As US troops leave Iraq, some ask: Was the war worth it? (The Christian Science Monitor)

Baghdad ? As the American war in Iraq comes to an end, some troops find themselves grappling with a question that has dogged them through multiple deployments: Was the sacrifice worth the price that US forces paid here?

?I?ve had people come to me, ?Why were we there? What did we do? Why did 4,000 die in Iraq? Why did I lose my friend?? ? says Lt. Col. Mark Rowan, an Air Force chaplain who has served 12 deployments and who has counseled troops returning from Iraq. ?We don?t really know the answer to that yet.? 

Commanders say it?s a question that they can?t readily answer, either. ?My opinion about sacrifice is that it?s a very personal thing,? says Maj. Gen. Russell Handy, the senior US Air Force officer in Iraq. To pronounce whether the war was ?worth it,? he says, would mean ?putting words in the mouths of family members? who continue to mourn for loved ones.

IN PICTURES: Leaving Iraq

Beyond those directly connected with the war, few Americans will ever understand the scale of loss for the US military, many here also believe.

It?s ?almost impossible for the American people to comprehend the level of sacrifice? that US troops have made in this war, says Handy.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, flying into Baghdad for the official ?close of mission? ceremony Thursday, addressed the troops, as well as the question that many silently ask themselves. 

?To be sure, the cost was high,? he said. But ?those lives were not lost in vain: They gave birth to an independent, free, and sovereign Iraq.? 

US forces who have been working with their Iraqi counterparts up until their last hours here wrestle with whether America did indeed accomplish what it set out to do.

They wonder, too, whether the answer to the war's worthiness hinges on another question ??? the question of, say, whether America won the war.

?We came to give them a democracy,? says Staff Sgt. Donald Rice of the 447th Expeditionary Security Forces Squadron. ?We gave them a chance at democracy. Was 4,400 lives worth the cost of giving them the chance at democracy?? he wonders.

?I?m not going to judge personal sacrifice,? says Handy, ?but I can tell you it?s tremendously important for this country to be stable.? Iraq today has a ?democratically elected and inclusive government,? he adds, and there remains hope for ?what that might mean to the region,? as the Arab Spring enters the winter season.

Rowan, the chaplain, says he has fielded agonized questions from troops, particularly among those who have experienced the heartbreak of losing their comrades.

He recalls presiding at the moment of death of a soldier, a married father of three who was shot while out on a 2009 patrol in northern Iraq. 

?I stayed with him and held his hand,? Rowan says, ?and did all the last rites before he passed.?

When his fellow soldiers learned that he had died, ?they exploded and threw their helmets down.? 

They wondered, too, whether the war was worth this ??? the loss they witnessed again and again. 

Rowan says that sometimes it helps to turn the question around: ?I ask them, 'What do you think you accomplished there? For the Air Force, or outside the base, maybe you were part of a team that got terrorists out of a town. Were people able to live free again?' ?

The point, he says, is to focus on, ?What good did you do there.? For America, for the politicians, he tells them, ?History will decide the rest.?

RECOMMENDED: Iraq after the US: Will it survive?

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Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/iraq/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/csm/20111216/ts_csm/437790

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Silence is golden: 'Artist' leads French-y Globes

In this film publicity image released by The Weinstein Company, Jean Dujardin portrays George Valentin in "The Artist." Dujardin was nominated Thursday, Dec. 15, 2011 for a Golden Globe award for best actor in a comedy or musical film. The Golden Globes will be presented Jan. 15 at the Beverly Hilton Hotel, televised live by NBC and hosted by Ricky Gervais. (AP Photo/The Weinstein Company)

In this film publicity image released by The Weinstein Company, Jean Dujardin portrays George Valentin in "The Artist." Dujardin was nominated Thursday, Dec. 15, 2011 for a Golden Globe award for best actor in a comedy or musical film. The Golden Globes will be presented Jan. 15 at the Beverly Hilton Hotel, televised live by NBC and hosted by Ricky Gervais. (AP Photo/The Weinstein Company)

In this film publicity image released by Disney, Viola Davis is shown in a scene from "The Help." (AP Photo/Disney, Dale Robinette)

In this image released by Disney DreamWorks II, Jessica Chastain portrays Celia Foote, left, and Octavia Spencer portrays Minny Jackson, in a scene from "The Help." Both Chastain and Spencer were nominated Thursday, Dec. 15, 2011, for a Golden Globe award for best supporting actress for their roles in the film. (AP Photo/Disney DreamWorks II, Dale Robinette)

