A Perfect Picnic Dress / Dolphin Talk

This dress has the cutest scalloped design on the front of it, don't you think? I thought that it was definitely the right dress to take on a "picnic" (I didn't go on an actual picnic because I'm doing 20 hours a week in the lab right now and have no time for such luxuries :( but it was a picnic-themed shoot nonetheless). I am planning on turning this picnic basket into a handbag at some point! I think I'll attach a pretty strap so that I can wear it as a shoulder bag. dress - Bonne Chance Collections bag/basket - Thrifted cardigan - Thrifted hat - c/o Wholesale shoes - Yeswalker I learnt the coolest things about dolphins today. Not only are dolphins self-aware (this was worked out by doing a psychological test called the "mark test", where researchers put a dolphin in front of a mirror, then put a mark on its back. If the animal tries to see the mark that the researchers have put on it, it must realise that it can see itself in the mirror and is, therefore, self-aware. Great apes and young children also pass this test, but animals like dogs and cats do not.) Image source But it also turns out that dolphins have different, individual names for each other, and can remember the names of their friends for up to 20 years! Their names are "signature whistles", which the dolphins give themselves at the age of 4 months to a year, and remain their name for the rest of their lives. They use it to identify themselves to other dolphins, and use the whistle-names of other dolphins to call them. This is further proof that dolphins use language, and also great proof of their intelligence! I can't wait until we figure out a way to converse with dolphins. Read the article here. Bloglovin' | Facebook | Twitter |  Instagram | Chictopia | Lookbook | Tumblr

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

Little Spotty Teapot

I wanted to try and do another "miniature" style photoshoot (see my first attempt here). This is actually my fourth attempt though, not my second... but the other two were so embarrassingly bad, that they will never be uploaded here or seen by anyone else, haha.  sweater - Thrifted cardigan - Thrifted overall dress - c/o Sheinside necklace - c/o Merrin & Gussy socks - c/o Romwe shoes - c/o Sammy Dress hat - c/o Wholesale I wanted to set up the scene with a monochrome object. I found this super cute teapot lying around the house, owned by my housemate Kalynda, and thought that it'd go well with my mostly-monochromatic outfit, as well as contrasting my stripey socks. I then spent hours on photoshop trying to get the angles and shadows right - but I think it mostly worked out, in the end. What do you think? In science news, the first synthetic meat was taste-tested! (I'm pretty damn excited about this. Meat with no animal cruelty = awesome). P.s. sorry for the super short science bit today. I just started working in a lab today and I'm super dooper busy - more on that later ;) Bloglovin' | Facebook | Twitter |  Instagram | Chictopia | Lookbook | Tumblr

Space Age Children & Stardust

I think this is easily the coolest piece of clothing that I have ever owned. In my mind, kitsch clothes are the absolute best - which is why this skirt and my teapot dress are now my most treasured items of clothing. The print on the skirt is a 1956 illustration for biscuits, done in the space-age style (source of image - and check this link out because there is some great 1950s art to enjoy). Choies, where this skirt comes from, has got a whole bunch of wonderfully bizarre, kitsch clothes (LIKE THESE) which I am extremely appreciative of! top - c/o Sheinside skirt - c/o Choies cardigan - Thrifted necklace - c/o Les Folles Marquises hat - c/o Wholesale I absolutely love it when science merges with art. Spanish artist Sergio Albiac uses computer programs to generate his works, and his most recent project "Stardust" uses images from the Hubble space telescope to piece together portraits. For the portraits, he uses images that people from all over the world send to him. Naturally, as soon as I saw this - on IFLS, where else? - I jumped at the chance to have portraits of myself made. This is the result! You can still get your own ones done, and both help contribute to this art project and get your own space portraits - just follow the instructions on the website! "The nitrogen in our DNA, the calcium in our teeth, the iron in our blood, the carbon in our apple pies were made in the interiors of collapsing stars. We are made of starstuff." - Carl Sagan, Cosmos I hope you're all having a marvellous day! Bloglovin' | Facebook | Twitter |  Instagram | Chictopia | Lookbook | Tumblr

Do We Miss Summer Yet?

