Little Red / A Little More Fake Science

Today's post had two purposes other than just being your run-of-the-mill outfit post. One was to test out my teeny little netbook's capacity for photoshop - this is the baby computer I'm going to be taking overseas with me to Japan, and I wanted to make sure I'd be able to blog once I'm over there! And it was successful! (although it did take me about a bajillion years longer to edit these photos). The other purpose of this post was to test out my gorgeous new cape coat from Oasap! I'm also planning on taking this overseas with me, so that I don't freeze my butt off. I tested it out today because it's wet and very cold here (I told you Australian weather is completely mental). I think it will do the job nicely (although it's impossible to wear a backpack while wearing this coat unless I put the backpack under the coat and become a hunchback - which is slightly annoying. I guess you can look forward to a whole lot of hunchback shots of me from Japan, because this is the only coat I have!). wearing cape coat - c/o Oasap skirt - Wholesale tights - Wholesale shoes - Rubi shoes Seeing as I got such good feedback on my "false science facts" post the other day, I'm going to do a similar post! Side note: don't feel bad if you thought some of these were real - I'm not intending to make anyone feel stupid! (And I've believed all of these at some point as well.) The point I want to make is that humans are easily fooled - and using science and our critical thinking facilities we can sort the right from the wrong :) Here's some more false science facts that you might have heard of before (thanks again, Snopes)! - Gum is indigestible, so if you swallow it then it'll stay in your stomach for 7 years - FALSE Chewing gum is largely indigestible, but you shouldn't freak out too much if you swallow it - it'll just pass through your digestive tract at the same rate as any other food, but remain largely intact on the way ;) (yeah, gross). - Blondes will be extinct within 200 years - FALSE This pops up in the news from time to time on slow news days (and you can replace blondes with redheads as well), and it's not just a recent myth - this has been circulating since the mid 1800s. It's basically a misunderstanding of genetics, recessive genes and statistics that leads to this myth popping up again and again. Put basically - this becomes plausible only if no one in the world wanted to have babies with natural blondes, ever again, including blonde people themselves. - Rubber tyres protect you in a car during a lightning strike - FALSE I freaked out when I read this one, thinking "I'm not safe in a car in a storm??" But cars are actually quite safe in a lightning storm - turns out it's not the tyres that make you safe. People think rubber tyres are what's protecting you because they don't conduct electricity, but in fact it is the highly-conductive outer metal shell of the car. If lightning hits the car, the metal shell picks up the lightning's discharge and deposits it straight into the ground, bypassing the car's inhabitants. Phew! - Getting a hair cut stimulates new growth - FALSE Doing anything to the hair that's already on your head (the cells are all dead) has no effect on the living section of the hair beneath the skin. A good hair cut might make your hair feel healthier and thicker, but fresh hair is going to keep growing at the exact same rate it was growing at regardless if you've got long and scraggly hair, or nice and newly cut hair. It's just an illusion that makes it seem like your hair isn't growing as fast if it hasn't recently been cut, because the hairs become thinner at the ends (and can also break off if you dye it too much like I did, heheh). Hope you're all wonderful :) p.s. Image of woman blowing a gum bubble above is by Joseph Sterling (Age of Adolescence)