In this image released by Paramount Pictures, Asa Butterfield portrays Hugo Cabret in a scene from "Hugo." The film, adapted from Brian Selznick's award-winning illustrated book "The Invention of Hugo Cabret," is about a 12-year-old orphan who lives in a 1930 Paris train station. The film was nominated Thursday, Dec. 15, 2011 for a Golden Globe award for best motion picture drama. The Golden Globes will be presented Jan. 15 at the Beverly Hilton Hotel, televised live by NBC and hosted by Ricky Gervais. (AP Photo/Paramount Pictures, Jaap Buitendijk)

In this film image released by Disney, Jeremy Irvine is shown in a scene from "War Horse." The film was nominated Thursday, Dec. 15, 2011 for a Golden Globe award for best motion picture drama. The Golden Globes will be presented Jan. 15 at the Beverly Hilton Hotel, televised live by NBC and hosted by Ricky Gervais. (AP Photo/Disney, Andrew Cooper)

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. (AP) ? Ah, Paris. City of Light. Land of romance. Gobbler of all the best Golden Globe nominations.

Presented by overseas reporters based in Hollywood, the Globes may be a worldwide affair, but this time, they have a real French flair. The silent film "The Artist," from French filmmaker Michel Havanavicius, led with six nominations Thursday, while the field includes Woody Allen's French romance "Midnight in Paris" and Martin Scorsese's Paris adventure "Hugo."

Steven Spielberg has two nominees with French connections: the World War I epic "War Horse," set partly in France's countryside, and the animated tale "The Adventures of Tintin," based on comic-book stories created in France's neighbor, Belgium.

"Of course, the foreign press is going to like France," joked Seth Rogen, producer and co-star of the cancer tale "50/50," which has two nominations and no obvious French links.

"War Horse" and "Hugo" are up for best drama, along with two George Clooney films, the Hawaiian family story "The Descendants" and the political thriller "The Ides of March"; the 1960s racial saga "The Help"; and Brad Pitt's baseball tale "Moneyball."

"The Artist," ''50/50" and "Midnight in Paris" are competing for the Globes' other best-picture prize ? for a musical or comedy. Also nominated are Kristen Wiig's wedding romp, "Bridesmaids," and Michelle Williams' Marilyn Monroe tale, "My Week with Marilyn."

The Globes help narrow down prospects for the Academy Awards, whose nominations come out Jan. 24. If "The Artist" earns a best-picture nomination then, it will be the first silent movie with a serious shot at Hollywood's top prize since the first year of the Oscars, for 1927-28, when the silent flicks "Wings" and "Sunset" took top honors.

"It's really strange and rare to not hear anything in the theater," said "The Artist" star Jean Dujardin, a dramatic actor nominee for his role as a silent-era superstar whose career capsizes after talking pictures take over in the late 1920s. "It's a new visual and emotional experience for people."

Frenchman Dujardin won the best-actor prize at May's Cannes Film Festival in southern France, where "The Artist" premiered.

Though it has virtually no spoken dialogue, "The Artist" is anything but quiet. The film features clever sound effects and a gorgeous musical score that earned a Globe nomination for French composer Ludovic Bource.

Hazanavicius received directing and screenplay nominations for "The Artist," which also picked up a supporting-actress honor for his wife, Berenice Bejo, who plays a rising star of the sound era.

While the key talent on "The Artist" is French, the film was shot in Hollywood and offers a classy re-creation of the world's film capital in the 1920s and '30s. The supporting cast includes John Goodman, James Cromwell, Penelope Ann Miller and Missi Pyle.

The French connection this year comes heavily from U.S. filmmakers telling stories set in France. Scorsese earned a directing nomination for "Hugo," about an orphan boy living in a Paris train station, where he becomes caught up in a mystery surrounding French film trailblazer Georges Melies. Allen also made the directing cut for "Midnight in Paris," his first film shot entirely in France, the romantic fantasy following an American writer (Owen Wilson) whose nostalgia for the 1920s Paris of Hemingway and Fitzgerald leads him on time-bending adventures.

With a cast that includes French actresses Marion Cotillard and Lea Seydoux and France's first lady, Carla Bruni, "Midnight in Paris" became Allen's biggest hit in decades.

Scorsese also turned nostalgic, crafting a dazzling 3-D Paris of the 1930s and recreating memorable moments from Melies' fantastical silent-film shorts, including "A Trip to the Moon."

