Giveaway: 2 Pairs of Romwe Leggings! (CLOSED)

Romwe are very kindly giving away a pair of galaxy-style leggings to two of my readers! Use the rafflecopter widget below to enter (you will need a facebook account as well). The more entries you complete, the more chance you have of winning! The winners will be randomly sent one of the above three designs, in their size. The competition ends on the 24th of January! Good luck! a Rafflecopter giveaway

Space Kitty & Science Myths

Even though this sweater was on the list of items I'm packing for Japan, I couldn't resist wearing it the other day when it suddenly became inexplicably freezing. I was in the mood for a bizarre kind of outfit, so the effect of a kitty being draped over my shoulders went well with the planet stockings. Again, I'm wearing my amazing new t-bar platform shoes from Topb2c which I've been (somewhat impractically) living in for the past few days. wearing sweater - c/o Sheinside skirt - Vintage tights - Ebay bag - Vintage shoes - c/o Topb2c hat - c/o Wholesale Today's science segment is going to be a little different. Rather than teaching you something cool about science, I'm going to give you a list of science facts that you might have thought were true, but are actually very much false (thanks, Snopes!) So here's a list of false science 'facts': - The average person swallows 8 spiders each year - FALSE This "fact" was actually spread by a woman attempting to demonstrate how gullible people are when they hear something on the internet. And it is now one of the most common myths people believe on the internet. - Your hair and fingernails keep growing after you die - FALSE In fact, it's the shrinking of skin and flesh after death that makes it seem like hair and fingernails are still growing, when they are in actual fact staying the same length. - The Coriolis Force (remember the Simpsons episode where they go to Australia?) means that water spins the opposite way down a drain depending on the hemisphere - FALSE The Coriolis effect is real, but it is very small and only influences very large systems like the movement of air. It has no effect on the water in your toilet bowl. The configuration of taps, sinks and bowls is what causes water to "spin" in any one direction and is much stronger than any swirling from the Coriolis force. - You only use 10% of your brain - FALSE This is such a pervasive myth and it irritates me the most out of this whole list (probably because I'm a neuroscience nerd). If you only used 10% of your brain, evolution would probably have worked to remove the 90% we apparently don't use, making childbirth a heck of a lot easier and using the body's resources in a much more effective way. We make use of 100% of our brains. And brain imaging studies show that this is indeed true. What is true is that we don't use 100% of our brain all at once, just like you don't suddenly engage every single muscle of your body in one specific moment. - You can see the great wall of China from space - FALSE You can't.

Snow White / Poison Apple: Fairytales meet Science

A bunch of things to talk about in this outfit! After receiving both this apple necklace and this near-black wig the other day, I decided to dress up in a Snow White inspired outfit. My dress is yet another amazing find from my thrift shopping adventure of a week ago (I told you I got a whole bunch of amazing stuff). The necklace is from a new sponsor of mine, Australian-based Merrin & Gussy. They've very kindly provided me with all the jewellery I'm going to need for Japan, so look out for them in my outfit posts while I'm blogging overseas! The wig was sent to me by Abhair to review (this wig if you're looking for it). For $23, it's a really good quality wig and looks pretty darn realistic, hat on or off. The bang falls naturally and doesn't get into my eyes either. It's also ludicrously soft right now (although as I've noticed with my other wigs, that softness doesn't last for too long). The only thing I was disappointed with is the colour - I ordered darkest brown, but it looks black which makes it seem a little bit unnatural on me. However everything else about it is awesome, so I can't really complain. (And if you like this colour and are ordering it for yourself, order "2"). Lastly to note are my amazing shoes. When Topb2c asked to sponsor me, I was really excited because they sell heaps and heaps and heaps of lolita-style gear, and I've been after some chunky black Mary Janes for years. Also the shoes fit my big feet, which is something I always have trouble with at Asian stores! Expect to see these gorgeous things in many, many more outfit posts. wearing dress - Vintage shoes - c/o Topb2c necklace - c/o Merrin & Gussy wig - c/o Abhair socks - Cotton On Science fact! Snow White was given a poisonous apple to eat by the evil Queen, but are all apples actually poisonous? Apple seeds contain amygladin, a compound which consists of cyanide and sugar. In contact with digestive enzymes in our body, this is converted into small amounts of HCN, hydrogen cyanide, which is lethal to humans because CN (cyanide) is extremely poisonous in very small quantities, and can kill you in a matter of minutes (it's the typical poison used in old-school murder mysteries). Image of Amygladin from here. Don't let that stop you eating apples though. Thing is, you really need to chew up your apple seeds for your body to come into contact with the amygladin - the seeds have a tough coating which encases the amygladin and protects it from your digestive enzymes. Also, your body is able to handle tiny amounts of cyanide, so if you do accidentally eat a couple of apple seeds, you're going to be okay. In fact you'd have to crush up and eat around 143 apple seeds (from around 20 apple cores) to begin to do yourself any harm. So anyway, how are you all today?

