Grand Budapest Hotel won four Academy Awards at the annual ceremony held February 22, 2015. The film had received nine nominations, the same as Birdman or (the Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance). Grand Budapest Hotel won Best Music (Original Source), Best Production Design, Best Makeup and Hairstyling, and Best Costume Design.
The film received nominations for Best Picture, Best Directing for Wes Anderson, Best Writing (Original Screenplay), Best Film Editing, and Best Cinematography.
The Grammy Hall of Fame honors musical recordings of lasting qualitative or historical significance. Recordings must be over 25 years old for consideration. At the 57th annual Grammy Awards celebration February 8, 2015, twenty-seven new recordings were inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.
Among them were two recordings of the African American folk song Swing Low, Sweet Chariot: The Fisk Jubilee Singers for their 1909 recording; and Paul Robeson for his 1926 recording.
ABBA's Dancing Queen and Chic's Le Freak were inducted as well.
Although gay men have always been a part of Hollywood, they were still forced into the closet, made to marry women, and play 'butch' roles. Same-sex relationships were usually poorly kept secrets, but still very few acknowledged being gay.
So it was significant that Neil Patrick Harris, who celebrates his birthday today, became the first gay man to host the Academy Awards, when he hosted the 87th annual ceremony in 2015.
Harris has been in a committed relationship with David Burtka, a stage and screen actor, since 2004. In 2010, their twins Gideon Scott and daughter Harper Grace were born via a surrogate. They announced their engagement in October 2011, when same-sex marriages became legal.
The Trevor Life Award, which honors an individual who, through his or her example, support, volunteerism and/or occupation, is an inspiration to Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, or Questioning youth" was presented to Harris in 2009. The organization representing the award is the Trevor Project, which helps LGBT youth considering suicide or facing rejection from their families.
The epic disaster flick, San Andreas, opened in theaters across the US May 29, 2015. It starred the impossibly hunky Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson as a rescue-chopper pilot, who has to team up with his ex-wife to save their daughter, trapped in San Francisco by a series of earthquakes.
As usual, it takes a number of creative liberties with science, but it makes a good movie. Ioan Gruffud (Mr. Fantastic, Horatio Hornblower) stars as the boyfriend of Johnson's ex-wife. He has good intentions but ultimately fails.
Paul Giamatti appears as a seismology professor and Kylie Minogue has a very brief cameo as Gruffud's sister, Susan.
San Andreas received some mediocre reviews from the critics but audiences loved it, making it the biggest opening for a disaster movie for Warner Brothers.
My man Billy Joel performed the National Anthem a cappella at Game 3 of the World Series October 30, 2015. He sang it straight, with no grandstanding, no flourishes, and no gimmicks. He's da man!
Soyuz TMA-16M (L-R): Scott Kelly, Gennady Padalka, Mikhail Korniyenko
Mission patch
Soyuz TMA-16M, launched March 27, 2015, transported members of Expedition 43 to the International Space Station. Its crew consisted of Commander Gennady Padalka, Mikhail Korniyenko (both of Roscosmos), and Scott Kelly (NASA).
Korniyenko and Kelly remained aboard the ISS for a year until March 2016, while Padalka retunred to Earth in September 2015, with Andreas Mogensen (ESA) and Aidyn Aimbetov (KazCosmos).
The long-awaited Star Wars sequel to Revenge of the Jedi, The Force Awakens was released December 18, 2015. It was met with positive reviews and fans loved it. The Force Awakens was nominated for 5 Academy Awards and won 8 Saturn Awards: Best Science Fiction Film, Best Writing, Best Actor for Harrison Ford, Best Supporting Actor, Best Music for John Williams, Best Editing, Best Make-up, and Best Special Effects.
It reunited Carrie Fisher, Anthony Daniels, and Mark Hamill, as well as Ford.
Soyuz TMA-18M, launched September 2, 2015 to the International Space Station, carried the first Danish astronaut Andreas Morgensen (ESA) and the first Kazakh cosmonaut Aidyn Aimbetov into space. Its commander was cosmonaut Sergey Volkov (Roscosmos), who stayed aboard the ISS until March 2016 as part of Expedition 45. Morgensen and Aimbetov returned about 10 days later on Soyuz TMA-16M.