"It gave me a chance to work in 3-D, which I've wanted to do since I was young; it allowed me to make a child's adventure, the type of picture that I loved when I was young; and it provided an occasion to pay tribute to one of the cinema's greatest pioneers, Georges Melies," Scorsese said.

Spielberg's "War Horse" follows a resilient steed changing hands among the British, Germans and French during World War I, and his "Adventures of Tintin" chronicles the treasure-seeking exploits of Belgian artist and writer Herge's comic-book hero.

To stretch the Franco angle further, Hollywood exile Roman Polanski, who lives in France after fleeing the United States amid charges he had sex with a 13-year-old girl in 1977, shot his Globe-nominated drama "Carnage" outside of Paris. The film, based on a stage work by French playwright Yasmina Reza, earned musical or comedy actress nominations for Jodie Foster and Kate Winslet as mothers squabbling over their sons' schoolyard fight.

"The Help" and "The Descendants," which tied for second-place behind "The Artist" with five Globe nominations each, are pure American stories.

Adapted from Kathryn Stockett's best-seller, "The Help" earned a dramatic actress honor for Viola Davis and a supporting-actress nomination for Octavia Spencer as Mississippi maids going public with stories about their white employers as the civil-rights movement heats up in the 1960s.

"I'm thrilled for Viola," Spencer said. "I consider myself a rank-and-file actor who's been kicking the can around for 15 years. Viola is a trained Julliard actress who has been doing stage, and now the world is getting to see what she can do."

Co-star Jessica Chastain also had a supporting-actress nomination as Spencer's good-hearted, lonely boss.

"The Descendants" earned a dramatic actor nomination for Clooney as a father struggling to tend his daughters after a boating accident puts his wife in a coma. Shailene Woodley earned a supporting-actress honor as Clooney's troublesome older daughter, while filmmaker Alexander Payne had directing and screenplay nominations.

Multi-tasker Clooney has three nominations. He's also up for directing and screenplay for "The Ides of March." For the acting prize, Clooney will compete against his "Ides" co-star Ryan Gosling, who plays a presidential candidate's aide. Gosling had a second nomination for best musical or comedy actor as a ladies man in the romance "Crazy, Stupid, Love."

Glenn Close also is a dual contender, for best dramatic actress as a woman masquerading as a male butler in the Irish drama "Albert Nobbs" and for best song for writing the lyrics to "Lay Your Head Down," the film's theme tune.

"What an astounding embarrassment of riches," Close said.

Joining Close and Davis in the dramatic actress lineup are: Rooney Mara as a traumatized victim-turned-avenger in "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo"; Meryl Streep as British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in "The Iron Lady"; and Tilda Swinton as a grieving woman coping with her son's terrible deeds in "We Need to Talk About Kevin."

Clooney has another pal in the dramatic actor race, his "Ocean's Eleven" franchise co-star Pitt, who's nominated for his "Moneyball" role as Oakland A's general manager Billy Beane.

Gosling, Clooney and Pitt are up against Leonardo DiCaprio as FBI boss J. Edgar Hoover in "J. Edgar" and Michael Fassbender as a sex addict in "Shame."

Pitt's romantic partner, Angelina Jolie, picked up a nomination for foreign-language film for her directing debut, the Bosnian war drama "In the Land of Blood and Honey."

With drinks and dinner, the Globes are a laid-back affair for Hollywood's elite compared to the Oscars. The show turned a bit prickly last year as host Ricky Gervais repeatedly made sharp wisecracks about stars and the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, a group of about 85 overseas reporters that presents the Globes.

But Gervais helped give the show a TV ratings boost, and he's been invited back as host for a third-straight year.

"The Artist" star Dujardin joked that Gervais must follow the silent-film code if he plans on mocking him, saying "he has to do it silent, without any words."

___

AP Entertainment Writers Sandy Cohen, Derrik J. Lang and Anthony McCartney contributed to this report.

___

Online:

http://www.goldenglobes.org

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/4e67281c3f754d0696fbfdee0f3f1469/Article_2011-12-15-Golden%20Globe%20Nominations/id-1e4b192607534bf785065530b1e40b78

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Art and science collide at Pasadena gallery

The fist-sized rocks looked completely pedestrian, like something one might find in the backyard. The only hint that they might be exceptional was their location in a gallery at Pasadena's Art Center College of Design, resting on pedestals inside individual display cases.

In fact, the rocks are anything but ordinary ? they're borrowed from the UCLA Meteorite Collection.

The university had wanted to loan fancier-looking specimens, but curator Stephen Nowlin deliberately chose the least impressive space debris he could find.

