"Dress your best week"

One of my favorite blogs is Academic Chic ("Three feminist PhD candidates at a Midwest university, on a crusade against the ill-fitting polyester suit of academic yore.") and they came up with "Dress Your Best Week". Well, I couldn't participate at the time because it was hectic end of the semester time, but I want to do so for next week.

"So often, our focus when getting dressed in the morning is how to minimize or downplay aspects of our bodies that we’re just not crazy about. Does this skirt smooth my hips? Does this top hide my tummy? Do these pants make my thighs look slimmer?

But what would happen if you inverted that thought process? What if, instead of dressing to mitigate your so-so, you dressed to highlight the parts of your body that you love most? What if, for a whole week, you committed to self-consciously dressing your best bits?"

The idea is to start by listing at least 5 things you like about your body (ie: great legs, shiny hair, adorable toes, piercing eyes) and dress to compliment those features for a week (and, of course, blog about it). My Birthday Week^TM seems like a great week to do this, so I'm going to start with the list today, so I have the rest of the week to think about what I'll wear next week :)

1. Fingernails (for some reason - genetics, diet, alien implantation - my fingernails seem to always look like I already have a french manicure - white tips, strong, shiny)
   
2. Legs (I put this on here as a challenge to myself because I always thought I didn't have nice legs because I am short, but after getting a lot of compliments on them I am starting to change my mind)
   
3. Eyes (probably my most complimented feature)
   
4. My curves (I've got some nice D's and a pretty tight little ass if I do say so myself - others agree)
   
5. My skin (I'm a pale Irish lass and I try to keep it that way with sunscreen and coverups. The freckles are pretty cute too)

So, who's with me?

Science Tuesday - Autism, Corn, Mating Habits, and Dengue Fever

British Medical Council Bars Doctor Who Linked Vaccine With Autism
By JOHN F. BURNS, The New York Times, May 24, 2010

LONDON — A doctor whose research and public statements caused widespread alarm that a common childhood vaccine could cause autism was banned on Monday from practicing medicine in his native Britain for ethical lapses, including conducting invasive medical procedures on children that they did not need.

( Read more... )

Tracking the Ancestry of Corn Back 9,000 Years
By SEAN B. CARROLL, The New York Times, May 24, 2010

It is now growing season across the Corn Belt of the United States. Seeds that have just been sown will, with the right mixture of sunshine and rain, be knee-high plants by the Fourth of July and tall stalks with ears ripe for picking by late August.

Corn is much more than great summer picnic food, however. Civilization owes much to this plant, and to the early people who first cultivated it.

For most of human history, our ancestors relied entirely on hunting animals and gathering seeds, fruits, nuts, tubers and other plant parts from the wild for food. It was only about 10,000 years ago that humans in many parts of the world began raising livestock and growing food through deliberate planting. These advances provided more reliable sources of food and allowed for larger, more permanent settlements. Native Americans alone domesticated nine of the most important food crops in the world, including corn, more properly called maize (Zea mays), which now provides about 21 percent of human nutrition across the globe.

But despite its abundance and importance, the biological origin of maize has been a long-running mystery. The bright yellow, mouth-watering treat we know so well does not grow in the wild anywhere on the planet, so its ancestry was not at all obvious. Recently, however, the combined detective work of botanists, geneticists and archeologists has been able to identify the wild ancestor of maize, to pinpoint where the plant originated, and to determine when early people were cultivating it and using it in their diets.

( Read more... )

Male Antelopes Scare Partners Into Sex
By SINDYA N. BHANOO, The New York Times, May 24, 2010

This is a story about deception and sex in the wild plains of Kenya.

Antelope deception, that is, for the purposes of sex.

During mating season, a male topi antelope will try to keep females in heat from leaving his territory by pretending that a predator might be in the area, according to a study that will appear in the July issue of The American Naturalist.

( Read more... )

Tropical Diseases: Outbreak of Dengue Fever Is Reported in Florida, Health Officials Say
By DONALD G. McNEIL Jr., The New York Times, May 24, 2010

Dengue fever, a growing scourge in the tropics, has established itself in a popular American tourist destination, federal health officials reported last week.

( Read more... )