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

Mermaid School

Hey guys! This shoot is one that myself and Ashley Dy are pretty dang proud of, so I really hope you all like it too! This super lovely lady from Candy Kawaii Lover has been in Sydney for the past week, and we have been hanging out for the last couple of days - I've been showing her around my Sydney shopping spots (Newtown and Chinatown), and today we dedicated entirely to photo shoots - as a consequence, we have seven entire photo shoots to share with you guys. This is the first! The unintentional theme of this particular set of photos is "Mermaid School". If you recognise the buildings, yes, it's Sydney University. I wanted to take photos here because this building reminds me of Hogwarts. And you can't go wrong doing a photo shoot at Hogwarts. Annika's dress - c/o Chicwish Annika's headband - c/o Milanoo Annika's bag - Store in Italy Annika's shoes - c/o Yeswalker Ashley's top - Store in Sydney Ashley's skirt - c/o Chicwish Ashley's shoes - c/o Sammydress Ashley is leaving in two days, and we're both really sad because in a perfect world, we'd get together every weekend and take photos and go window-shopping. I'm so happy to have met this amazing person through blogging, though! If you haven't seen Ashley's photos or read her blog before, you can find her here. Much more very soon ;) Bloglovin' | Facebook | Twitter |  Instagram | Chictopia | Lookbook | Tumblr

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