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Tributes flow after young model dies suddenly

<p>A young model has been remembered as the "most beautiful, caring and supportive woman" by her friends after she died tragically in a fatal car accident. </p> <p>Aussie model Elise Hodder, 24, was at a rave with her friends and as they were leaving the venue in Melbourne in the early hours of Sunday morning, she was hit by a vehicle that allegedly reversed at speed in a car park.</p> <p>Two others were also hit in the accident, as a 26-year-old woman was taken to hospital with serious injuries to her lower body, while a 25-year-old man was also struck but escaped unharmed.</p> <p>According to police, Hodder was pronounced dead at the scene. </p> <p>Prior to the accident, the young model appeared in New York's <em>Vanguard</em> Magazine, as well as many other prominent photo shoots. </p> <p>The 23-year-old man behind the wheel at the time of the crash is accused of having cannabis in his system and police say he allegedly blew three times over the legal blood alcohol content limit.</p> <p>In the wake of the fatal accident, the man has been charged with several offences, including culpable driving causing death, dangerous driving causing death and negligently causing serious injury, as police also allege he was driving without a licence.</p> <p>Tributes have poured in for Hodder after her sudden death, with loved ones sharing memories of the "hilarious" young woman who was "unapologetically herself".</p> <p>Hodder's father said his daughter's death left him "torn apart", as he wrote, "You were the most beautiful, caring and supportive woman."</p> <p>"We will cherish every memory and support all your friends as you always did for others. [I'm] torn apart, but your smile and heartbeat will always be with us. Words can’t even begin to describe the grief that floods her family and friends. I will carry you in my heart forever."</p> <p>Another friend also shared her immense grief on social media, writing, "To know Elise, was to love Elise."</p> <p>"Never have I met someone so hilariously and unapologetically herself. Her laugh was infectious, her eyes bewildering, and a heart so full of love."</p> <p><em>Image credits: Instagram / Facebook</em></p>

Caring

Father reveals alarming details after young model found dead in Sydney brewery

<p>Savana Calvo, 27, was <a href="https://www.oversixty.com.au/health/caring/tragedy-as-young-model-dies-in-popular-brewery" target="_blank" rel="noopener">found dead</a> in the bathroom of Young Henry's brewery in Newtown, at around 11.30pm on Wednesday. </p> <p>As tributes pour in for the young model, her father, Daniel Paul Calvo has revealed that she allegedly received death threats in the week prior to her death. </p> <p>“As her father, I knew very well that she was being harassed and stalked, and I tried to intervene. Although we were very close, daughters only tell their parents so much,” he told <em>The Daily Telegraph</em>. </p> <p>“There’s more and more coming out, she was involved with some dodgy young guys, owed money, and leading up to last week she was getting multiple death threats.”</p> <p>The death threats that were allegedly sent to her will form part of an ongoing investigation into her death, NSW Police have confirmed. </p> <p>Friends and family have paid tribute to the fallen model, and started a GoFundMe page to cover her funeral costs. They said that “those who knew her best, knew that she went through some trying times." </p> <p>“She was a cherished daughter, sister and friend who brought so much love and light into all of our lives.</p> <p>She will be deeply missed by all who knew her.”</p> <p>The fundraiser has since raised over $30,000 for the model. </p> <p><em>Images: Instagram/ Google Maps</em></p>

Caring

Tragedy as young model dies in popular brewery

<p>A young woman has died suddenly at a popular Sydney brewery. </p> <p>Savana Calvo, 27 tragically passed away at the Young Henry's brewery in Newtown at about 11.30pm last Wednesday. </p> <p>Her death is not being treated as suspicious, but her loved ones have revealed she had been going through "trying times" before her death. </p> <p>“It is with heavy hearts that we announce the passing of our beloved Savana, 27,” the model's friend Adam St John-Foti wrote online. </p> <p>“She was a cherished daughter, sister and friend who brought so much love and light into all of our lives.</p> <p>“She will be deeply missed by all who knew her.</p> <p>“Those who knew her best, knew that she was went through some trying time these past in recent times that led to her tragic passing.”</p> <p>Friends have rallied around her family, with St John-Foti setting up a <a href="https://www.gofundme.com/f/savana-calvo" target="_blank" rel="noopener">GoFundMe</a> page, which has so far raised over $28,000 to help her family cope with funeral costs. </p> <p>He added that he family were "spellbound" by the outpouring of support. </p> <p>“Your generosity will make a meaningful difference in ensuring that Savana is laid to rest with the dignity, respect, and celebration she deserves,” the page read. </p> <p>“We also appreciate your thoughts, prayers, and messages of support during this difficult time.</p> <p>“Your kindness means the world to Savana’s family as we navigate through our grief.”</p> <p>Another friend of the model has remembered her as a “smiling and a kind gentle soul” who would “be missed so much". </p> <p>“Fly high beautiful angel. I haven’t stopped thinking of you since I found out about your passing ... I will miss you Savvy.”</p> <p>Coopers Hotel, another Newtown institution has also paid tribute to Calvo, saying: “It is with heavy hearts that Newtown grieves the loss of a beloved member of its community Savana C." </p> <p>“Sav’s family has started a go fund me to help with funeral costs, please donate if you can.”</p> <p>Young Henrys was closed to the public on Thursday with police spotted on the outside. There is no suggestion of any wrongdoing by the brewery. </p> <p><em>Images: GoFundMe/ Instagram</em></p>