Meanwhile, it's winter back in Sydney. And it is damn cold. I wish I had had this cropped camisole with me while I was facing the European summer heatwave just a couple of days ago - it would have been perfect! It's actually part of a two-piece suit and it's ridiculously cool. I can't wait for the weather to warm up, and to wear it with a very wide-brim hat/floral wreath and a pair of jellies. cropped top - c/o Choies shorts - c/o Choies tights - Kmart necklace - Claire's hat - c/o Wholesale This is slightly old news by now, but on the 19th of July NASA's Cassini spacecraft, which is currently orbiting Saturn and touring its moons (including ones which might have life like Titan) took this beautiful photo. The arrow in the photo is not a massive arrow-shaped alien spaceship orbiting Earth, but rather indicates Earth and our moon, which together make up that tiny blue dot in the photo. That's what Earth looks like from 1.5 billion kilometres away! (Image from NASA) Everyone who reported on this image in the news focused on Earth (gosh, we're egocentric), but I think the really really amazing thing about the photo is Saturn (hello! It takes up a good two-thirds of the image!), how it is eclipsing the sun, and the shot of its rings! The photo will end up being stitched together with many other photos taken of Saturn, and released in a few weeks time. I'm pretty excited for it! If I could be any type of photographer, I think I'd most like to be a spacecraft ;) Bloglovin' | Facebook | Twitter |  Instagram | Chictopia | Lookbook | Tumblr

Covergirl!

As much as I enjoyed the amazing adventure I had in Italy and Croatia, I was pretty excited to come back to Sydney. I missed my family, my housemates, and my house in the city. I'm also really excited to get back into studying science - this semester I get to work on some pretty awesome genetic research - and for the month that lies ahead, which includes a visit from my good blogger friend Ashley Dy!  But one of the things that I was really excited about getting back home for was seeing myself on the cover of Young Vagabond magazine! Having done a short interview with Young Vagabond and sending them a couple of pictures, I was already super excited for my first-ever magazine appearance (unless you count this). Then, when I was in Italy, I got an email from Young Vagabond asking if they could also use my photo as the cover image for their magazine! I almost immediately sent back a reply saying "ARE YOU CRAZY OF COURSE YOU CAN!!!!!?!!!@$*&@" until I remembered to be (semi) professional. Anyway, of course I said that it was okay, and this was the result! I decided that doing the same pose in the same place and wearing a pink wig like in the cover photo was appropriate for this post (I'm a dork and you all know it). So not only was this my first cover appearance (yes, first - I'm hoping for more ;) ), but Young Vagabond is exactly the type of magazine that I would have wanted to have my face on, if I had had the choice. The magazine is aimed at high-school-aged girls, but has none of the vacuous vapidness of magazines like Girlfriend, which is aimed at a similar audience (sorry, but, well, this) and celebrates the achievements of women in every kind of field (for example in their first issue they interviewed an astrophysicist!) On their "pledge", they encourage readers to think critically about the world they live in, which is a statement I couldn't agree more with. I'm honoured to be on the cover of Young Vagabond. hat - c/o Wholesale shirt - c/o Sheinside skirt - Paper Hearts tights - Kmart cardigan - Thrifted necklace - c/o Merrin & Gussy And if you want to get yourself (or a teenage girl that you know) a copy of Young Vagabond magazine, you can pick it up from the Body Shop and I think Mag Nation in Australia, or order it online here. If you don't live in Australia, you can still get your hands (or eyes) on an online version here! I hope that you're all very well! There will be many more regular posts again (as soon as I get over my jetlag! And probably before then, too.) Much love, Bloglovin' | Facebook | Twitter |  Instagram | Chictopia | Lookbook | Tumblr