Packing for Japan

Because the weather in Australia right now is entirely at odds with anything wintery, I've found myself at a bit of a loss as to how to pack for Japan. And I leave in 2 weeks so I really need to start thinking about packing! To help me plan my wardrobe, I decided to make this little picture of the clothes I'm planning on taking with me. Some of these are still in the mail... fingers crossed they arrive by the time I leave!! Any other recommendations for keeping warm from those actually experiencing winter right now would be most appreciated. It's hard to think about thermals when you're in 40 degree C temperatures. 1. Cape Coat from Oasap 2. Black knee-high socks 3. Red Cartoon Cat Sweater from Sheinside 4. Leather Skirt from Faith & Lola 5. Night Creeper Necklace from Merrin & Gussy 6. Half-Finger Converter Gloves from Oasap 7. Doll Quilted Dress from Romwe 8. Chelsea Boots from Asos 9. Cat Face Sweater from Romwe 10. Snow White Pendant from Merrin & Gussy 11. Musical Note Smiley Skirt from Sheinside 12. Lion Print Sweater from Sheinside I also just noticed that apparently I am bringing not one, not two but three sweaters with cats on them (big cats and little cats alike). I clearly like cats on my clothes, so... that's what I've learnt today.

The Windy City is mighty pretty

On Thursday, the wind threatened to ruin my outfit photos, but I ended up using it to my advantage. Take that, weather! It responded by sending yet another heat wave my way :( I am hiding inside today again, wishing again and again that I had air conditioning. If I sound sluggish today, it's because it's too hot to think. So in these photos, I'm showing off more haul from that little expedition to those thrift-stores from the other day, including this amazing pleated lemon-print skirt! This was such a ridiculously good find. My blouse and belt were also thrifted on the same day! I love successful op-shopping days! And because I'm wearing my floral collar clips and boater in these photos, I wanted to show off this illustration Impromptu did for me for her blogger series project, wearing much the same things! How amazing is it? I am constantly blown away by the fact that people around the world, who I have never met, ask to draw me. It's one of the perks of blogging that were both totally unexpected and that I will never tire of! Anyway, as for what's in my outfit... wearing blouse, belt & skirt - Vintage collar clips - The Little Pineneedle shop necklace - c/o Sheinside boots - ASOS Fine & Dandelion cardigan - c/o Modcloth hat - c/o Wholesale I wanted to share a quick but mind-blowing science fact today, that I became interested in after reading this "What If?" question. Half a billion years ago, a day only lasted 22 hours and a year had 397 days. It's so strange to think that something that seems so "set in stone" as the length of days and years can vary like that, even on Earth! Futhermore, the Earth's rotation is slowing as we move through time... so our days are actually getting longer. In fact, atomic clocks show that our days are 1.7 milliseconds longer than they were 100 years ago. Image of Earth via Nasa Read more about why the Earth's rotation is slowing down here. p.s. This is why my blog post has the title it has.

Vintage Pinafore and an Old-School Door / A.I. Humour

An scientific empiricist at heart, I do like my regular boring background for taking outfit photos in front of, because it removes all variables of different lighting, settings, backgrounds, angles etc, which means each outfit can be more objectively compared to one another.  However, sometimes it's just nice to be able to go outside and take pretty photos, dammit! I found the orange door above attached to someone's holiday house, and convinced my boyfriend to take a few ninja snaps of me in front of it - but we quickly got scared away by the barking dog of the people who own the house (and also discovered they were eating lunch just inside - oops. Run away!) So we then had to adventure elsewhere for photos. This pinafore skirt is another great score from the country-town thrift stores I visited the other day. Also, it was listed in the "teens" section, so it was only $3! These pretty berry-coloured socks were another awesome score from the same shop for 50c. Even though the heat wave from the other day more-or-less subsided, it's still pretty hot outside - so I kept my outfit very simple, pairing my vintage finds with a t-shirt and black boots from Asos. wearing tshirt - Forever 21 skirt - vintage shoes - Asos socks - vintage hat - c/o Wholesale Wandering around the beach, we also came across these guys. I had to put a photo of some real life kangaroos up for all my overseas blog followers - normally we don't actually have kangaroos hopping around all over the place, and I hardly ever see them either, but these guys were happy for us to come up close. So did you know that computers have started to be able to make jokes that are almost as good as my bad puns?? The following joke was written by a computer: What do you get when you cross a fragrance with an actor? A smell Gibson! Alright, so it's a pretty terrible joke, but the fact that it was written entirely by a computer and that it makes some kind of sense is actually pretty incredible to computer scientists. Humour is one of the more challenging tasks for computer scientists interested in creating artificially intelligent machines, being full of abstraction and ambiguity and also dependant on context and timing. The computer that produced this particular joke is called "Stand Up", and was created to help kids with language disabilities increase their verbal skills.  The scientists hope that being able to make jokes is one step along the way to creating computers that can have natural-feeling, flowing conversations with humans. Read more about Stand Up here. Hope you're all having a beautiful day,