Caring

Popular 90s supermodel makes iconic return to runway

<p dir="ltr">Vendela Kirsebom, a Norwegian-Swedish model, has made a stunning return to the runway almost three decades after she rose to fame.</p> <p dir="ltr">Kirsebom became the face of <em>Elizabeth Ardern</em>, appeared in seven editions of <em>Sports Illustrated</em>, and graced the cover of<em> Vogue</em> during the peak of her career.</p> <p dir="ltr">In recent years she chose to take a break from the spotlight, until now.</p> <p dir="ltr">The 56-year-old returned to the catwalk for <em>Sports Illustrated’s</em> Swimsuit Runway Show in Miami this week.</p> <p dir="ltr">She oozes confidence as strutted the runway in two different swimmers including a white one-piece with a plunging neckline, and a purple bikini set, both from her own brand Vendela Wear.</p> <p dir="ltr">Following the show, Kirsebom took to Instagram to thank her followers for their support.</p> <p dir="ltr">"Thank you for all the cheers, love and nice feedback,” she captioned the photo with the hashtag "embrace your beauty”.</p> <p dir="ltr">Her 119,000 followers flooded the comment section with a string of adoring responses.</p> <p dir="ltr">“Words can't describe how proud I am of you. Time stood still when you were on the stage,” wrote her husband, Norwegian TV celebrity Petter Pilgaard.</p> <p dir="ltr">“You are a fantastic role model for us adult ladies. You deserve a lot of happiness with your nice new collection,” wrote one fan.</p> <p dir="ltr">“You’re a superstar, you look incredibly great,” commented another.</p> <p dir="ltr">“Back on the catwalk, you look great,” wrote a third.</p> <p dir="ltr">Aside from her impressive modelling career, Kirsebom was also an actress who appeared in several movies including <em>Batman and Robin </em>in 1997, and <em>The Parent Trap </em>starring Lindsay Lohan in 1998.</p> <p dir="ltr">In 1996 she was rumoured to have dated the most eligible bachelor of that time, George Clooney, after the pair were spotted together multiple times.</p> <p><em>Images: Getty Images</em></p>

Beauty & Style

“I am not ashamed”: Aussie model shuts down her wedding dress critics

<p dir="ltr">Australian model Ellie Gonsalves has spoken out against the wave of negativity surrounding her wedding look, putting pen to paper for <em>9Honey</em> to highlight the sheer importance of universal bodily autonomy. </p> <p dir="ltr">As Ellie wrote in her piece, the controversy aimed at her dresses - one a floor-length embellished lace gown for the ceremony, another a figure-hugging gown that also reached the floor, and the other a shorter tulle swept dress for the reception - had “shed light on the ongoing societal expectations imposed on women.”</p> <p dir="ltr">She noted that “in an era where women are encouraged to exercise agency over their bodies, it is disheartening to witness the barrage of hate and derogatory comments I received for what some have described as my ‘daring’ dress.”</p> <p dir="ltr">And it was this that prompted her to dive into the wider issues regarding women’s autonomy, and the “restrictive narratives” that influenced their choices. </p> <p dir="ltr">According to Ellie, the hateful feedback she’d gotten for her outfits on her happy day served to “highlight a fundamental misunderstanding of women's agency over their bodies” in a society where women were expecting to meet “predetermined standards” that only limited their individual choices and desires. </p> <p dir="ltr">“Every individual, regardless of gender, should possess the autonomy to decide what they wear, how they present themselves, and what they share with the world,” she continued. “By denying women this autonomy, we perpetuate a harmful culture of control that infringes upon their fundamental rights.”</p> <p dir="ltr">Ellie noted that while “recognising and respecting” this autonomy would empower individuals, it would also have the added benefit of striding towards a society that was both “more inclusive and equitable”. </p> <p dir="ltr">As “when women are allowed to make decisions that shape their lives and bodies without judgement or interference, it leads to greater fulfilment and self-determination”, and embracing such agency assists in dismantling “harmful gender stereotypes” while supporting “individual choices and diversity”.</p> <p dir="ltr">“It is liberating to wear what I want,” she shared, “express myself freely, and reject the notion that my body is meant to be controlled or owned by anyone but myself.”</p> <p dir="ltr">She then revealed that the act of embracing her own agency was a reminder of her worth, and how it isn’t defined by - or limited to - how other people perceive her, their opinions, or their expectations. Instead, what’s important is her “ability to honour” her own truths and values. </p> <p dir="ltr">However, she did take the opportunity to point out that “it’s important to understand everyone’s life experiences are different so their choices will ultimately reflect that”, and that her own story had been shaped - at least in part - by her lifetime of experience in the modelling industry.</p> <p dir="ltr">“It's crucial to understand that these differences are perfectly acceptable and should be embraced as well,” Ellie wrote. </p> <p dir="ltr">“While the choices I make may be daring, I am not ashamed of them,” she declared, before stressing that people of all genders had to work together in the fight to “inspire and motivate more push back against negatives stereotypes” </p> <p dir="ltr">As a result, Ellie believes that women would “receive the support and resources” needed to “nurture their individual personalities”, and that challenging such “restrictive narratives” would allow room to celebrate choices at an individual level, and empower women all over. </p> <p dir="ltr"><em>Images: Instagram</em></p>

