Pretty In Pinup / Pluripotency

Top is DIY | shorts are thrifted | headband is DIY | shoes are from Yeswalker I've been in a heaps pin-uppy mood with all my outfits lately - especially after discovering that doing a beehive hairdo is basically the easiest thing ever (why have I always thought that it was so hard?) I'm also really looking forward to making a dress with this style of top in this fabric, which I am now justified in having bought, after I made so much money selling my clothes today ;) SPEAKING OF WHICH, I am completely, totally overwhelmed by how well that went! At the moment, I've got 14 large packages to haul with me to the post office both tomorrow and on Friday. As luck would have it, the instant that I made my first sale this morning, it started to rain and has been doing so all day long :| which was fantastic, as I needed to give some of the clothes a final wash before sending them out! Grr. I honestly wasn't expecting to sell so much within 12 hours, and thought I'd have more time! (But really, I'm super happy with how well it went). If you missed out, don't stress because I've got LOADS more to sell in the next few weeks. Just keep my store in your bookmarks and keep checking back ;) So, has Annika got any amazing science news today? WELL. Now seriously, if I ruled the world, this would have been front-page, headlining news for several days straight. But unfortunately, that never seems to be the case when an amazing scientific discovery is made. Heck, even the Higgs Boson was largely relegated to puff-piece status. The news is this: Scientists in Kobe were able to create pluripotent stem cells - which are cells that are able to turn into any other type of cell in the body, like bones, hair, brain or liver (read what a cell is in my introduction to biochemistry post) - from already-living white blood cells. The scientists achieved this merely by stressing the cells out and bringing them close to death. When the cells returned from the brink of death, they looked like embryonic cells without actually being from an embryo. Now, this is absolutely amazing because it has never been done before. And if it works on human cells (it works in mice, so chances are looking pretty good for that!), then growing your own personalised organs, just in case your own happen to fail on you, is looking easier and easier all the time! Read more here, it's absolutely fascinating. Update (June, 2014): Apparently these scientists are being done-in for fraud. *Sigh*. Which means that it's possible that cells can't be turned into pluripotent stem cells using this method. Too bad, it was some amazing-sounding stuff. Let's hope someone out there *can* replicate the study! *Fingers crossed* Bloglovin' | Facebook | Twitter |  Instagram | Chictopia | Lookbook | Tumblr