing as the salvage operation proceeds,  Wilson said.

Boeing Co. said Monday that repairs are needed in the tail sections of some of its new 787s, although it said there's no immediate safety concern. Boeing has delivered five of the planes since September to Japan's All Nippon Airways. It has built dozens more, including many that need to be reworked to fix various manufacturing issues. A Boeing spokeswoman said Monday that inspections were underway to determine which planes need the latest repairs, including the planes that have gone to All Nippon.

Audiences haven't tired of Kate Beckinsale as a butt-kicking heroine — the fourth installment of Sony Pictures' "Underworld" series debuted to healthy ticket sales over the weekend. The vampire action-thriller "Underworld: Awakening" opened to $25.4 million, according to an estimate from the studio's Screen Gems label. Meanwhile, George Lucas' "Red Tails" — about the Tuskegee Airmen — exceeded industry expectations, selling $19.1-million worth of tickets. "Haywire," Steven Soderbergh's action-thriller starring mixed martial arts star Gina Carano, had a less impressive opening of $9 million.

The fourth movie in Sony Pictures' "Underworld" vampire series should lead the box office this weekend as Hollywood hopes to continue what has been a strong January in theaters. People who have seen prerelease audience surveys are confident that"Underworld: Awakening"will debut with between $20 million and $25 million. There's less certainty around another new entry,"Red Tails. " The George Lucas-produced movie about the World War II Tuskegee Airmen is tracking for an opening of around $15 million, gaining momentum recently among African American audiences.

'Red Tails' MPAA rating: PG-13 for some sequences of war violence Running time: 2 hours, 5 minutes Playing: In general release

The little girl who couldn't have been a day over 6 years old ran up to the small glass cage in the rabbits and poultry building at the Orange County Fair and pointed at a litter of inch-long baby rats, piled peacefully on top of each other, so young their eyes had yet to open. "Oh, Mommy, look at the rats!" she cried. "Aren't they cute?" Mommy apparently didn't think so.

"Red Tails" squanders a great subject, reducing the real-life struggles and fierce heroics of the Tuskegee Airmen to rickety cliché. Some of the action's fun. But if something about that statement doesn't sound right, well, there's your chief problem with "Red Tails. " It sets out to ingratiate without provocation or complexity. This much can be said of producer George Lucas' long-gestating project: It avoids the aggravating Hollywood strategy of telling an African American story by way of a mass-marketable white protagonist, a la the Civil War drama "Glory.

A tail is a handy thing to have — it can aid in flight, swat insects, display showy plumage, grasp onto tree limbs or scare away predators with a brisk, threatening twitch. But one of the tail's basic functions is thought to be movement and balance. Now, after a careful analysis of leaping lizards, researchers have figured out how the creatures use their tails to angle themselves in midair — and demonstrated the process in a tailed robot they built, christened Tailbot. The experiment, reported Thursday in the journal Nature, was not as simple as it may sound.