Body

Legendary model Christie Brinkley talks body image ahead of her 70th birthday

<p>Christie Brinkley may be pushing 70 but she’s showing no signs of switching up her sensual public image.</p> <p>The 69-year-old Vogue model will still be donning bikinis for social media and says she feels as good as she did 40 years ago.</p> <p>“I feel strong,” Brinkley told <em>People</em>, “I pretty much feel, as I'm approaching 70, the same way that I felt when I was approaching 30. I feel good.”</p> <p>She spoke to the outlet while hosting Pet Life Unlimited’s Forever Young senior dog adoption event at the Animal Haven shelter in New York City.</p> <p>“I feel like the number doesn't match my spirit, so I may as well just keep spiriting on,” she added. She will turn 70 on February 2, 2024.</p> <p>“I think they all signal to us certain things,” she said.</p> <p>“I've been shocked by not feeling the way I thought I was supposed to be feeling at that age,” she explained.</p> <p>“I don't believe that focusing on age is going to make you feel any better about it.” And her advice for looking young was, “I think curiosity in the world around you and just wanting to do something with each day, that is what keeps you young and going.”</p> <p>The 69-year-old shared that her family keeps her grounded. She has two daughters, Alex Ray, 37, and Sailor, 24, and one son Jack, 27.</p> <p>“I just love any time I have any family and friends around, just being able to sit and laugh — I think laughter heals everything,” she continued.</p> <p>In 2022, Brinkley spoke about her figure. She was seen in a crop top and shorts while stretching on the beach and offered some solid advice.</p> <p>“When you eat too much, it’s not as easy to lose the weight, so here’s a tip that’s tried and true, that will make you feel like your best you,” she said.</p> <p>She also advised, “avoid the sugar and do exercise, it’s not about the size of your thighs.”</p> <p>“Vibrant good health will be your prize! Reminder this month when you buy a bottle, you’ll put planting trees into full throttle!” she said.</p> <p>The mum-of-three was spotted in a light blue swimsuit while walking on the shore in the Caribbean and took to Instagram to reveal to followers what she eats to stay in shape.</p> <p>She broke down her healthy diet tips and tricks that don’t skimp on flavour but rely heavily on freshly picked fruit.</p> <p>In one post she uploaded an image of freshly cut papaya sprinkled with greens.</p> <p>“My neighbors grew this papaya! Look at the rich color! I'm planting the seeds from this papaya!”she wrote.</p> <p>Another post showcased her breakfast which appeared to consist primarily of fresh fruit.</p> <p>“Today's breakfast! Chia seeds really fill you up fast, great source of fiber and quercetin an antioxidant that can reduce your risk of developing several health conditions including heart disease!”, she wrote.</p> <p>Another post saw blueberries and raspers over chia seeds mixed with a “milk replacement” and pecans on top.</p> <p>“Easy to make too just put 2 tablespoons of chia seeds for every half cup of your milk replacement of choice. I love it made with coconut milk or Oatmilk, Just pop it in the fridge and it will puff up. Ta Da!</p> <p>“Add fruit dribble with honey if you have a sweet tooth.”</p> <p><em>Image credit: Instagram</em></p>

Body

Robert Irwin launches modelling career

<p>Robert Irwin has sent the internet into a frenzy after appearing in a new modelling campaign. </p> <p>The wildlife warrior features in a new advertisement for Aussie clothing brand Hard Yakka, which he shared to his Instagram page on Sunday and has racked up over 200,000 likes. </p> <p>A brooding Irwin is featured taking part in a series of activities including surfing and biking, while discussing how his family helped him develop his relationship with the great outdoors. </p> <p>“I’ve always been about the ocean from a really, really young age,” Irwin said in the video.</p> <p>“It has always been my dad who had that strong connection to the sea. So now I feel very lucky I get to follow in those footsteps."</p> <blockquote class="instagram-media" style="background: #FFF; border: 0; border-radius: 3px; box-shadow: 0 0 1px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.5),0 1px 10px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.15); margin: 1px; max-width: 540px; min-width: 326px; padding: 0; width: calc(100% - 2px);" data-instgrm-permalink="https://www.instagram.com/reel/CogBmmyOe8A/?utm_source=ig_embed&utm_campaign=loading" data-instgrm-version="14"> <div style="padding: 16px;"> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: row; align-items: center;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; flex-grow: 0; height: 40px; margin-right: 14px; width: 40px;"> </div> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: column; flex-grow: 1; justify-content: center;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; margin-bottom: 6px; width: 100px;"> </div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; width: 60px;"> </div> </div> </div> <div style="padding: 19% 0;"> </div> <div style="display: block; height: 50px; margin: 0 auto 12px; width: 50px;"> </div> <div style="padding-top: 8px;"> <div style="color: #3897f0; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 550; line-height: 18px;">View this post on Instagram</div> </div> <div style="padding: 12.5% 0;"> </div> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: row; margin-bottom: 14px; align-items: center;"> <div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; height: 12.5px; width: 12.5px; transform: translateX(0px) translateY(7px);"> </div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; height: 12.5px; transform: rotate(-45deg) translateX(3px) translateY(1px); width: 12.5px; flex-grow: 0; margin-right: 14px; margin-left: 2px;"> </div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; height: 12.5px; width: 12.5px; transform: translateX(9px) translateY(-18px);"> </div> </div> <div style="margin-left: 8px;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; flex-grow: 0; height: 20px; width: 20px;"> </div> <div style="width: 0; height: 0; border-top: 2px solid transparent; border-left: 6px solid #f4f4f4; border-bottom: 2px solid transparent; transform: translateX(16px) translateY(-4px) rotate(30deg);"> </div> </div> <div style="margin-left: auto;"> <div style="width: 0px; border-top: 8px solid #F4F4F4; border-right: 8px solid transparent; transform: translateY(16px);"> </div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; flex-grow: 0; height: 12px; width: 16px; transform: translateY(-4px);"> </div> <div style="width: 0; height: 0; border-top: 8px solid #F4F4F4; border-left: 8px solid transparent; transform: translateY(-4px) translateX(8px);"> </div> </div> </div> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: column; flex-grow: 1; justify-content: center; margin-bottom: 24px;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; margin-bottom: 6px; width: 224px;"> </div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; width: 144px;"> </div> </div> <p style="color: #c9c8cd; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 17px; margin-bottom: 0; margin-top: 8px; overflow: hidden; padding: 8px 0 7px; text-align: center; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap;"><a style="color: #c9c8cd; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 17px; text-decoration: none;" href="https://www.instagram.com/reel/CogBmmyOe8A/?utm_source=ig_embed&utm_campaign=loading" target="_blank" rel="noopener">A post shared by Robert Irwin (@robertirwinphotography)</a></p> </div> </blockquote> <p>“I still use some of his old surf boards. I get out there every morning into the water. I am definitely most at home when I’m next to the ocean.”</p> <p>While explaining his passion for being outside, he said that his work at Australia Zoo is still the biggest part of his life. </p> <p>“It’s my passion, not just what I do, it’s who I am. So, it becomes all about giving everything 100 per cent. Having that passion and enthusiasm for what you do is so important,” he said.</p> <p>The video was shot as part of a Hard Yakka series called Meet the Legends and Irwin had fans swooning as he modelled the brand’s clothing range.</p> <p>“Worlds most eligible Bachelor. So handsome and well behaved,” one wrote on Instagram.</p> <p>“Is there anything he CAN’T do? 😍👏 his dad is so proud,” another added.</p> <p>“I have the worlds biggest crush on you,” another fan stated simply.</p> <p>“I’ve never wanted to purchase a product more in my entire life. This was fantastic to watch,” a fourth chimed in.</p> <p><em>Image credits: Instagram</em></p>

