Lady Anachronism / Tetrachromacy

This blouse is entirely incredible. For the last few days, I've been pairing it with high-waisted shorts, skirts and polka dot dresses! It works with everything, and I can either tie it up at the waist or do up the buttons all the way down, which makes it a very versatile item!   blouse - c/o Choies dress - Vintage hat - c/o Wholesale necklace - Claire's (Japan) shoes - Vintage socks - Cotton On After I talked about colour vision in my last post, Emily alerted me to something called tetrachromacy, which I'm going to talk about here today! First off, most humans are "trichromats", meaning we have three different types of cells  (called cones) in our eyes that can detect three different wavelengths, or colour ranges. One type of cone detects red colours, one detects green and the last, blue. However, quite a few humans who have "colour-blindness", and many mammals (like dogs) are only "dichromats". This means they only have two types of cones in their eyes and so see a smaller range of colours than trichromats. Then there are some animals that experience more than the colours that we can see. Many birds and insects are what are called "tetrachromats", because they have four types of cones in their eyes. This means they are able to see all the colours we see (red, green and blue), plus a whole range of ultra-violet colours as well. And just as it would be impossible to describe 'red' to someone who is red/green colourblind, it would be impossible to imagine what the world would look like with so many additional colours. Theoretically, tetrachromats would be able to see millions more colours than we could see. They could distinguish between two shades of blue, for example, that would look identical to a trichromat. Although tetrachromacy has been said to exist (rarely) in humans, this has been hard to confirm experimentally (and there are claims that tests on so-called tetrachromats have been flawed due to insufficient blinding leading to the Clever Hans effect - something I'll talk about in a science post real soon). However, science may be able to turn people into tetrachromats. Scientists have been able to, via gene therapy, transform rats and monkeys who were only dichromats ("blind" to red and green colours) into trichromats. The method still needs some confirming, however if it does work, this technique could be adapted to allow colourblind people to see, and possibly even allow normal "trichromats" the chance to see in tetrachromatic vision! Which would be like having a mildly cool superpower, I think. (Read more about this in a very interesting article in the Scientific American). How are you all doing today? p.s. I have announced the winner of the Koogal giveaway! Thank you so much to all the people who entered and the awesome effort that you all put in! I was inspired by all the outfits people put together with Koogal items. Congratulations Ashley K. (I have sent you your voucher!) Bloglovin' | Facebook | Twitter |  Instagram | Chictopia | Lookbook | Tumblr

Triple Kitten Part 2 & The Science of Cute

This dress is so completely cute and amazing! I think it went out of stock and restocked about 3 times before I managed to snag it from Romwe. A word about wearing this dress though - if you're thinking of buying it, you'll need to also have a stick-on, nude-coloured bra. The cut of the dress is pretty darn scandalous. But if you love dressing adventurously, it's awesome ;) This is also the second wig which I got from my sponsor Choies! It's actually a really good wig (and on special right now) because it looks very real and is soooo soft, and I can brush it without it all falling apart so hooray - no more scuzzy, balding wigs for me! I'll have a post up reviewing all my wigs very soon, as some people have requested it :) wearing wig - c/o Choies dress - c/o Romwe tights - c/o Oasap bag - c/o Oasap boots - Asos So here's a good science question for a fashion blog on which I often try and wear super cute dresses. What is the science behind the concept of "cute"? Youtuber Vsauce attempts to quantify cuteness and explain why we might perceive things as "cute" from an evolutionary behavioural point of view. This is why the internet is now basically 90% cat, puppy and baby animal photos. (Image source) Speaking of, if you're looking for cute animals, look up baby pygmy hippos. I just discovered these the other day and I think they're now my favourite animal.