"I wanted to show that the stuff that comes from space looks just like the stuff you kick around on a hike," he said.

It's a typical juxtaposition for the "Worlds" exhibit, now on view at the Alyce de Roulet Williamson Gallery. The installation combines art, historical documents and visualizations of scientific data in an attempt to ponder how scientific knowledge, and the lack of it, shape humans' understanding of the world around them.

"We have an Earth focus. This show is about reinvestigating that perspective," Nowlin said. "It's a space object we live on."

To that end, Nowlin has hung black-and-white photos of run-of-the-mill stones, magnified so that they look like imposing boulders.

Nearby, reproductions of pages from early scientific works, many from the rare books collection of the Huntington Library, remind visitors how earlier generations interpreted what they could see of the heavens. An illuminated manuscript from 1568 places the Earth in the center of the universe; an engraving from Nicolaus Copernicus' "De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium" of 1566 depicts the sun at the center of the cosmos.

That art was science. Elsewhere in the exhibit, science becomes art.

For instance, Jonathan Cecil's 2010 "Basrah Zoom" manipulates Earth satellite imagery to create a portrait of our planet that looks decidedly extraterrestrial, with streets and other man-made features morphed into the craggy pits and protrusions of an asteroid.

New York artists Richard Selesnick and Nicholas Kahn turn space-themed imagery into surreal science fiction in their piece "Liftoff, from the Apollo Prophecies." Completed in 2006, the mixed-media projection imagines a system of travel between the Earth and the moon where rocket capsules grow from the lunar surface and space-suited elephants and monkeys wander about.

"The details in that piece mess with your sensibility of what's real and what's imagined," said Daniel Lewis, Dibner senior curator of the history of science and technology at the Huntington. "That's what art is ? it looks like something real, but it's constructed."

In another room, portraits of real moons generated from photos by various NASA craft are displayed on a long wall. Earth's moon is subtly tucked toward the middle of the series, among Mars' Phobos, Saturn's Enceladus and Jupiter's Io.

"I wanted to equalize it," Nowlin said.

Shows like "Worlds" fit well with the Art Center's mission, Nowlin said. The school trains industrial, transportation, graphic and other designers ? workers who innovate "at the boundary of art and science," he said.

Nowlin has been curating shows that superimpose the two disciplines for about 15 years, often working with local scientific institutions. In 2003, he and scientists from Caltech collaborated with artists on an exhibition that explored neuroscience.

A few years later, the Williamson Gallery jointly presented an exhibit with Caltech's Spitzer Science Center. That show invited artists to create visual works using infrared data, which can't be seen by the naked eye, collected from the Spitzer Space Telescope.

A major goal of all the gallery's work, Nowlin said, is to focus on the emotional connection people make with science. "That could come back to benefit science" by stoking public interest, support and funding, he said.

It can also create a moving experience, he added.

During opening night at "Worlds," opera singers performed arias in front of "Black Rain," a wall-sized video installation by a collaboration called Semiconductor that features real footage captured by a NASA probe as it traveled around the sun.

"It was goose bumps," Nowlin said. "Everybody was sort of stunned."

Thousands of stars tumbled slowly down the wall, punctuated by an occasional glowing planet or burst of reflected sunlight, as the two women sang.

"Worlds" is on display through Jan. 29, but will be closed for the holidays from Dec. 22 through Jan. 2. Admission and parking are free.

eryn.brown@latimes.com

Source: http://feeds.latimes.com/~r/latimes/news/science/~3/QGIFyccVEYc/la-sci-worlds-science-art-20111217,0,1987976.story

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Comet survives fiery plunge through sun

A newfound comet defied long odds Thursday, surviving a suicidal dive through the sun's hellishly hot atmosphere, according to NASA scientists.

Comet Lovejoy plunged through the sun's corona at about 7 p.m. ET, coming within 87,000 miles of our star's surface. Temperatures in the corona can reach 2 million degrees Fahrenheit, so most researchers expected the icy wanderer to be completely destroyed.

But Lovejoy proved to be made of tough stuff. A video taken by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory spacecraft, or SDO, showed the icy object emerging from behind the sun and zipping back off into space.

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"Breaking News! Lovejoy lives! The comet Lovejoy has survived its journey around the sun to reemerge on the other side," SDO researchers tweeted.

SDO is one of many instruments that scientists ? eager to record and study the comet's presumed demise ? trained on Lovejoy as it streaked toward the sun.

