The Pineneedle Collective

Tuesday 4 June 2013

Dungarees & Split Brains

Boater hat + overalls = farmer girl(?) Maybe just a little bit. Not that there's anything wrong with that! I have to say that I don't ever want to take this new wig off, though. I love the colour and the curls, and the subtle gradient. One day, this will be my real hair. It's slowly (slowly!) getting there!

blouse - c/o EFoxCity
wig - c/o Milanoo
overalls - Thrifted in Japan (Wego)
hat - c/o Wholesale
necklace - Claire's (Japan)

I figured that a good way to study for my upcoming exams would be to teach you guys some of the interesting stuff I've learnt this year. So in honour of a neuroscience exam I have today, I'm going to talk about split-brain patients.

In order to cure debilitating epileptic fits in the mid-20th Century (and what is still used as a treatment in the most severe cases, when nothing else can be done), a technique was developed in neurosurgery to cut the connection between the two hemispheres of the brain - entirely cutting the millions of nerve fibres that allow both sides of your brain to communicate with one another. This type of surgery was generally seen as a success - patients seemed to regain normal function and no longer suffer from terrible seizures.

However, because this was such a radical altering of the brain's structure, psychologists wanted to know if these "split-brain" patients differed in any way from people whose brain was more properly connected. And a clever experiment demonstrated that the two halves of the brain could operate independently from one another, and also gave rise to important questions about consciousness.

Look at the image above. When split-brain patients are asked to say what they see in the image (when staring at the + only), they will say they only saw a heart.

But if then asked to draw what they saw with their left hand, they will draw a star.

When asked why they drew a star, rather than a heart, they will have no idea why - because they don't consciously recall "seeing" a star.

Crazy, right?

So what the right side of your body does is controlled by the left side of your brain, and vice versa. Also, everything from the left side of your visual field is interpreted by the right side of your brain, and vice versa.
The "split brain" phenomenon described above occurs because the left side of the brain is where the language centres of the brain are located (both of your hemispheres have most brain functions, but language is one of the few that is only found on one side of the brain). The right side of the brain, on the other hand, has no areas for processing and generating language.

So what is happening here, in "split brain" patients, is that information from the left side of the visual field is sent to the right side of the brain - which has no words for "star" because it has no language centre. But although it can't speak, it can draw. So it sends signals back to the left hand, and the left hand draws a star.

Of course, this brings up the interesting question of whether you can be truly "conscious" without language. Remember, the split-brain patients don't consciously remember seeing a star because the right-side of their brain doesn't have a word for it - and so is "consciousness" a product of language?

By the way, the idea that you are either "right-brained" or "left-brained", and that being "left-brained" means you are analytical and logical, and "right-brained" means you're emotional and artsy, is total crap. You use all your brain, both halves of it.
You are your whole brain. :)

Monday 3 June 2013

$100 Giftcard Giveaway from Sheinside // CLOSED

I have an exciting giveaway to bring you all today by a long-time sponsor of my blog, Sheinside! You may have seen me wearing Sheinside items in the past (see here, here, here and here). They're one of my favourite online stores, because they sell really eye-catching and often quite unusual pieces. So I'm super excited to offer one $100 giftcard to the store, to spend on whatever you would like!

Here's how to enter:
1. Register on Sheinside
2. Like Sheinside's Facebook page
3. Leave a comment on this post with your name and email address (the same one you used to register on Sheinside)

That's all you need to do!

Extra entries *leave a separate comment for each one or they won't be counted!*
4. Like The Pineneedle Collective on Facebook
5. Follow me on Twitter
6. Follow me on GFC or Bloglovin' (and leave the account name you follow with in the comments!)

And that's it, good luck! Giveaway will finish on the 18th of June and it is open internationally.

Sunday 2 June 2013

Cherry Bomb & Chemistry

I adore this cherry-coloured dress sent to me by Koogal. After Kailey from Mermaiden's post in a similar dress, I couldn't imagine dressing up as anything other than a mermaid, especially with the fish-scale fabric and sneaky cutouts featured in this dress! I went for mermaid hair and, completing the mermaid ensemble, this "I'm Really A Mermaid" necklace.

This new Milanoo wig is awesome. I think it is definitely going to become my new favourite. A sign of a good wig is when people you haven't seen in years come up to you and say "Wow. I love your hair - it's so different now!" I had a few warnings about Milanoo's lolita dresses after posting about a bag from the site, so I chose to review a wig instead (can't say no to free stuff, right?). Anyway, from what I can tell from this admittedly small sample size, their wigs are great - they remind me of Japan's "Bodyline" wigs because the quality is just as good. I also got this lolita-style headband to go with the wig, and I think it was a really good choice - it's not over-the-top but it gives the outfit hints of lolita elements (I wish I were brave/dedicated enough to dress in a full lolita get-up. One day!)

dress - c/o Koogal
wig - c/o Milanoo
headband - c/o Milanoo
tights - Claire's (Japan)
necklace - c/o I Love Crafty

Something reaaaaally exciting happened in science the other day! You know how chemists draw images like this:

Which are meant to represent the chemical bonds between carbon and other atoms? (If you didn't know that, well, now you do.)

