A pharmer's clothes: August 31, 2011

(( top and shoes: Urban Outfitters / jeans: Target / necklace: Nordstrom ))

I'm pumped about these pictures. Mostly because I'm proud of the fact that I was brave enough to take these in a somewhat populated area. Right as I was patting myself on the back a guy came up to me and asked for directions. Pretty embarrassing once I realized his truck was in most of these photos so he was totally right there the whole time, probably wondering what kind of crazy shananigans I was up to. Oh well. I still think they came out cool, so it's still a win.

I took these near my favorite graffiti wall. There were some new additions today, including this. Since I happen to be wearing skinny jeans, oxfords, and a calculator watch (that's broken, btw) I had to take a pic by it, obviously.

AWESOME.

A pharmer's clothes: August 30, 2011

I'm feeling a bit nostalgic today. I somehow stumbled upon my old photobucket account, which I thought I had deleted long long ago. I ended up deleting the account today, but first I had to look through all my old photos. Most of them were from freshman/sophomore year of college. There were a lot of me and my friends doing things I definitely should not have posted pics of on the internet. Young Hannah, how naive you were. Also tons of little profile pictures for livejournal. Did you used to have a livejournal? The fancy avatars were the best part. I actually paid to have an upgraded account so I could have more avatars. True story. But the best pictures were from when I had dyed my hair pink/purple. It washed out in about a week, but oh man, I felt like the coolest kid in school for that week, especially with my eyebrow piercing. Oh, I was such a rebel.

(Apologies that there is no evidence of these pictures. I deleted them before I thought about their blog abilities. Or at least that's what I'm pretending happened...)

(( top: Nordstrom rack / shorts: DIY ))

I ended up staying at lab pretty late today (still waiting for that day when my time management skills improve...) Obviously being alone in lab with time to kill meant this had to happen:

Microscope dance party!!

PS I discovered Spotify today. AMAZEBALLS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Fall wish list

Hurricane Irene has come and gone. The only damage around these parts was to my waist-line and my sanity. Not that I normally go out every Saturday, but not having the option to go out had me going stir crazy. Plus I bought copious amounts of junk food in case the power went out, so naturally I spent most of the evening snacking away. Sigh. Damn you Irene!

The one good thing she did bring was some cooler weather. Highs for the rest of the week are in the mid-to-low 80's. Obviously below 90F temps have me excited for fall...which probably won't be showing up for another 2-3 months here in the DMV area. But is that stopping me from making a very long fall wish list? Nope, not at all.

Number one on my list are a new pair of shoes. I have two conferences to attend this fall, and a seminar to give in February. While I do have a nice pair of dress shoes, they are horribly corporate and I feel like a tool whenever I wear them, especially considering that a large fraction of conferences attendees wear flip flops. So I am on a quest to find shoes that look professional, but not stuffy. Oh, and they have to be comfy too. Quite a feat!**

My collection of jackets is pretty dismal. Being from Colorado, I have two heavy jackets for chilly, snowy weather, but these often prove too toasty for the milder winters here. On the lighter side I have that North Face zip-up that is standard issue for all college students, and a hodge-podge of random jackets from high school sports. Yep, we are talking relics that are over 10 years old. This fall I am determined to find a light weight jacket that can last me a few years of seasoned wear. Every night I pray to the thrifting gods that I will find the perfect denim jacket during my next outing...

Once the weather gets chilly, nothing sounds more appealing than a thick sweater. Sadly, most of my sweaters are actually Jason's sweaters. This season I'd like to invest in one or two of my own. Bonus points for sweaters with ridiculous animal prints.

And of course no fashion bloggers wardrobe is complete without a plethora of tights. I wore most of mine to shreds last winter, so I will feel no guilt in picking up three or four new pairs. Especially since most of the pairs in this set are less than $20.

What is on your wish list for fall? Or do you think I'm crazy to be shopping for tights in August? I am also dying for a pair of colored jeans, but I think I may try dyeing an old pair myself to save a few bucks.** Then again, that would require me actually tackling something on my DIY list, which is of course about 15 projects long at this point...


**FYI these puns were totally organic and unplanned. I am a punning machine!

Sunday table - homemade sushi

I have a special place in my heart for sushi. Not only is it crazy delicious, but Jason and I eat it all the time. It is sort of "our" meal. We went to sushi on our first date, and have done so every anniversary since. From time to time, Jason spoils me by making sushi at home. Since, our four year anniversary is coming up on Thursday (crazy!) it seems fitting to share his recipe.

There are tons of good resources online on how to make sushi, especially how to assemble the rolls. Jason learned largely from watching the sushi episode of Good Eats, which you can watch here: part 1, part 2.

Now that you've done your homework, assemble your ingredients (FYI - you can find all of the more exotic things at Whole Foods, usually right next to each other):

For the rice:
2 cup short-grain rice (nishiki)
2 cup water
2 tbsp ice vinegar
About 2 tbsp sugar
About 1 tbsp salt
Microwave the mixture for 30 seconds, and then mix in enough salt and sugar into the vinegar until it won't dissolve anymore.