Beauty & Style

The Galactica AI model was trained on scientific knowledge – but it spat out alarmingly plausible nonsense

<p>Earlier this month, Meta announced new AI software called <a href="https://galactica.org/">Galactica</a>: “a large language model that can store, combine and reason about scientific knowledge”.</p> <p><a href="https://paperswithcode.com/paper/galactica-a-large-language-model-for-science-1">Launched</a> with a public online demo, Galactica lasted only three days before going the way of other AI snafus like Microsoft’s <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2016/3/24/11297050/tay-microsoft-chatbot-racist">infamous racist chatbot</a>.</p> <p>The online demo was disabled (though the <a href="https://github.com/paperswithcode/galai">code for the model is still available</a> for anyone to use), and Meta’s outspoken chief AI scientist <a href="https://twitter.com/ylecun/status/1595353002222682112">complained</a> about the negative public response.</p> <blockquote class="twitter-tweet"> <p dir="ltr" lang="en">Galactica demo is off line for now.<br />It's no longer possible to have some fun by casually misusing it.<br />Happy? <a href="https://t.co/K56r2LpvFD">https://t.co/K56r2LpvFD</a></p> <p>— Yann LeCun (@ylecun) <a href="https://twitter.com/ylecun/status/1593293058174500865?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 17, 2022</a></p></blockquote> <p>So what was Galactica all about, and what went wrong?</p> <p><strong>What’s special about Galactica?</strong></p> <p>Galactica is a language model, a type of AI trained to respond to natural language by repeatedly playing a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/15/magazine/ai-language.html">fill-the-blank word-guessing game</a>.</p> <p>Most modern language models learn from text scraped from the internet. Galactica also used text from scientific papers uploaded to the (Meta-affiliated) website <a href="https://paperswithcode.com/">PapersWithCode</a>. The designers highlighted specialised scientific information like citations, maths, code, chemical structures, and the working-out steps for solving scientific problems.</p> <p>The <a href="https://galactica.org/static/paper.pdf">preprint paper</a> associated with the project (which is yet to undergo peer review) makes some impressive claims. Galactica apparently outperforms other models at problems like reciting famous equations (“<em>Q: What is Albert Einstein’s famous mass-energy equivalence formula? A: E=mc²</em>”), or predicting the products of chemical reactions (“<em>Q: When sulfuric acid reacts with sodium chloride, what does it produce? A: NaHSO₄ + HCl</em>”).</p> <p>However, once Galactica was opened up for public experimentation, a deluge of criticism followed. Not only did Galactica reproduce many of the problems of bias and toxicity we have seen in other language models, it also specialised in producing authoritative-sounding scientific nonsense.</p> <p><strong>Authoritative, but subtly wrong bullshit generator</strong></p> <p>Galactica’s press release promoted its ability to explain technical scientific papers using general language. However, users quickly noticed that, while the explanations it generates sound authoritative, they are often subtly incorrect, biased, or just plain wrong.</p> <blockquote class="twitter-tweet"> <p dir="ltr" lang="en">I entered "Estimating realistic 3D human avatars in clothing from a single image or video". In this case, it made up a fictitious paper and associated GitHub repo. The author is a real person (<a href="https://twitter.com/AlbertPumarola?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@AlbertPumarola</a>) but the reference is bogus. (2/9) <a href="https://t.co/N4i0BX27Yf">pic.twitter.com/N4i0BX27Yf</a></p> <p>— Michael Black (@Michael_J_Black) <a href="https://twitter.com/Michael_J_Black/status/1593133727257092097?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 17, 2022</a></p></blockquote> <p>We also asked Galactica to explain technical concepts from our own fields of research. We found it would use all the right buzzwords, but get the actual details wrong – for example, mixing up the details of related but different algorithms.</p> <p>In practice, Galactica was enabling the generation of misinformation – and this is dangerous precisely because it deploys the tone and structure of authoritative scientific information. If a user already needs to be a subject matter expert in order to check the accuracy of Galactica’s “summaries”, then it has no use as an explanatory tool.</p> <p>At best, it could provide a fancy autocomplete for people who are already fully competent in the area they’re writing about. At worst, it risks further eroding public trust in scientific research.</p> <p><strong>A galaxy of deep (science) fakes</strong></p> <p>Galactica could make it easier for bad actors to mass-produce fake, fraudulent or plagiarised scientific papers. This is to say nothing of exacerbating <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/nov/28/ai-students-essays-cheat-teachers-plagiarism-tech">existing concerns</a> about students using AI systems for plagiarism.</p> <p>Fake scientific papers are <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-00733-5">nothing new</a>. However, peer reviewers at academic journals and conferences are already time-poor, and this could make it harder than ever to weed out fake science.</p> <p><strong>Underlying bias and toxicity</strong></p> <p>Other critics reported that Galactica, like other language models trained on data from the internet, has a tendency to spit out <a href="https://twitter.com/mrgreene1977/status/1593649978789941249">toxic hate speech</a> while unreflectively censoring politically inflected queries. This reflects the biases lurking in the model’s training data, and Meta’s apparent failure to apply appropriate checks around the responsible AI research.</p> <p>The risks associated with large language models are well understood. Indeed, an <a href="https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3442188.3445922">influential paper</a> highlighting these risks prompted Google to <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/google-timnit-gebru-ai-what-really-happened/">fire one of the paper’s authors</a> in 2020, and eventually disband its AI ethics team altogether.</p> <p>Machine-learning systems infamously exacerbate existing societal biases, and Galactica is no exception. For instance, Galactica can recommend possible citations for scientific concepts by mimicking existing citation patterns (“<em>Q: Is there any research on the effect of climate change on the great barrier reef? A: Try the paper ‘<a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-018-0041-2">Global warming transforms coral reef assemblages</a>’ by Hughes, et al. in Nature 556 (2018)</em>”).</p> <p>For better or worse, citations are the currency of science – and by reproducing existing citation trends in its recommendations, Galactica risks reinforcing existing patterns of inequality and disadvantage. (Galactica’s developers acknowledge this risk in their paper.)</p> <p>Citation bias is already a well-known issue in academic fields ranging from <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/14680777.2018.1447395">feminist</a> <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/joc/jqy003">scholarship</a> to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41567-022-01770-1">physics</a>. However, tools like Galactica could make the problem worse unless they are used with careful guardrails in place.</p> <p>A more subtle problem is that the scientific articles on which Galactica is trained are already biased towards certainty and positive results. (This leads to the so-called “<a href="https://theconversation.com/science-is-in-a-reproducibility-crisis-how-do-we-resolve-it-16998">replication crisis</a>” and “<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-we-edit-science-part-2-significance-testing-p-hacking-and-peer-review-74547">p-hacking</a>”, where scientists cherry-pick data and analysis techniques to make results appear significant.)</p> <p>Galactica takes this bias towards certainty, combines it with wrong answers and delivers responses with supreme overconfidence: hardly a recipe for trustworthiness in a scientific information service.</p> <p>These problems are dramatically heightened when Galactica tries to deal with contentious or harmful social issues, as the screenshot below shows.</p> <figure class="align-center zoomable"><a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/498098/original/file-20221129-17547-nwq8p.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/498098/original/file-20221129-17547-nwq8p.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/498098/original/file-20221129-17547-nwq8p.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=347&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/498098/original/file-20221129-17547-nwq8p.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=347&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/498098/original/file-20221129-17547-nwq8p.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=347&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/498098/original/file-20221129-17547-nwq8p.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=436&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/498098/original/file-20221129-17547-nwq8p.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=436&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/498098/original/file-20221129-17547-nwq8p.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=436&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" alt="Screenshots of papers generated by Galactica on 'The benefits of antisemitism' and 'The benefits of eating crushed glass'." /></a><figcaption><span class="caption">Galactica readily generates toxic and nonsensical content dressed up in the measured and authoritative language of science.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://twitter.com/mrgreene1977/status/1593687024963182592/photo/1">Tristan Greene / Galactica</a></span></figcaption></figure> <p><strong>Here we go again</strong></p> <p>Calls for AI research organisations to take the ethical dimensions of their work more seriously are now coming from <a href="https://nap.nationalacademies.org/catalog/26507/fostering-responsible-computing-research-foundations-and-practices">key research bodies</a> such as the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine. Some AI research organisations, like OpenAI, are being <a href="https://github.com/openai/dalle-2-preview/blob/main/system-card.md">more conscientious</a> (though still imperfect).</p> <p>Meta <a href="https://www.engadget.com/meta-responsible-innovation-team-disbanded-194852979.html">dissolved its Responsible Innovation team</a> earlier this year. The team was tasked with addressing “potential harms to society” caused by the company’s products. They might have helped the company avoid this clumsy misstep.<img style="border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; margin: 0 !important; max-height: 1px !important; max-width: 1px !important; min-height: 1px !important; min-width: 1px !important; opacity: 0 !important; outline: none !important; padding: 0 !important;" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/195445/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" /></p> <p><em>Writen by Aaron J. Snoswell </em><em>and Jean Burgess</em><em>. Republished with permission from <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-galactica-ai-model-was-trained-on-scientific-knowledge-but-it-spat-out-alarmingly-plausible-nonsense-195445" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Conversation</a>.</em></p> <p><em>Image: Getty Images</em></p>