"We have here an exceptionally rare opportunity to observe the complete vaporization of a relatively large comet, and we have approximately 18 instruments on five different satellites that are trying to do just that," Karl Battams, a scientist at the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, wrote on the Sungrazing Comets website before Lovejoy's closest solar approach.

Battams runs the website, which is devoted to comets discovered by two different spacecraft: NASA's Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory (STEREO) and the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO), which is operated jointly by NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA). [Death of a Comet: Photos of Sungrazing Comet Lovejoy]

Preparing for the end
Lovejoy has a core about 660 feet wide. It belongs to a class of comets known as Kreutz sungrazers, whose orbits bring them very close to the sun.

All Kreutz sungrazers are thought to be the remnants of a single giant comet that broke apart several centuries ago. They're named after the 19th-century German astronomer Heinrich Kreutz, who first showed that such comets are related.

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Comets plunge into the sun on a regular basis, but they rarely give much advance notice of their suicidal intentions. That's why scientists were so excited about Lovejoy. Australian amateur astronomer Terry Lovejoy discovered the icy wanderer on Nov. 27, giving researchers plenty of time to map out their observation campaign.

And that campaign has been intense, involving five different spacecraft. In addition to SDO, SOHO and STEREO, scientists planned to use Japan's Hinode satellite and ESA's Proba spacecraft to track Lovejoy's movements, Battams wrote.

NASA also created a website providing updates about the comet's pass through the corona, as well as images of the event beamed down by SDO. It can be found here: http://sdo.gsfc.nasa.gov/data/lovejoy.php

For his part, Terry Lovejoy said he was happy to have made a contribution, and he marveled a bit at all the attention the comet has been getting.

"It's been tremendous," Lovejoy told Space.com. "Apparently it's all over Facebook, and I don't use Facebook. But there's a lot of interest. I think a lot of people like the name ? the Lovejoy name seems to strike a chord with people."

A dramatic escape
Lovejoy is quite large for a sungrazing comet, and experts expected it to die an impressive death. The website Spaceweather.com, for example, predicted Lovejoy would blaze as brightly as Jupiter or Venus in the sky as it neared the sun.

Battams also expected a good show, saying the comet might even be visible from the ground around sunset today in the Northern Hemisphere.?

"I do think that it will put on a spectacular show for us and will be the brightest Kreutz-group comet that SOHO has ever observed," Battams wrote last week.

Though the early returns are just starting to come in, those forecasts appear to be on the money. Observations from various spacecraft do indeed show Lovejoy flaring up significantly as it neared our star.

Researchers will keep analyzing the images to better understand the comet's daring solar approach. And now skywatchers apparently have another shot to catch a glimpse of the resilient Lovejoy on Friday morning.

For observers in North America, the comet will rise approximately 5 to 10 minutes before dawn and will be situated to the upper right of the sun. If Lovejoy is still shining at least as brightly as Venus, it may be visible, experts say.?

You could also try to spot Lovejoy after the sun comes up, if you're exceedingly careful. Block the rising sun behind a distant building and focus on the part of the sky 3 to 4 degrees above and to the right of the sun (your clenched fist held at arm's length is equal to roughly 10 degrees).

CAUTION: Never point binoculars or a telescope at or near the sun, and never look directly at the sun with the naked eye. Serious eye damage can result.

And don't get your hopes up, either. The comet may well be too faint to see, experts say.

Note: If you take any good pictures of Comet Lovejoy and would like them to be considered for a future story or image gallery, contact Space.com managing editor Tariq Malik at tmalik@space.com.

Space.com assistant managing editor Clara Moskowitz (@ ClaraMoskowitz ) contributed to this story. You can follow Space.com senior writer Mike Wall on Twitter:@michaeldwall. Follow Space.com for the latest in space science and exploration news on Twitter @Spacedotcom??and on Facebook.

? 2011 Space.com. All rights reserved. More from Space.com.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45691807/ns/technology_and_science-space/

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Gary Kriss' legal woes continue | Politics on the Hudson

Gary Kriss, a former aide to the Westchester County Board of Legislators, was only fined $1,694 to settle two counts of theft for using his public office for personal purposes, but he rang up at least $35,000 in legal bills defending himself.

That?s the amount he owes Aiello & Cannick of Maspeth, N.Y., which filed a lawsuit against him in the state Supreme Court on Dec. 7, accusing Kriss of breach of contract.

The law firm is asking the court to order Kriss to pay $35,000 plus interest from June 16, 2010, the day of his sentencing, to the present.

