High-Waisted Genes

Top is c/o Choies | Jeans from Dotti | shoes from Dotti Photos by Ashley Dy It's a rarity to see me wearing pants of any kind on my blog! These photos were actually taken last August when Ashley Dy came to visit. I still love this combination, though, and this outfit is actually more practical then it was at the time we took these photos - it's actually almost summer now - proper crop top weather, instead of the middle of winter! Because I'm currently studying genetics like a mad lady and have probably lost my mind, here is a genetics joke. Oh dear. (Scientists have the worst jokes). (But this actually made me laugh a lot when I first saw it.) Back to studying I go. Hope you're having a great day, Bloglovin' | Facebook | Twitter |  Instagram | Chictopia | Lookbook | Tumblr

Back to School & Barreleye Fish

Annika is wearing dress c/o Lashes of London, sweater from Japan, socks from Cotton On, Thrifted basket and shoes c/o Yeswalker. Ashley is wearing top c/o Romwe, sweater from Emoda, skirt from Valley Girl, shoes c/o Sammydress. The number of times that I've walked through this glorious courtyard at Sydney University and wanted to take pictures... I was beyond delighted to finally do a photoshoot there with Ashley the other week! The only thing that would have made it better would be if we had been allowed to walk on the grass...but Sydney University has their gorgeous grass roped off 364 days of the year so that it remains immaculate. Silly prestigious university. Today, I discovered that this fish exists, so I really wanted to share it with you all. This is a barreleye fish. What looks like it's eyes (it's sad, sad eyes) are actually its nostrils. Its eyes exist within its transparent head, which protects its eyes and also helps them to collect more light. That green bit that looks like a plant inside its transparent head are in fact the fish's eyes. Of course, this critter lives very deep within the ocean. Deep sea creatures are fantastically bizarre, and this guy is no exception to that rule. Image via National Geographic That's your weird animal fact for the day! And I hope you're all having a good day too :) Bloglovin' | Facebook | Twitter |  Instagram | Chictopia | Lookbook | Tumblr

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

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

Sister From Another Mister / Lab Burgers

Ashley is my sister from another mister. We coordinated our outfits unintentionally, but looking back through these photos, I realise how alike we appear! It's probably got a lot to do with the fact that we're both wearing wigs and teeny dresses. Or maybe it's because Ashley is wearing my clothes. For this outfit post, we went on a little pretend picnic in Victoria park outside of Sydney University, after getting up super early (like 7am, haha) to make sure the light wasn't too intense for our photos! I love that I have finally found someone else who will happily sacrifice sleep, comfort and shoot for hours on end just to get the perfect photo. I am going to miss this girl! Annika's top + skirt - c/o Choies (can also get it here) Annika's bag - Thrifted Annika's socks - Cotton on Annika's shoes - c/o Yeswalker Annika's headband - c/o Milanoo Ashley's dress - c/o Chictopia (The White Pepper) Ashley's sweater - Emoda Ashley's bag - Store in Italy Ashley's shoes - Yeswalker Ashley's headband - Claire's in Japan I wanted to talk properly about lab-grown burgers the other day, but didn't have the time because of my own lab-work (I'm not growing meat, but I am doing some pretty cool stuff). You probably heard all about it on the news, though - a researcher from Maastricht University recently let two people to taste-test a $300,000 hamburger patty made from meat he had grown in his lab. Image source: Not an artificial burger but a super cute crochet burger from bottletopboy on Etsy. Why is this such exciting news? The process No animals die in the process of making lab-meat. A small amount of special cells called "stem cells" are extracted from the shoulder muscle of a cow. A "stem cell" just means that the cell has not yet decided what final form it will take - it's a normal process of growing, or regenerating body tissue after an injury. Stem cells can divide indefinitely in this "undecided" state, so after extraction they are grown with nutrients to encourage them to multiply. After you have about a million stem cells, you let them "decide" to be muscle cells by separating them into different dishes and varying the levels of nutrients and signals in the dish to mimic the inside of the animal. The cells then grow into strips of muscle. Bundle them together, and you have your hamburger patty. What this means: Much less animal slaughter and cruelty. As soon as lab-grown meat becomes commercially available and affordable, I know that I will never eat meat from actual whole animals again. I hope that in 100 years time, people will be quite appalled by the idea that we used to slaughter animals for meat. Much less environmental strain. Lab-grown meat will use 55% of the energy of the current beef industry - a huge cut when you consider how large this industry is - and will also only emit 4% of the greenhouse gases of the current beef industry. Much more free land - lab-grown meat will only use 1% of the land that conventionally farmed beef uses. Hopefully, much less starvation. The human population is only going to keep rising and currently 1 billion go hungry every day. More people = more demand for meat, so having a system in place which doesn't use as much land an energy will be easier on the planet, meaning that hopefully we can produce a lot more of it to feed everyone! Another reason to be super excited by science! Bloglovin' | Facebook | Twitter |  Instagram | Chictopia | Lookbook | Tumblr