Technology

Michael Klim's daughter launches modelling career

<p>Michael and Lindy Klim's daughter Stella has made her debut in the modelling world, with her doting father cheering her on.</p> <p>The 16-year-old shared her first official photos with agency Bali Starz on Instagram, with the leading modelling and creative agency introduced the genetically blessed teen as "Gorgeous girl Stella".</p> <p>Stella's famous mother Lindy, a Balinese princess in her own right, was quick to like the photos when they were shared to Stella's private account.</p> <p>Michael took to his own social media account to share how proud he is of his daughter, posting more official model shots of Stella.</p> <blockquote class="instagram-media" style="background: #FFF; border: 0; border-radius: 3px; box-shadow: 0 0 1px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.5),0 1px 10px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.15); margin: 1px; max-width: 540px; min-width: 326px; padding: 0; width: calc(100% - 2px);" data-instgrm-permalink="https://www.instagram.com/p/ClBMOJOB4vo/?utm_source=ig_embed&utm_campaign=loading" data-instgrm-version="14"> <div style="padding: 16px;"> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: row; align-items: center;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; flex-grow: 0; height: 40px; margin-right: 14px; width: 40px;"> </div> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: column; flex-grow: 1; justify-content: center;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; margin-bottom: 6px; width: 100px;"> </div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; width: 60px;"> </div> </div> </div> <div style="padding: 19% 0;"> </div> <div style="display: block; height: 50px; margin: 0 auto 12px; width: 50px;"> </div> <div style="padding-top: 8px;"> <div style="color: #3897f0; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 550; line-height: 18px;">View this post on Instagram</div> </div> <div style="padding: 12.5% 0;"> </div> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: row; margin-bottom: 14px; align-items: center;"> <div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; height: 12.5px; width: 12.5px; transform: translateX(0px) translateY(7px);"> </div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; height: 12.5px; transform: rotate(-45deg) translateX(3px) translateY(1px); width: 12.5px; flex-grow: 0; margin-right: 14px; margin-left: 2px;"> </div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; height: 12.5px; width: 12.5px; transform: translateX(9px) translateY(-18px);"> </div> </div> <div style="margin-left: 8px;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; flex-grow: 0; height: 20px; width: 20px;"> </div> <div style="width: 0; height: 0; border-top: 2px solid transparent; border-left: 6px solid #f4f4f4; border-bottom: 2px solid transparent; transform: translateX(16px) translateY(-4px) rotate(30deg);"> </div> </div> <div style="margin-left: auto;"> <div style="width: 0px; border-top: 8px solid #F4F4F4; border-right: 8px solid transparent; transform: translateY(16px);"> </div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; flex-grow: 0; height: 12px; width: 16px; transform: translateY(-4px);"> </div> <div style="width: 0; height: 0; border-top: 8px solid #F4F4F4; border-left: 8px solid transparent; transform: translateY(-4px) translateX(8px);"> </div> </div> </div> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: column; flex-grow: 1; justify-content: center; margin-bottom: 24px;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; margin-bottom: 6px; width: 224px;"> </div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; width: 144px;"> </div> </div> <p style="color: #c9c8cd; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 17px; margin-bottom: 0; margin-top: 8px; overflow: hidden; padding: 8px 0 7px; text-align: center; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap;"><a style="color: #c9c8cd; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 17px; text-decoration: none;" href="https://www.instagram.com/p/ClBMOJOB4vo/?utm_source=ig_embed&utm_campaign=loading" target="_blank" rel="noopener">A post shared by MICHAEL KLIM (@michaelklim1)</a></p> </div> </blockquote> <p>He wrote, "My not so little Stell-Bell is taking on the modelling world… I’ll be conducting a vigorous and strict screening process for any potential opportunities...jokes!"</p> <p>"Stella is in very capable and safe hands of [Bali Starz] so direct any enquiries their way."</p> <p>Until now, the teen has largely stayed out of the spotlight but she does regularly appear on her parent's Instagram accounts.</p> <p><em>Image credits: Instagram</em></p>