I've always wanted to be a redhead // meteor shower

I've always wished that I had long, curly red hair, and I've always been jealous of people who are natural gingers! So hooray for wigs - all of today I have been pretending that I am a natural redhead! One of my sponsors, Choies, recently started selling wigs, so of course I had to give them a go. They're very soft and don't fall apart like this wig unfortunately has been from the moment I got it, and they also look more realistic - I've been wearing this one and this one out at night (without a hat too) and people just think it's my real hair. They're on special right now, and though I wouldn't buy it for $60, the $30 special is definitely a reasonable price. wearing wig - c/o Choies top - Forever 21 skirt and belt - Vintage shoes - Forever 21 On the science side of life, apparently there is a sweet meteor shower known as "the Geminids" peaking tonight and tomorrow night, and it is visible from basically all around the world (weather permitting, of course)! This meteor shower happens annually, and has been observed for over 500 years. (Image source) I was wondering why they occur at the same time each year, and this is why - it's because we run through the debris of an asteroid called 3200 Phaethon each time we rotate around the sun, this asteroid being the most likely candidate for the Geminid meteor shower with an orbit that runs right through Earth's orbit! This year's meteor shower is meant to be particularly impressive because there is a new moon, meaning the night sky is nice and dark and ideal for spotting falling meteors! This page tells you when you should by looking at the sky depending what country you are in, and this post written by Phil Plait explains what meteors are and gives you a how-to guide on watching a meteor shower.

I like your BRAIN.

Hello ladies and gentleman! Like my shirt? This aspiring neuroscientist was asked by Dizzy Little Dotty to wear & review a t-shirt, and so of course I decided to choose the brain one. Well, the zombie/brain one, anyway. I thought it was pretty appropriate - I like brains, what can I say?  So when I received the t-shirt in the mail I went through all my shorts and skirts, wondering what I should pair it with. I kept looking at the outfit of the cute nerd-girl on the t-shirt thinking, "damn. I wish I had a skirt like that." Luckily, I then remembered that I have sewing abilities! So I ended up emulating the girl in the t-shirt in my outfit, and making a blue pencil skirt with little heart-pockets and suspenders. I decided not to stop there, and so I put on some knee-high socks and brown brogues as well, just like the girl on the shirt. Now I basically am the girl on my new Dizzy Little Dotty t-shirt. (And this has got the potential to become like the painting of a painting within a painting that goes on infinitely, haha.) Can I also recommend that you check out Lauren Carney's artwork blog?? (Lauren Carney is the lovely lady who puts the artworks on the shirts at Dizzy Little Dotty.) Her illustrations are actually ludicrously cool. Her facebook is probably the best place to see all her artworks. I keep discovering all these amazing artists lately (like these two) that are really making me wish I could draw. Guess I'll have to be satisfied with being able to make clothes... for now...   wearing t-shirt - c/o Dizzy Little Dotty bag - c/o Choies skirt - I made it! socks - c/o Sock Dreams  shoes - Vintage Speaking of brains and zombies, here's a real-life science example of zombification. (Not involving humans, don't worry.) Ants can be infected by a species of fungi called Ophiocordyceps unilateralis, that actually turns the ants into zombies by altering the ant's brain chemistry, changing their behaviour and causing them climb up the stem of a plant and clamp on for dear life until they die. Then the fungus continues growing inside the ant until it sprouts out the top, releasing spores of itself onto the conveniently placed plant below it. Here's some of the innocent-looking fungi that have these mind-altering properties (that sentence could be taken out of context very easily). I cropped the picture because a zombie-fied dead ant was a little too grusome for a fashion blog, but if you want to see the whole picture then click here (don't worry it's not horrific or anything, it just features a poor dead ant with some fungi sticking out of it), and if you're interested, you can read more about parasitic fungi here. And if you're worried about an analogous parasite-zombie relationship occurring in humans, well as far as we know fungi can't do this to us - but if you want to sleep tonight, then don't look up toxoplasma. That is all.

Pink is actually anti-green

Hello beautiful blog readers! I'm super excited to introduce you to an Australian label that I started working with just last week - Faith & Lola. They make some seriously gorgeous dresses, and I am a little bit (actually, a lot) smitten with this lacey, neon, puffy-skirted, backless pink number. They're a small label so they don't have their own online store, however you can pick their stuff up from here (and you can find this particular dress right here). Also (alert: science nerd-dom) it may interest you to know that the pink you are seeing in these photos doesn't actually exist (see the end of this post). wearing dress - c/o Faith & Lola tights - c/o Choies bag - c/o Choies shoes - Rubi Shoes necklace - c/o Oasap So in case you were interested in where my odd post title came from, check this video out. Minute physics explains why pink doesn't actually exist, and should in fact be called minus-green. Watch this, then go look at the pink dress again and totally freak out. Or at least think "hmm. That's cool I guess." This is why science is amazing. (If that fascinated you, I post stuff like that on my sciencey blog all the time. You should go check it out.) Much love,