Matching Outfits & Living Photographs

Annika's is wearing top from Sportsgirl, bag c/o Jump From Paper, skirt c/o Faith & Lola, belt from Dotti, cardigan is thrifted and shoes from Yeswalker. Ashley is wearing shorts c/o Sheinside, earrings from Dotti, thrifted cardigan, bag from Italy and shoes c/o Sammydress. One thing that I really loved about Ashley's visit (apart from the fact that she is just a super lovely person) was that we were able to dress up so that our outfits matched! In fact, Ashley's boyfriend even mistook me for her cousin. Our outfits are quite different here, but also very similar in subtle ways - we matched vertical black-and-white stripes, reds and baby-pinks, as well as both including something feline-themed into our outfits (my tiger belt and Ashley's cat shoes!) I miss Ashley! ｡･ﾟﾟ･(>д<)･ﾟﾟ･｡ If you missed our other posts together, you can see them here! This is super cool. Students from the University of Texas recently made a light-sensitive bacteria that can act as a photographic film! With it, they took the first "living photograph". Image from University of Texas The bacteria they used were engineered so that they would turn black if they were exposed to light, but stay clear if they didn't get exposed to light. They did this by adding a special sugar - that turns black when digested - to the petri dish, and modifying the bacteria so that if they saw light they would digest sugar, but if they didn't see light then they would not. Lastly, they grew their bacteria evenly over a dish, and projected light through a filter (with an image in it) onto the growing bacteria. The process is actually very similar to how film photography is processed - just imagine swapping the silver nitrate on photo paper for some light-sensitive bacteria! In addition to being a really cool thing, being able to manipulate bacteria in such a way will hopefully lead to building what are essentially "biological computers". Read more about it here! Bloglovin' | Facebook | Twitter |  Instagram | Chictopia | Lookbook | Tumblr

Red Hair & Two Dimensions

Shirt is from Sportsgirl, jeans are from Dotti, shoes are from Dotti, socks are c/o Romwe, necklace is c/o I Love Crafty, bag is c/o Jump from Paper This post is an unusual one because a) I am wearing pants and b) I have coloured hair - but it's not a wig! When I was 17, I had very bright red hair for about a whole year. I really liked it, so because I had been feeling quite ambivalent about my hair I decided to dye it today. And I think that it turned out wonderfully. Not much lightener was needed (and a pre-bleach was also definitely not required) because my hair was already a really light brown - I didn't want a repeat of destroying my hair after bleaching it too much last year to go pink and purple. I just dug up an old photo of how bright-red my hair used to be - not sure if I'll move more in this direction, or to a more "natural" orange now (like this). Or maybe next time I will just dye it black. What do you all think? Now, I need to talk about this amazing bag. You may have noticed that my bag kind of looks like someone photoshopped it into my photo? I have been a huge fan of Jump from Paper's tricky three-dimensional-bag-pretending-to-be-two-dimensional-bags for such a long time now, and so I was very very excited when I got an email from them asking if I wanted to try one out! This bag is from their new 50s-inspired collection (I totally want to plan a 1950s shoot around this when I get the time). I have so much nerdy fun with it, pretending that I live in flatland (Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions is a satirical book about maths from 1884, and I highly recommend it. It's pure nerd joy. And it also messes with your brain - it gives you a good analogy for humans trying to perceive 4 dimensions, using beings called "flatlanders" who can only perceive 2 dimensions. If you either like classics, or you like science, READ IT). I hope that you're all super, super well! Bloglovin' | Facebook | Twitter |  Instagram | Chictopia | Lookbook | Tumblr

Cat Whisperer / Seeing Is Believing

To anyone who reads this blog (or most fashion blogs, come to think of it) it probably looks like we live in a world of eternal sunshine. And if you've happened to read my blog lately, a world of endless picnics as well. Well there is a good reason for that. Night time shoots are really, really hard. Not only do you have to deal with blurry focus and dark shadows obscuring your face, or super shiny skin and hair if you decide to use the flash, people also seem to get mad if you sit on the road when they're trying to drive on it. Which was just *rude*, really, because car lights made our photos look awesome - my favourite photo is the top one exactly for this reason! Annika's top - c/o Oasap Annika's skirt - c/o Sheinside Annika's bag - c/o Jump from Paper Annika's tights - Ebay Annika's shoes - c/o Sammydress cat mask - Venice Ashley's shirt - Sportsgirl Ashley's skirt - c/o Romwe (note: size up. Way up.)* Ashley's shoes - Chicory (Japanese brand) *note about Ashley's skirt - it is ludicrously small and we don't recommend buying it unless you don't plan on walking anywhere, moving your legs or breathing. Oh, and the cat mask we used as a prop in some of the photos also had the effect of attracting this little guy. What a cutie! Here's a photo of me being a mad cat lady. I don't think I've shared this on my blog before, but it's one of the things that really got me interested in science. The Rubber Hand illusion is an important "proof of concept" of the idea of neuroplasticity - or that the different bits of your brain are not stuck in stone. You've probably come across the term "hardwired" before - that's what this means. In the early 20th Century, neuroscientists were very keen on the idea of Brain Localisation - i.e. you had a section of your brain that controls your hand, a part that "sees", a part that controls your legs, a part that controls your facial muscles - and so on - and that these couldn't ever really change (or, they were "hardwired"). The Rubber Hand illusion shows that the idea of localisation cannot be right. Very, very quickly, the brain is able to adopt the idea that a foreign object, like a fake hand, is actually part of the body. If you found that interesting, one of my favourite neuroscientists (with one of the coolest-ever accents) Ramachandran has pioneered this field and talks about Phantom Limbs among other things in this TED talk - I highly recommend you watch it. Bloglovin' | Facebook | Twitter |  Instagram | Chictopia | Lookbook | Tumblr