Tail

What's for dinner? Penguins eat fish and squid. Positively Penguins... Some penguins like it cold. These penguins like it hot. African penguins live on islands off the coast of South Africa where the air is warm, but the water is cold. Like all penguins, African penguins can't fly in the air, but they can swim quickly under water, so they look like they are "flying." Using flipper-like wings to propel and feet and tail to steer, a penguin can swim 15 to 20 miles per hour.

Shortly before dawn, it hovers low in the northeastern sky: a dim, fork-tailed smudge of celestial light. People in the Northern Hemisphere are delighting in its subtle beauty, and astronomers have called it one of the greatest comets of all time.Formally named Comet C/1995 01, and better known as Comet Hale-Bopp, it is immense, by cometary standards.Astronomers have been watching and measuring it since the night of July 22, 1995, when Alan Hale, an astronomer, and Thomas Bopp, an amateur star-gazer, independently discovered the comet out beyond the orbit of Jupiter.

Our greatest deficit is not economic; it's social. As a cultural and consumer anthropologist who has studied the recession for the last two years, I believe the downturn led us to this situation. With this knowledge, I feel we are in a position to have a great year, but not because the economy will necessarily rebound (although that would be nice). 2011 will be great because we'll start to create and live by our "sense of social" — the sum total of relationships we create with others and our ability to leverage these relationships to create a mutually beneficial way of life.

GLEN ARM -- After months of controversy, the Baltimore County Council approved a contract Monday night to buy a 180,000-square-foot former Grumman aircraft manufacturing building on Long Green Pike.The county will pay $1.9 million, or $70,000 below the appraised price, for the building, one of two empty structures Grumman is trying to sell. The county also gets the plant's water and sewer system.The building will house repair shops for heavy equipment such as fire engines, and will be home to other internal county repair shops that will move from an outdated complex on York Road in Texas.

Two dogs were digging in the yard. One had a spot on his head. His name was Nap. The other had a spot on his tail. His name was Winkle. Scratch, scratch. Scratch, scratch. They never stopped digging for a minute. At last they found a bone."That bone is mine," said Nap. "I saw it first.""It's mine," said Winkle. "I touched it first."A farmer drove by with a load of hay and his cart bogged in a soft spot on the road."Let's ask the farmer," said Nap."Suits me," said Winkle. "Whose bone is it, Mr. Haymaker, Nap's or mine?

A MANX CAT and an American Eskimo dog who belong to a White Marsh family are interesting descendants of very old breeds.Karen and Frank Woodard, their daughter Robyn and Karen's mother, Maggie Carr, own a 10-year-old tail-less Manx cat called Dartana and a 9-year-old American Eskimo dog called Coco.Dartana's breed originated on the Isle of Man in the Irish Sea, and Coco is from one of the oldest of dog breeds which can be traced back 6,000 years. The breed is officially registered with the United Kennel Club, the world's largest working breed registry and second largest all-breed dog registry in the country.

Editor's note: A Newfoundland dog comes mysteriously out of the sea and takes up residence with a small white kitten in a deserted cottage. It was a day in spring when flower and fern began poking their heads out of the brown earth. As the sea rushed to meet the shore, a large black dog was carried by the waves up on the sand. There was no fishing boat to be seen. It was a puzzle whence he had come. The dog, a Newfoundland, rested a minute, then rose and shook himself. He clambered up over the rocks and came to the deserted cottage.

Why did players on defense like Terrell Suggs and Ray Lewis continue to talk trash when the Ravens were getting their tails handed to them? Stanley Because they're childish. Here the Ravens were getting beaten 35-0, and Suggs does a dance after sacking Ben Roethlisberger. I understand football is an emotional game. I don't mind the spikes and the end zone dances. I can even take the trash talking, especially when a team is playing well. But the Ravens were getting their butts kicked. The old-time Steelers and the announcers were joking all over them, and the Ravens kept giving them more ammunition.

A greenish alien object from deep space should be visible this weekend to Marylanders aided by nothing more extraordinary than very dark skies or binoculars. Comet C/2004 Q2 (Machholz), a dusty ice ball only a few kilometers wide and surrounded by a vast blob of gas and dust, is climbing higher in the sky each night as it passes Earth en route to a whirl around the sun. This weekend, it is high overhead in the evening sky, moving slowly to the north and passing just west of the Pleiades star cluster.