Family & Pets

Leo DiCaprio scolded by fans after "predictable" split with model girlfriend

<p>Leonard DiCaprio fans everywhere are having the last laugh as the famed actor has ended his four-year relationship with model girlfriend Camilla Morrone.</p> <p>Having a track record of exclusively dating women under 25, the 47-year-old ended his relationship quietly, earlier this summer, according to a source close to the couple.</p> <p>DiCaprio and Morrone began dating in 2017 when she was 20 years old, making their awards show debut at the 2020 Oscars.</p> <p>Morrone at the time defended their 23-year age difference, telling the Los Angeles Times in 2019, “There’s so many relationships in Hollywood — and in the history of the world — where people have large age gaps. I just think anyone should be able to date who they want to date.”</p> <p>This recent widely publicised breakup has only reinforced predictions made that the relationship wouldn't last much longer, after Camilla celebrated her 25th birthday in early June.</p> <p>Of course the breakup sent social media into a frenzy as fans couldn’t wait to post jokes about the couple's "doomed" relationship.</p> <p>One fan tweeted: "3 things are certain in life: - death, - taxes, - Leonardo Dicaprio breaking up with his girlfriend before her pre-frontal cortex has fully developed."</p> <blockquote class="twitter-tweet"> <p dir="ltr" lang="en">3 things are certain in life:<br />- death<br />- taxes<br />- leonardo dicaprio breaking up with his girlfriend before her pre-frontal cortex has fully developed <a href="https://t.co/5bw3uLWlQ3">https://t.co/5bw3uLWlQ3</a></p> <p>— Erin Brockobić (@erinbrockobic) <a href="https://twitter.com/erinbrockobic/status/1564744270950633472?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 30, 2022</a></p></blockquote> <p>"Leonardo DiCaprio is actually dating all the under-25s he possibly can to spread the word about climate change to those who will be the most impacted," another user joked.</p> <blockquote class="twitter-tweet"> <p dir="ltr" lang="en">leonardo dicaprio is actually dating all the under-25s he possibly can to spread the word about climate change to those who will be the most impacted</p> <p>— flamin nora (@katierpacker) <a href="https://twitter.com/katierpacker/status/1564888223205269505?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 31, 2022</a></p></blockquote> <p>A third added: "there's no phenomenon on this planet more reliable than leonardo dicaprio breaking up with his girl by age 25, the stats are breathtaking".</p> <blockquote class="twitter-tweet"> <p dir="ltr" lang="en">there's no phenomenon on this planet more reliable than leonardo dicaprio breaking up with his girl by age 25, the stats are breathtaking <a href="https://t.co/A9czRJo56Q">https://t.co/A9czRJo56Q</a></p> <p>— no (@zedonarrival) <a href="https://twitter.com/zedonarrival/status/1564730774485704704?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 30, 2022</a></p></blockquote> <p>Meanwhile, others have tried to figure out how DiCaprio might have ended the romance as one stated: "i need to know how leonardo dicaprio conducts these breakups. does he start picking fights months before they turn 25 to be less conspicuous?"</p> <blockquote class="twitter-tweet"> <p dir="ltr" lang="en">i need to know how leonardo dicaprio conducts these breakups. does he start picking fights months before they turn 25 to be less conspicuous? do they wake up on their birthday to a note that says “sorry i can’t don’t hate me” someone pls investigate</p> <p>— megan (@weganmilliamson) <a href="https://twitter.com/weganmilliamson/status/1564756315276279808?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 30, 2022</a></p></blockquote> <p>Other A-list women DiCaprio has dated who were 25 or younger at the time of their relationships include Kate Moss, Helena Christensen, Naomi Campbell, Bar Refaeli, Nina Agdal and Gisele Bündchen, who he dated for six years.</p> <p>What a complete Morrone!</p> <p><em>Image: Twitter</em></p>

Relationships

Sports Illustrated Swimsuit: Is inclusive objectification something to celebrate?

