November came and went in an instant. I swear it was just summer, and then fall. Now it’s basically winter and I’m planning for the new year. Too soon for that, right?
Whatever I was doing for 30 days made me miss these four interesting things:
1 – “Bound” featuring Kim K and Kanye
There was a lot of talk online about this video but to be honest, I just ignored it. Then watching it just left me confused. Is it a song? Is it a parody? The motorcyle. Kanye’s shirt. Then there’s the background. Below see the music video for “Bound 2” from Kanye’s album “Yeezus” and let me know what you think is going on.
2 – Gettysburg Address Sesquicentennial
People gathered in Pennsylvania exactly 150 years after President Abraham Lincoln gave the Gettsyburg Address on November 19, 1863. American history is complicated and interesting, though many times simplified into tropes and catchphrases. Lincoln gave his speech four months after a battle that had the greatest casualties of the Civil War. “It is for us the living … to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced,” Lincoln said at the cemetery. It’s possible that we are still inspired by a speech that Lincoln said no one would remember because there is still work to do on “that government of the people, by the people, for the people.”
Here’s a video of our recent presidents and some celebrities reciting the short but powerful speech.
3 – The release of “Philomena“
I happened to see the trailer for this movie because of a passing ad. Three words: Dame Judy Dench.
4 – Scientists Literally Lift a Shield off HIV
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| From the “I F-ing love Science” page |
On December 1 (World AIDS Day), Pres. Obama said that strengthening scientific work could lead to a generation free of AIDS. Thanks to this great Facebook page, I found out that researchers from the Institut Curie in Paris successfully bypassed the protein shield of HIV-1 that makes it basically invisible to the body’s cells.
“By playing with the capsid, we made an HIV-1 that does not replicate but can stimulate an immune response,” said Nicolas Manel, who led the study. “We could imagine modifying the virus and using it as a vaccine.”
Read the full article here: http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/38400/title/HIV-s-Stealth-Revealed/
What else happened in November?
