New bracelet and earrings!

Finally, the promised jewellery post!

I made this bracelet for a friend's birthday:

Its my first attempt at men's jewellery - what do you think?
Silver chain, goldstone beads, and silver charms (a letter 'N', a tiger and an elephant).

The elephant charms are so cutee!!!!!! I cant wait to make some earrings from them at some point in the future. Although I dont know what kind of colour scheme to follow, any ideas?

Secondly, whilst searching for the charms on ebay I came across some AMAZING swarovski crystal hearts!! So despite my promise that I wouldnt spend much more money on that website, I had to buy some.

I got three pairs, but that was holding back. They had so many different colours, and they're such beautiful beads... definitely will be buying more soon! I may open commissions if people have colours they want to request earrings for. My favourite ones are the vitrail medium (google it), because they're so beautiful... I have an awesome plan for those hearts, involving some rather nice dichroic glass beads I bought a while back, watch this space!

Mile a million

Been a while since I last posted...
I have some jewellery to update you all with at some point soon, but for now I just thought I'd tell you all about something I'm doing in the Easter hols!

There are twenty seven million slaves in the world today, more than there has ever been before. It is not something that can be ignored, as it even goes on in our own country.
The A21 campaign was set up to raise awareness of human trafficing and to provide safety, medical care, justice and support for the victims. It is a truly fantastic cause, and one that was brought to the attention of my Christian Union a short time ago. Someone then pointed out that it was twenty seven miles from our college to the nearby town of Whitby.

So you guessed it, we're doing a sponsored walk to Whitby! We're taking the coastal route, along the Cleveland Way and through Saltburn. Its going to hopefully be fun, but I really need to get to the gym so I'm fit enough to do it!

Although this is being done through my CU, it is a cause that everyone should get behind and support, and we've even got several non Christians (including the President of the Student Union) doing it with us!

So please remember us as we train up and get sponsorship and then actually do the walk itself! Thank you!

http://www.thea21campaign.org/

Steampunk

So I was planning what I want to do for Goth Weekend, and I bought a load of awesome steampunky stuff =P

First up, the alchemy bottles:

I think these are just so awesome! The ones on the left are vials to put coloured liquid and watch parts in, the rest are little bottles and jars. Some of these are for jewellery making, others are for an alchemy belt pouch thing I'm planning on making for my steampunk outfit for Goth Weekend. The ebay seller put another vial in as a free gift, which was very kind of them.

Also, I dropped by my favourite jewellers and they gave me more watch parts!

Looking on ebay, (which is where most dA jewellery makers recommend you look), everything is so expensive and really popular too, and bidding wars are bad if you really really need the item! So I'd say ask at your local jewellers! They give me all these for free, only downside is I have to take them apart myself, but that’s actually quite fun... ¬¬

<- In progress shot of watch dismantling

I'll be making some more steampunk stuff soon, some to sell and some to wear at Goth Weekend. For the rest of my outfit, the white blouse came the other day, but I'm waiting till the corset and trousers arrive before I take a picture and upload it all. The corset is black and awesome with chains hanging down the front, I really like it =D

I also recently found an awesome steampunk-ish singer called Emilie Autumn (thanks Charlotte =3): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNbCA2kb9bA 

Velociraptor et al

A fossil of Velociraptor has been found with contents of its last meal in its stomach, a bone from a large pterosaur.

This has sparked a lot of debate among palaeontologists, as it was thought that Velociraptor was a hunter rather than a scavenger (the pterosaur being too large for it to hunt itself).

According to Dr David Hone, University College Dublin:

"Gut contents are pretty rare and pterosaur bones are rather fragile and don't preserve well, so it is an unusual find."

This got me thinking about other unusual finds in fossils, mostly ichthyosaurs... like this fossilised embryo in Bristol museum:

Although fossil embryos such as these are generally rare, in ichthyosaurs they are relatively common. This has enabled palaeontologists to determine that the creature was viviparous - it gave birth to live young.

Here is another pic of an ichthyosaur, this time with the contents of its last meal preserved:

This is a Whitby ichthyosaur, and although you cant see it well from the picture it has several nicely preserved belemnites and pyritised ammonites in amongst the stomach contents.

All the pictures here were taken by moi, mostly as part of my university travels - if you're stuck for time before a train home, checking out the museum is a good idea =D It also helps when trying to figure out which zoo/palaeo departments have the best research projects, as you can compare the quality and range of the specimens on display.

African earrings

Just a quick update to show off the new earrings I made today.



The beads are these gorgeous porcelain giraffes I picked up at an amazing beadshop in London called beadworks (I spent far too much money but it was totally worth it!!). I couldnt find anything suitably African to match, then I came across these clay beads in a drawer. They're mostly greeny coloured so I wasnt sure how well that worked with the blue of the giraffes, but I think the contrast gives it an African kind of feel.

I also tried out a herringbone wrap for the first time! This was unsuccessful at first, but I kept at it and got it right in the end! =D

So yeah. I'm still not 100% sure about the colour, in two minds about whether or not to use up the rest of the clay beads and make a bracelet using the herringbone wrap.... we shall see. Opinions on this would be welcome!!

Leaf nosed bats

Scientists have discovered a new species of leaf nosed bat in Vietnam, named Rhinolophus griffini, or Griffin's Leaf Nosed Bat.

<- the nose leaf is a bit ugly, but its very useful for finding prey

Like others in Rhinolophidae it has leaf shaped nose projections to aid in echolocation. Now it was good timing that I found out about this new species today, as I've spent all afternoon writing up my physics coursework on how these features help with echolocation.

Turns out each nostril acts as a point source for sound waves, creating an interference pattern in the emitted waves. This is where waves that are in phase combine constructively and those out of phase combine destructively and cancel. This creates a pattern as shown below:

The effect of this is to narrow the beam of sound, and enable the bat to hunt better - like carrying a torch in the dark, the narrow beam of light is able to illuminate far more detail than a candle.

That being said, it appears having quiet echolocation calls can also be an advantage. The Barbastelle (Barbastella barbastellus), a British bat (yay!!), has very quiet whispering echolocation calls.

Some moths have evolved a mechanism of defence against bat echolocation calls, that is, they have ears which can hear the echolocation signals and allow the insect to escape. Some, such as the tiger moth, even emit jamming pulses.

However, the pulses emitted by the Barbastelle are too quiet to be picked up by the moth's ears (like a candle rather than a torch, harder to be detected), and so the bat can catch the moth! Awesome!

Although, this does mean that the bat limits its all round 'vision', it gives it a distinct advantage over the moths. And its unlikely the moths will evolve further, as if they could hear vibrations on the same scale as the Barbastelle's calls, sounds such as the rustling of leaves or the wind would be far too loud and unbearable.

As National Geographic put it: bats 1, moths 0.

 <- far cuter, IMO