Links to Love

1. Want to Know if Your Food is Genetically Modified?
To quote somewhat at length:

"Though opposition to GMOs has its roots in the liberal environmental movement, an increasing number of environmental writers and thinkers have begun to take the industry’s side in the debate, pointing to an overwhelming scientific consensus—based on hundreds of independent, non-industry-funded, peer-reviewed, long-range studies—that GMOs are safe. The scariest recent study, which claimed that GMOs caused tumors in rats, was the work of a rogue laboratory in France whose findings have been widely debunked. The National Academy of Sciences, the American Medical Association, the World Health Organization, the U.K.’s Royal Society, the European Commission, and the Center for Science in the Public Interest have all sought to weigh GMOs’ purported risks, and found that there is no evidence they are dangerous."

I've already made my feelings about GMOs pretty clear,  but I was really fascinated by this article from The Atlantic. It's a long read, but it's really worth the time.

2. A Taxonomy of Carbonated Waters
Summer's almost upon us, and L.V. Anderson from Slate tackles this most important of issues - what's the difference between various kinds of fizzy bubble water?

3. Women in Space (part 1)
This review of women in space based sci-fi added several new entries to my reading list. I've already read more fantasy than sci-fi, but lately I've really been drawn to science fiction. It tends to be such a male dominated genre, though, that it's nice to have a list of novels to check out that actually have women in them. 


4. The Hollow Cat Eye: A Customized Twist on a Classic Look
Much as I love a classic cat eye, sometimes you just have to switch things up a little bit. This xoVain tutorial gives a few different ideas for how to mix things up with your beauty routine.


5. Model Co Tan Mousse and Mitt
The reason why I'm featuring this link is less because of the product review, and more because of what the lovely Marianne has to say on the issue of skin tone. This is something that I've noticed myself - the vintage look seems to be a very white look, both demographically speaking (I know many more white people who've embraced the retro aesthetic than people of color) and aesthetically speaking (the beauty standard seems to be very pale skin). I think that there are a lot of reasons behind that, and they're way too complicated to get into in just a paragraph or two, but I have to echo her statement that "...all skin tones are beautiful and let's enjoy them, whatever we have, and paint them, or not paint them, whatever takes our fancy, as we see fit."

6. Silk Mystery Outfit
One of the joys of wearing and collecting vintage clothing is doing the research to try and pinpoint their era and origin. The Vintage Traveler recently purchased this lovely silk outfit, and was trying to place the time period it came from. I've spent plenty of time doing this myself, and it was great to read her working through the various clues that made her conclude that it was, in fact, a 1950s garment.