<p>The last two weeks of May generated a flurry of celebratory media commentary about the diversity of models in the <a href="https://swimsuit.si.com/model-years/2022">2022 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue</a>. It was praised for “<a href="https://www.thestreet.com/lifestyle/sports/si-swimsuit-issue-maye-musk-breaks-barriers-cover-model-at-74">breaking barriers</a>,” “<a href="https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20220516005285/en/Kim-Kardashian-Ciara-Maye-Musk-and-Yumi-Nu-Are-Revealed-as-Sports-Illustrated-Swimsuit%E2%80%99s-2022-Cover-Models">empowering women</a>” and “<a href="https://www.goodmorningamerica.com/style/story/sports-illustrated-swimsuit-2022-maye-musk-kim-kardashian-84748799">trailblazing</a>.”</p> <p>This year’s firsts included: Ashley Callingbull (<a href="https://thehill.com/changing-america/respect/diversity-inclusion/3492947-indigenous-first-nations-woman-featured-in-sports-illustrated-swimsuit-edition-for-first-time/">the first Indigenous model</a>), Yumi Nu (<a href="https://swimsuit.si.com/swimsuit/model/yumi-nu-2022-si-swimsuit-photos">the first Asian American curve model to appear on the cover</a>), Maye Musk (<a href="https://people.com/style/maye-musk-sports-illustrated-swimsuit-2022-cover-at-74-something-i-could-never-dream-up/">the first woman in her 70s</a>), Kelly Hughes (<a href="https://www.thecut.com/2022/05/a-model-with-a-c-section-scar-is-in-sports-illustrated.html">the first swimsuit model to show her C-section scars</a>) and Katrina Scott (<a href="https://swimsuit.si.com/swimnews/katrina-scott-first-visibly-pregnant-woman-in-si-swimsuit">the first visibly pregnant model</a>).</p> <p>In recent years the magazine has highlighted more diversity, including <a href="https://swimsuit.si.com/swimnews/halima-aden-si-swimsuit-2019-model-kenya">Halima Aden in a burkini</a>, more <a href="https://parade.com/1381969/allienelson/athletes-sports-illustrated-swimsuit/">athletes</a>, trans models like <a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/07/20/1018381498/sports-illustrateds-swimsuit-issue-trans-model-leyna-bloom">Leyna Bloom</a> and <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/carlieporterfield/2020/07/10/valentina-sampaio-becomes-first-trans-model-in-sports-illustrateds-swimsuit-issue/">Valentina Sampaio</a> and more <a href="https://swimsuit.si.com/swimsuit/model/hunter-mcgrady">curve models like Hunter McGrady</a>.</p> <p>But most of the models are still stereotypically young, thin and white.</p> <p>With the celebration of firsts, an important question falls by the wayside: Is including a broader range of women in the pages of a magazine issue whose sole commercial purpose is to present them as sexual objects for a mostly straight male readership a good thing?</p> <p><strong>‘Properly feminine’</strong></p> <p>I am a feminist philosopher who works on <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/moral-responsibility-in-collective-contexts-9780199782963">responsibility in oppressive social contexts</a> and co-founder of the blog <a href="https://fitisafeministissue.com/">Fit Is a Feminist Issue</a>. In society, where sexist structures and attitudes are abound, women’s value — and by extension, <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/everyday/how-a-womans-glam-appearance-affects-her-career/11671912">range of opportunities — is frequently determined by their attractiveness and sexual desirability to straight men</a>. So I question whether expanding the field of women who are sufficiently sexy and, <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Femininity-and-Domination-Studies-in-the-Phenomenology-of-Oppression/Bartky/p/book/9780415901864">to borrow the words of philosopher Sandra Bartky</a>, “properly feminine” to “merit” inclusion in the swimsuit issue, constitutes overall meaningful progress for women.</p> <blockquote class="twitter-tweet"> <p dir="ltr" lang="en">.<a href="https://twitter.com/mayemusk?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@mayemusk</a> joins us to talk about her <a href="https://twitter.com/SI_Swimsuit?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@SI_Swimsuit</a> cover, what it was like juggling multiple jobs and more. <a href="https://t.co/bR5B2gHLu4">pic.twitter.com/bR5B2gHLu4</a></p> <p>— TODAY with Hoda & Jenna (@HodaAndJenna) <a href="https://twitter.com/HodaAndJenna/status/1531645368659849217?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 31, 2022</a></p></blockquote> <p>Granted, there is something to be said for <a href="https://bpr.berkeley.edu/2019/12/20/one-size-does-not-fit-all-the-rise-of-diverse-fashion-models/">challenging the stereotypical esthetic ideals of normative femininity with diverse models</a>. And even though <a href="https://www.shape.com/celebrities/news/kate-upton-body-attention-criticism">model Kate Upton expressed discomfort about the public scrutiny and discussion of her body</a>, others, including Yumi Nu, describe appearing in the swimsuit issue as <a href="https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/fashion-beauty/article/3179391/sports-illustrated-swimsuits-first-asian-plus-size-cover">a validating experience</a>.</p> <p>Yet the swimsuit issue continues to promote sexual attractiveness as women’s main currency. As <a href="https://women-gender-equality.canada.ca/en.html">women fight to be taken seriously</a>, repeating this message <a href="https://www.forbes.com/2009/12/05/appearance-work-pay-forbes-woman-leadership-body-weight.html">is harmful</a>.</p> <p><strong>Sex does sell</strong></p> <p>When <a href="https://fitisafeministissue.com/2022/05/28/inclusive-objectification-anyone/">I wrote a blog post about this</a>, readers on <a href="https://www.facebook.com/feministfitness">the blog’s Facebook page</a> mostly agreed with me in comments writing: “yay, now us fat girls can be objectified too” and “even in ‘inclusivity’ the goal of the swimsuit issues is still policing feminine bodies.”</p> <p>But some said “sex sells: get over it” and “where’s the harm?” Others argued my view throws a wet blanket over a beach party where finally (finally!) women of diverse shapes and sizes are not just welcome but considered sexy and beautiful.</p> <p>Sex does sell and it’s too bad that the sexualization of women is a multi-billion dollar industry in which <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/business-facts-about-the-sports-illustrated-swimsuit-issue-2013-2">the swimsuit issue trades</a>.</p> <p>The swimsuit issue is a setback for women and models are engaging in what philosopher Shay Welch, in her book <a href="https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781498505413/Existential-Eroticism-A-Feminist-Approach-to-Understanding-Womens-Oppression-Perpetuating-Choices"><em>Existential Eroticism</em></a>, calls “oppression-perpetuating choices.” She defines “existential eroticism” as women’s oppression through beauty and sexuality.</p> <p>Basically, some women’s choices contribute to conditions of oppression for women as a group even if we can understand why women make them.