Attorney Robert Aiello defended Kriss during his trial. Kriss, chief adviser to former county Board chair Bill Ryan, was sentenced on misdemeanor theft-of-services charges.

Kriss came under fire after a June 1, 2008, report in The Journal News found he had spent thousands of taxpayer dollars on books, software and electronics. The purchases included Hollywood scriptwriting software, a how-to program on Manga style cartooning, and a Kindle, with some of the items shipped to his South Salem home.

The controversy later prompted the 17-member county board to adopt changes in board spending and oversight policies.

Kriss was never charged with wrongdoing in relation to his county expenses, but was initially charged with four misdemeanors accusing him of having county graphics information technology specialist Sarah O?Brien work on personal projects for him and his wife, Patricia.

Among the projects that prosecutors said O?Brien worked on were a flow chart relating to Yale Divinity School, where Patricia Kriss was a student, and work relating to a referendum for the Ridgefield, Conn., Library.

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Source: http://polhudson.lohudblogs.com/2011/12/14/gary-kriss-legal-woes-continue/

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Milky Way's Monster Black Hole Gets Colossal Meal (SPACE.com)

The giant black hole at the heart of our Milky Way galaxy will soon rip apart a vast cloud of gas in a cosmic feast that could reveal just how supermassive black holes gobble their meals, scientists say.

The black hole, which contains about 4.3 million times the mass of the sun,is thought to lurk at the heart of the Milky Way. Scientists have named the monster black hole Sagittarius A* and pinpointed its location based on clues from intense radio emissions ? matter near a black hole can release extraordinary amounts of light, including radio waves, as it gets super-heated rushing toward the point of no return.

Aside from radio waves and some modest X-ray or infrared flares, Sagittarius A* is surprisingly faint, suggesting that activity around it currently is very low, researchers said. This limits what investigators can deduce about its properties and behavior, as well as those of the other supermassive black holes thought to dwell in the cores of virtually all large galaxies.

"It is by no means easy to feed a black hole ? if you were to throw something into its direction and you miss it a bit, the object would just swing by the black hole, like a spacecraft does when it passes a planet," study lead author Stefan Gillessen, an astronomer at the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in Garching, Germany, told SPACE.com. "The object can only fall in if you point very precisely towards the black hole and hit it, or if during the swing-by the object loses energy and decelerates such that it falls in." [Photos: Black Holes of the Universe]

Black hole glutton

However, since 2002, astronomers gazing through the Very Large Telescope have monitored a dusty gas cloud three times the mass of Earth zip at up to more than 5.2 million mph (8.4 million kph) in a straight line toward Sagittarius A*, putting out five times as much light as the sun as it speeds along. The cloud has now grown increasingly disrupted as it moves closer toward the black hole's accretion zone ? the region where matter begins its death spiral into the black hole.

"We can actually watch how this cloud gets disrupted ? we see the changes in front of our eyes within the few years we have observed the cloud," Gillessen said. "The event will become much more dramatic in the near future ... the cloud now accelerates quickly towards the massive black hole."

The researchers suggest that monitoring how this cloud behaves in the next few years should help shed light on a number of mysteries surrounding the Milky Way's central black hole, such as its feeding processes.

"We can hope to understand how material is distributed around the black hole and thus test theoretical pictures of the emission of Sagittarius A*, which results from the material in the black hole's surroundings," Gillessen said.

Black hole witness

The cloud should reach the black hole in 2012 or 2013.? They predict that as the cloud continues to fall into the black hole, its X-ray emissions should become substantially brighter, and it should spit out a giant radiation flare in a few years.

"Probably the first telescopes to notice the violence of the event will be X-ray satellites, but later Sagittarius A* might show up in all wavelengths," Gillessen said.

The scientists detailed their findings online Dec. 14 in the journal Nature.

Follow SPACE.com for the latest in space science and exploration news on Twitter?@Spacedotcom?and on?Facebook.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/space/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/space/20111214/sc_space/milkywaysmonsterblackholegetscolossalmeal

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Reduce Foot Pain with Alternate Shoe Lacing Methods [Knots]

If your shoes rub the tops of your feet, your toes feel too restricted, the shoe feels too tight on the top of your feet, or your heels slip up and down you may find that using an alternate shoe lacing method will reduce pain.

Well being weblog Health.com advocates four alternate lacings that will help alleviate each of the conditions above. Check out the source post below for which lacing helps which problem.

Lace Them Up: How to Stop Pain With Shoelaces | Health.com

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~3/bK1baYaVIJo/reduce-foot-pain-with-alternate-shoe-lacing-methods

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