For the rolls:
Seaweed sheets (nori)
Bamboo rolling mat
Plastic wrap

The easiest way to make the rice is in a rice cooker (you can do it in a pot too, but the rice cooker is a whole lot easier). Rinse the rice in cold water first, and then add it to the rice cooker and press go. After the rice has finished cooking, let it sit with the lid on for 10-15 minutes to cool down. Then add in part of the vinegar/sugar/salt mixture and fold it in to the rice, and keep mixing until it gets to room temperature (or until you get impatient!) You want your rice to be sticky enough to hold together. Then you just make the rolls. This part is really just practice, but it's not as hard as it seems. Start off making rolls with nori on the outside, and once you have those down move on to the ones with rice on the outside.

The fun part, of course, is deciding what to put in your sushi! Living on a limited budget, sushi-grade fish is not always an option. Some of our favorite rolls include any combination of:

• shrimp
• imitation Krab
• smoked salmon
• cucumber
• avocado
• jalapeno
• cream cheese
• various fruits (mango, kiwi, and watermelon are all delicious)

To make your sushi look a bit fancier, top it with thinly sliced kiwi slices or some crushed toasted pine nuts. Don't forget to garnish with wasabi and pickled ginger!

It sounds like a lot of work, but I promise it's not that hard. Actually, the hardest part is chopping everything up to put in the rolls. It's fun and definitely worth trying for a nice Sunday dinner.

Science Saturday: the upside to caffeine addictions

I've spent many a summer day lounging by the pool working on my tan, but this summer I haven't gone to the pool once without lathering on SPF 70. Maybe it is the wisdom of growing older, or maybe it is this ominous-looking mole on my arm, but I've recently become increasingly wary of skin cancer. I try my best to be responsible and wear sunscreen every day, but I'm yet to find a brand that doesn't make me break out with daily use. So when I saw an article on The Scientist about the potential skin-saving effects of caffeine I had to find out more.

Image from Wikipedia Commons

Multiple studies have shown a negative correlation between caffeine intake and skin cancer: the more caffeine a person drinks, the less likely they are to have skin cancer. Other studies have found that caffeine consumption and/or application of caffeine directly to the skin decreases the likelihood of skin cancer in susceptible animals. So there is strong evidence that caffeine may protect from skin cancer, but exactly how caffeine does this is unknown. Masaoki Kawasumi and colleagues recently published a study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that shines some light on the subject (haha, good pun there Hannah).

First, let's discuss how sun exposure causes skin cancer, on the cellular level. Sunlight, as we all know, contains UV radiation. UV radiation is dangerous because it has a lot of energy. This means that rays of UV light can penetrate deep into skin cells and damage their DNA. When a ray of UV light collides with a molecule of DNA the energy from the light is transferred to the DNA. This can cause DNA base pairs to bind together in an abnormal way, forming what is known as a pyrimidine dimer.

Image from Wikipedia Commons

These big, clunky dimers mess with the enzyme that replicates DNA, causing it to make mistakes and introduce mutations. If the mutation is in a gene that promotes cell growth, then the cell will start growing out of control and become cancerous.

Do not fret! The wonderful thing is that our cells are equipped to combat this problem. A special group of proteins scan the DNA looking for dimers. If a dimer is found, the proteins will try to repair it, and if the damage is too great to be repaired the cell will kill itself to avoid passing on mutations to new cells. The enzyme ATR kinase is one of the proteins that decides if the DNA damage is unrepairable. Caffeine inhibits the action of ATR kinase, making the cell more likely to kill itself, which prevents cancer from developing.

But caffeine inhibits a whole bunch of other enzymes too. So how can we figure out if the skin cancer-preventing effect of caffeine is due to ATR inhibition? To answer this, Kawasumi's group bred mice that had a mutation in the ATR kinase gene that made it less effective. These ATR mutant mice showed the same resistance to skin cancer as mice treated with caffeine. Combined with all the previous studies, this provides good evidence that protection against skin cancer is due to caffeine inhibiting ATR, thus preventing cells from becoming cancerous by making UV-damaged cells more likely to die.

The cool thing about this study is it provides evidence that including caffeine in sunscreen could help prevent skin cancer. Also, now I have a really awesome justification for my raging addiction to coffee.

Indeed.

A pharmer's clothes: August 26, 2011

I have a confession to make: I'm addicted to wearing shirts backwards. It probably has a lot to do with my new tattoo, but on top of that recently I find that I just can't stand v-necks. Too boobalicious. This shirt I especially prefer worn backwards - comfier and more flattering, imho. This outfit is for day 13 of the 21 day challenge: neutral, with a pop of color. The bright green pop of my crazy sunglasses really isn't as striking with all the trees in the background. Geeze nature, think of my blog, won't you?