Well, those structures were only ever conceptual representations of the chemical bonding occurring in a reaction - up until now, scientists could only infer the structure of these molecules through spectroscopic analysis, which looks like this:

But the other day, scientists at the University of California, using an "atomic force microscope", have managed to take pictures like this:

What was so exciting about this? The images taken actually look like those stick-structures! Basically, what you would have learnt in highschool science - that atoms and small molecules are too small to ever see - is now wrong. And I love that the stick-structures actually look like that, even though the stick-structure drawings were, at first, just a theoretical representations of molecules. Yay science!

Read more here.

Friday 31 May 2013

Stripes and Mosaics

What an adorable pinafore dress I received in the mail this morning! Simple and stripey, all it needed to be dressed up (in my opinion) was this vintage Mickey Mouse club badge and a simple cropped top. And I'm totally embracing the last day of "non-winter" by sitting in the sunshine while studying and (sneakily) blogging. I am pretty jealous of all of you in the Northern Hemisphere who are going to be starting summer tomorrow :'(

Just to let you know, my posts are going to become a little bit less frequent over the next month as I head into my final university exams for the semester, but I'll endeavour to keep posting at least 2 or 3 times a week! Having something else to focus on other than studying keeps me somewhat sane, so I'm not going to do what I did last year and abandon you guys while my exams are going. It was good for my grades, but not so much for my sanity.

striped pinafore dress - c/o She Likes | socks - c/o Oasap | shoes - Bodyline | shirt - c/o Sheinside | badge - gift from my friend (thrifted)

Continuing on this little genetics theme I've got going on... I'm going to talk about something quite related to genetic chimerism, which is known as mosaicism. In chimeras (which I talked about last week), the organism ends up with two different sets of DNA within their body because of the fusion of two zygotes (the stage before becoming an embryo) in the womb. This means that a chimera's non-identical twin is alive inside them. Pretty sci-fi stuff, right?

Well, organisms with mosaicism came from a single zygote (meaning they didn't absorb their own twin), but still have more than one set of DNA within the cells in their bodies. How does this happen?

Similar to chimeras, the process begins very early in development while the baby is still in the womb. When dividing (as cells do very rapidly at the beginning of development), some cells get confused and don't replicate their DNA correctly. A mutation occurs in one of the cells which goes unnoticed, and continues to happily divide. Cells with different sets of DNA continue to grow within the baby, and if the mutation isn't really serious, the baby will be born with a mutant trait which is seen in some cells, but not others. Mosaicism can affect any type of cell, including skin cells (see above). Do you have a tortiseshell cat? This is a really great (and easy to see) example of mosaicism!

I hope you're all having a great last day of autumn or spring, depending on where you are!

Wednesday 29 May 2013

More unicorns! / Space sleep

I now have two pieces of unicorn-themed clothing in my wardrobe (see my unicorn sweater here) and I'm hoping to build up a small collection! Lashes of London sent me this unicorn patterned dress to try out, and I have to say that it's pretty incredible! Unfortunately for me, it's more of a summer dress as it has a gorgeous open-back thing going on, but it's now a bit too cold to wear it backless! So I paired it with this new cropped purple blouse from Romwe, added some heart-shaped collar clips, and got a whole pastel-themed thing going on.

dress - c/o Lashes of London | belt - Thrifted | shirt - c/o Romwe | hat - c/o Wholesale | collar clips - DIY

I've mentioned before how much I admire Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield. If you haven't done so already, go and check out his videos about how everyday things are done in microgravity. They're endlessly fascinating. From brushing your teeth, to crying, to eating, to going to the toilet and cutting your hair, everything has to be done a little differently when the physics of your world change, and you have to adapt to a new kind of world. In this video, Chris Hadfield shows how you sleep in space - and what a bedroom looks like on board the International Space Station.

How are you all today?

Sunday 26 May 2013

DIY Red Cape

It felt really good to get my sewing machine out for the first time in months and make something! This cape coat DIY has been on my to-do list for ages now. I thrifted this red corduroy coat the other day for $8 (then found $7 worth of coins in the pockets, so the coat basically paid for itself!) then took to it with some scissors, cutting up the arms and attaching them to the body of the coat before cutting the whole thing to this cape-sized length. It's basically the easiest DIY you will ever do (and hopefully I can put some instructions up soon!) I got all these free men's coats from the side of the road the other day - a church was giving away a whole heap of clothing and oh boy it was exciting. I took everything that looked like it could be even a little bit useful. But anyway, I've got a whole lot of coats that I'm planning on turning into little cape coats now!

Also, I've turned 21 since I last wrote a blog post. You are now looking at a super wise, worldly old lady. Well... not exactly, but I dyed my hair a darker colour since my last post and so... well... I look a bit different...? Older? Wiser? Although wearing a giant velvet bow and a cutesy red cape probably doesn't help things.

I hope you're all having an amazing day.

p.s. you can use the code "HAPPYBIRTHDAY" for $5 off all ad spots on my blog until the end of May.
p.p.s. want to help me win a $1000 asos wardrobe? Click here and vote for my look (in the "style feed", click on NSW... you should be able to find me there ^^)

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