He returned with Scott Kelly (NASA) and Mikhail Korniyenko (Roscosmos), members of Expedition 46.
Soyuz TMA-17M, launched July 22, 2015, carried members of Expedition 44 to the International Space Station. Its crew consisted of Oleg Kononenko (Roscosmos), Kimiya Yui (JAXA) and Kjell Lindgren (NASA).
Soyuz TMA-19M, launched December 15, 2015, carried the members of Expedition 46 to the International Space Station. Its crew consisted of Commander Yuri Malenchenko (Roscosmos), Timothy Kopra (NASA) and Timothy Peake (ESA)
They returned to Earth 186 days later in June 2016.
Everyone's favorite micro-superhero, Marvel Comics' Ant-Man, came to the big screen July 17, 2015. It starred sexy Paul Rudd as Scott Lang (title character), Michael Douglas as Hank Pym and Corey Stoll as Yellowjacket (bad guy).
Pym has created the amazing shrinking technology but has hidden it because he fears it will be used for evil. Lang, returning to a life of crime after being released from prison, steals the shrinking suit, not realizing what it is. Hank Pym then recruits Lang to locate and steal the Yellowjacket outfit, which has similar shrinking properties, from his former protege.
This movie was probably a bit more fun than it should have been. It has amazing special effects and of course, Paul Rudd.
Def Leppard released their eleventh studio and self-title album Def Leppard October 30, 2015. It is their 7th Top 10 album and debuted at #10 on Billboard 200. It peaked at #1 on US Top Rock Albums, US Top Hard Rock Albums and US Independent Albums (all Billboard).
Music critic Dave Everley of Classic Rock magazine had this snarky comment:
"But even that pales into insignificance next to the finger-poppin' white-boy funk of 'Are You Man Enough?', which rips off Queen's 'Another One Bites the Dust' so shamelessly that it should come with its own stick-on handlebar moustaches..."
So I had to go back and listen to Man Enough to see why I had missed the similarity. Then I realized, it sounds no more like Another One Bites the Dust than any other song with a heavy bass line.
One year ago today, the New Horizons spacecraft made its closest approach to Pluto and its moon Charon. Since then, NASA scientists have made numerous discoveries about the now-dwarf planet, such as craters, mountains and seas of solid nitrogen.
Last month, scientists discovered super-grand canyon on Charon that makes Arizona's Grand Canyon look like a scratch!
Svetlana Alexievich, a non-fiction writer from Belarus, has won the 2015 Nobel Prize for Literature, only the 14th woman to do so. Ms. Alexievich draws her works from historical facts and interviews from major events such as the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan and the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in 1986. Her most noted work, "War's Unwomanly Face", was based on interviews with hundreds of women who lived through World War II.
Paul Modrich (Duke University School of Medicine), Aziz Sancar (University of North Carolina) and Tomas Lindahl (Francis Crick Institute at Clare Hall Laboratory, Hertfordshire, UK)
They unlocked the secrets of DNA repair, which are molecular tools to ensure DNA is working properly.
Although it is the building block of life, DNA is rather unstable. Part of the nucleotide cysteine, one of the bases that makes up DNA, tends to degrade over time. Then it matches up with the wrong nucleotide when the DNA molecule replicates. One would think why aren't we all dead yet, but Lindahl discovered base excision repair, a process in which the enzyme glycosylase spots the damage, which is then removed (excised) and replaced. This process also minimizes mistakes when the DNA molecule 'unzips' to be copied. People who have problems with this repair process might have a higher risk of colon cancer.
DNA can also be damaged by outside influences such as ultraviolet light or chemicals that cause mutation. Another process, nucleotide excision repair, allows cells to fix those problems. Sancar discovered enzymes that find UV-damaged DNA and excise the strand. People who have problems with this repair process might have a higher risk of skin cancer.
This new work has been relevant for new cancer therapies.