(( top and belt: Anthropologie / shorts: Urban Outfitters ))

Hope you all had a good Friday. I left lab early to go to Target and stock up on hurricane supplies. It was pretty picked over, so I ended up buying mostly junk food: rice krispie treats, peanut butter and jelly, chips. Now Jason and I are sitting on the couch watching Star Trek: DS9 and eating ice cream. Cause you know, you have to eat all the ice cream tonight in case the power goes out. Maybe this hurricane thing isn't so bad!

Friday Favorites

First off, thank you so much for everyone's kind comments on my post yesterday! It is heartening to know I'm not alone in my blogger worries. Second, I would like to emphasize again how much fun I had at the blogger meetup this week. Somehow in college I convinced myself that I am socially inept, so I was a bit nervous about going. But it was awesome! The pessimist in me is slowly dying. Huzzah!

For this week's Friday favorites, I wanted to introduce you to some of the lovely bloggers from the meetup:

Gina from Tulle in Combat Boots

Katie from Today I Want

Tania from What Would A Nerd Wear

Maria from Infinite Whimsey

Amy from BiblioMOMia

I can't wait for the next get together to see all these ladies again, and meet more! Blogging = best hobby ever.

Stay safe this weekend. Raise your hand if you are sick of natural disasters.

PS I just added Disqus comments to the blog, because I really can't stand how blogger doesn't let you respond directly to a comment. Everything seems to be working smoothly, but if you come across anything funky please let me know.

A pharmer's clothes: August 25, 2011

Originally, I was planning on writing about the fraking awesome time I had last night at the DCFABB meet-up. Then in my aimless internet surfing this evening, I stumbled upon a blog solely devoted to making fun of fashion bloggers. Despite my better judgment, I read a bit of it and was astounded by how mean people can be on the internet. And now after reading that I'm feeling all sad and introspective. Boo.

Sometimes I get worked up about how weird it is to have a "fashion" blog (or really any personal blog in general). I know this endeavor is a bit self-involved, and occasionally I wonder if I'm pretty much making a fool of myself on the internet. Take this outfit for example. I am wearing a detachable collar. Is that ridiculous? Probably. But honestly that's kind of what I like about it. It's silly and weird, but sometimes doesn't it feel good to let yourself be a bit silly and weird? I vote yes. More importantly, I decided that I don't really care much if having a fashion blog is self-involved. The biggest reason I decided to start a blog was to meet new people, and last night at the meet-up I met so many awesome ladies. So I suppose what I'm saying is...the meet-up last night was fraking awesome! Mission accomplished.

On a less serious note, this outfit is for day 12 of the 21 Day Challenge: dress up a t-shirt and jeans. What better excuse to show off what may be the best science pun ever seen on fabric. For those wondering, iron (Fe) with a +2 charge is called "ferrous," and all the little irons are in a wheel shape...get it? It's a "ferrous wheel." Hahahaha. I die. Also, this shirt was on the Big Bang Theory. Awesome!

A pharmer's clothes: August 23, 2011

(( button up and skirt: Target / top: Common Era / necklace: Modcloth / shoes: Melissa ))

The amazing graffiti wall strikes again! I must admit that it is taking some serious self-restraint to not use this spot every day, especially since it perfectly on my way to school now that I am walking instead of taking the bus.

This outfit was inspired by The 21 Day Challenge over at the blog Freckles In April. Kayla's brilliant idea is basically to give everyone prompts for what to wear for 21 days, and then you link up your blog posts or add them to the flickr pool. You don't have to participate everyday or from the beginning, and you don't have to blog about it or add a button or anything - I'm just blogging about it cause I think it's an awesome idea! As someone who didn't have a blog not too long ago, I love that she added the option of posting outfits to flickr so non-bloggers can participate too. It's also perfect if you are feeling uninspired...let someone else do all the hard thinking, you just have to follow the prompt. Yep, I can handle that.

The challenge for today is to wear something monochromatic. My gut instinct was red, but since I have been wearing my high-waisted red shorts entirely too much (seen here) I decided to try blue instead. Sadly, my blue shirt didn't photograph as blue as it is in real life. I swear, I'm wearing all blue. Inspired by smurfs, mayhap?

Today in pixels

Here's a few hipsta prints of what I was up to today:

8am - breakfast. Pumpkin pancakes, blueberries, and Greek yogurt. Mmmm. I don't usually eat so much for breakfast, but I had left over pancakes from yesterday and I couldn't let them go to waste.

9am - taking outfit pictures at my new fav graffiti spot.

11am - outside, reading papers. Guess grad school isn't always so bad, eh?

12pm - the bookstore was giving away mustache stickers for some reason. Obviously this picture had to happen.

2pm - the weather today was seriously gorgeous. You can tell because apparently half the campus was taking a very, very long lunch.

3pm - Western blot fail.

4pm - my lab is going to Italy in October, yay!! Trying to find some good flight options. Anyone have any recommendations for flying from the US to Europe?

5pm - walking home. It is cool to think that I cross the DC-Virginia state line very day.

6pm - Aspen's favorite spot: on top of the fridge.

7pm - doing some math...for fun. Yep, we're crazy/made for each other.

8pm - watching Stardust and having dinner. A good end to the day.