Sailor Earth / Printing Food

The detachable sailor collar on this dress is basically the greatest idea ever (when it comes to clothing). Being detachable, I can take it off and pair it with other t-shirts and dresses if I feel like my outfit needs to be just that little bit more sailor-esque. Of course, any good sailor also needs a map with them. The map print on this bag is pretty funny - it still lists Yugoslavia as a country - but overall it is a damn good bag. It's the perfect university bag because it fits all my books, labcoat and laptop. It also doesn't seem like it's going to fall apart anytime soon (I've had problems with cheap bags not lasting very long...), so I actually really recommend it if you were thinking of buying it yourself (disclaimer: it is a sponsored item, but this opinion is very much my own!) dress - Glitters for Dinner socks - c/o Sock Dreams bag - c/o OASAP shoes - c/o Topb2c (similar) If you've been reading my blog for any longer than a month, you'll already be very aware of how impressed I am by 3D Printing (see past posts here, here, here and here). Well, turns out it's also going to end world hunger. Image source Well, that's the title of this article anyway, although I'm not so sure that 3D printers will ever be so cheap that they'll be a ubiquitous item of household kitchens. Still, one direction that 3D printing is now going into is creating food. This is done by loading up cartridges of tiny organic molecules containing everything you need in your diet, setting a certain combination of ingredients on the printer, and letting it print out - layer by delicious layer. And if you were able to print out all your food at home, it means that there would be a lot less energy put into growing meat (the same proteins could feasibly come from insects, algae or lab-grown meat), and there would also be a lot less food waste because the "cartridges" of tiny molecules would last for 30 years before you had to throw them out. NASA is currently funding the research so that astronauts can have pizza in space. But the eventual goal is to create something that can be used in people's kitchens, and hopefully turn into something that can feed the projected 9.6 billion people on Earth by 2050. Bloglovin' | Facebook | Twitter |  Instagram | Chictopia | Lookbook | Tumblr

The Best Dress / Science Art from Etsy

This dress is the best combination of colours, prints and cutouts that I've come across in a long time. I am such a lucky lady to be the owner of so many incredible statement dresses! This particular one is perfect with a boater hat and some knee-high socks - it doesn't need much dressing up because it's already got a lot going on in it. dress - c/o Romwe socks - c/o Sock Dreams shoes - Chicory For today's science post, I've compiled a little list of awesome science art and gifts. Every time I look, more and more science geekery seems to appear online (especially on etsy). From the point of view of an aspiring science communicator, and collector of geeky novelty things, this makes me very happy. Also, if any friends/family happen to be reading this... remember that my 21st is in a month ;) Anatomical heart pendant from Rainnua  Red blood cells pendant from Outpost 8  Wooden pi brooch from Kate Rowland Illustration  DNA double helix pendant from Theresa Pytell Handmade (I love this, although it doesn't show the major and minor grooves of DNA - but I'm being pedantic)  Anatomical Heart Necklace from Blue Bayer Design  Vintage anatomical poster from Curious Prints  Voyager golden record pendant necklace from The Pendant Garden Periodic table chopping board from Elysium Woodworks Brain anatomy bracelet from Missing Pieces I hope you're all having/will have a lovely Monday! Bloglovin' | Facebook | Twitter |  Instagram | Chictopia | Lookbook | Tumblr

Plaid & Lace / Capturing an Asteroid

I really like pairing plaid with lace. This plaid skater skirt from Choies is exactly what I've been looking after for ages - it also looks great (although super preppy, but I don't mind) paired with suspenders. This lace shirt is also a versatile wardrobe piece - throw it on over a dress on a cooler day when you don't want to completely cover up with a sweater. I've been doing this a lot lately, now we're finally coming into some colder weather here! shirt - c/o Oasap skirt - c/o Choies shoes - Chicory socks - c/o Sock Dreams So NASA's next big plan, after sending Curiosity up to Mars last year (...who incidentally hopefully won't be obliterated by a possible collision with Mars and a comet next year, but that's another story), is to capture an asteroid and bring it into stable orbit around the Earth. What NASA want to do is to use an unmanned robot vehicle to capture the asteroid, then bring it back into orbit where it can be studied and explored by humans, and also mined for things like water - to provide to the international space station (for whom it currently costs thousands of dollars per kg of water sent there). Exactly how the asteroid will be captured is still unclear, but NASA believe with new technology coming out of physics and engineering, it can be done within 10 years. I think that this is really exciting. Although hopefully NASA will be able to figure out how to stop the asteroid colliding with all the thousands of satellites and space junk currently in orbit around Earth. It's a pretty huge job! Read more about it here. Bloglovin' | Facebook | Twitter |  Instagram | Chictopia | Lookbook | Tumblr

Oh my heart beats in it's cage / Inattentional Blindness

I HAVE SUCH EXCITING NEWS! I'm doing some pretty goofy expressions in these photos, which you'll have to excuse me for - I couldn't stop smiling really ludicrously/crying from happiness, as I'd just found out that I have been asked to be a part of my university's 'talented student program', WHICH MEANS that I might get to do special research projects and maybe even present them to a bunch of proper scientists at proper science conferences, and basically, BE A REAL-LIFE, PROPER SCIENTIST, getting to throw myself into some research instead of just studying what's already been discovered! I am a billion times over the moon about this and just had to share it with you all :D As for my outfit today: I looove this Koogal sweater! I've been wearing it every single day since I got it in the mail. It goes so well with circle skirts and denim shorts. For this outfit though, I paired it with some cute red gumboots, a red skirt and a red backpack so I kind of have a colour-themed thing going on here. I've also got a giveaway running from Koogal at the moment which you can enter (if you haven't already) here! sweater - c/o Koogal skirt - Wholesale socks - c/o Sock Dreams boots - Ebay backpack - Asos I received some feedback on my explanation of the Ames room in my mini-magazine that I posted yesterday, with a reader expressing surprise that human perceptions can be tricked so easily! I'm really interested in the study of human perception, because when you get into it, a large amount of what we perceive (of what we think of as reality) is just totally made up by our brains. Here's one of my favourite demonstrations of how little attention we pay to reality: Inattentional Blindness. This video is from Derren Brown, who demonstrated the phenomenon with his "person swap". Basically, he asks for directions from passerbys, then swaps around with a totally different person during a slight distraction - and gauges whether the passerby notices the change. Many people don't. I particularly love at 2:20 when he swaps with a female, and the woman he was talking to doesn't appear to notice in the slightest. Yeah. Human beings are pretty bad judges of reality.

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.