</p> <blockquote class="instagram-media" style="background: #FFF; border: 0; border-radius: 3px; box-shadow: 0 0 1px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.5),0 1px 10px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.15); margin: 1px; max-width: 540px; min-width: 326px; padding: 0; width: calc(100% - 2px);" data-instgrm-captioned="" data-instgrm-permalink="https://www.instagram.com/reel/Ced0FcSgm3t/?utm_source=ig_embed&utm_campaign=loading" data-instgrm-version="14"> <div style="padding: 16px;"> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: row; align-items: center;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; flex-grow: 0; height: 40px; margin-right: 14px; width: 40px;"> </div> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: column; flex-grow: 1; justify-content: center;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; margin-bottom: 6px; width: 100px;"> </div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; width: 60px;"> </div> </div> </div> <div style="padding: 19% 0;"> </div> <div style="display: block; height: 50px; margin: 0 auto 12px; width: 50px;"> </div> <div style="padding-top: 8px;"> <div style="color: #3897f0; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 550; line-height: 18px;">View this post on Instagram</div> </div> <div style="padding: 12.5% 0;"> </div> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: row; margin-bottom: 14px; align-items: center;"> <div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; height: 12.5px; width: 12.5px; transform: translateX(0px) translateY(7px);"> </div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; height: 12.5px; transform: rotate(-45deg) translateX(3px) translateY(1px); width: 12.5px; flex-grow: 0; margin-right: 14px; margin-left: 2px;"> </div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; height: 12.5px; width: 12.5px; transform: translateX(9px) translateY(-18px);"> </div> </div> <div style="margin-left: 8px;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; flex-grow: 0; height: 20px; width: 20px;"> </div> <div style="width: 0; height: 0; border-top: 2px solid transparent; border-left: 6px solid #f4f4f4; border-bottom: 2px solid transparent; transform: translateX(16px) translateY(-4px) rotate(30deg);"> </div> </div> <div style="margin-left: auto;"> <div style="width: 0px; border-top: 8px solid #F4F4F4; border-right: 8px solid transparent; transform: translateY(16px);"> </div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; flex-grow: 0; height: 12px; width: 16px; transform: translateY(-4px);"> </div> <div style="width: 0; height: 0; border-top: 8px solid #F4F4F4; border-left: 8px solid transparent; transform: translateY(-4px) translateX(8px);"> </div> </div> </div> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: column; flex-grow: 1; justify-content: center; margin-bottom: 24px;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; margin-bottom: 6px; width: 224px;"> </div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; width: 144px;"> </div> </div> <p style="color: #c9c8cd; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 17px; margin-bottom: 0; margin-top: 8px; overflow: hidden; padding: 8px 0 7px; text-align: center; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap;"><a style="color: #c9c8cd; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 17px; text-decoration: none;" href="https://www.instagram.com/reel/Ced0FcSgm3t/?utm_source=ig_embed&utm_campaign=loading" target="_blank" rel="noopener">A post shared by Sports Illustrated Swimsuit (@si_swimsuit)</a></p> </div> </blockquote> <p>While we would be better off without the swimsuit issue (we’d be better off without lots of things), I’m not suggesting it be censored or banned. Nor is this an objection to the display of bodies, even skimpily clad bodies. But is there a different way of going about it?</p> <p>Look to <em>ESPN</em>’s <a href="https://www.espn.com/espn/feature/story/_/id/27400369/the-body-issue">The Body Issue</a>, which depicts a diversity of athletes (not only women and not only non-disabled), nude and often in action shots that display their athleticism within their chosen sport.</p> <p>It presents a completely different esthetic of physicality, based in athleticism. Athleticism isn’t the only dimension along which to appreciate bodies, but it’s not clear how the swimsuit issue, the very essence of which is to represent a particular type of sexualized bodies, could morph into something that celebrates the body in a different way.</p> <p>Swimsuit issue editor-in-chief <a href="https://swimsuit.si.com/swimnews/sports-illustrated-swimsuit-2022-cover-models-kim-kardashian-ciara-maye-musk-yumi-nu">MJ Day says</a>, “We encourage readers to see these models as we see them — multifaceted, multitalented and sexy while they’re at it.” As multi-dimensional as these women may be, their suitability for the swimsuit issue ultimately depends on being sexy.</p> <p>We should be wary of uncritically accepting the sexual objectification of women for the sake of inclusion and diversity. When we do, we’re celebrating the swimsuit issue as something empowering for women and praising it for “breaking barriers.” Given its context and target-audience — straight, cisgender men — doing so perpetuates the pernicious idea that women (all women) need to be sexy-to-men to be acceptable.</p> <p>We can promote inclusion and celebrate the beauty of diverse bodies without piggybacking on that relentless message about what makes women worthy.<img style="border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; margin: 0 !important; max-height: 1px !important; max-width: 1px !important; min-height: 1px !important; min-width: 1px !important; opacity: 0 !important; outline: none !important; padding: 0 !important;" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/184211/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" /></p> <p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/tracy-isaacs-967042" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Tracy Isaacs</a>, Professor (Philosophy), <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/western-university-882" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Western University</a></em></p> <p><em>This article is republished from <a href="https://theconversation.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Conversation</a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/sports-illustrated-swimsuit-is-inclusive-objectification-something-to-celebrate-184211" target="_blank" rel="noopener">original article</a>.</em></p> <p><em>Images: Sports Illustrated</em></p>

Beauty & Style

"This is the devil's work!": Nun pulls apart female models sharing a kiss

<p dir="ltr">A shocked nun caused quite a stir in the streets of Italy when she pulled away two female models who were kissing for a photoshoot.</p> <p dir="ltr">The nun was dressed in a white habit and rushed to stop Serena de Ferrari and Briton Kyshan Wilson who had locked lips in a Naples backstreet as they posed for a photo for Not Yet magazine.</p> <p dir="ltr">“What are you doing? This is the devil's work,” the nun shouted at them as they giggled.</p> <p dir="ltr">She looked around at the cameramen and crossed herself before saying: “Jesus, Joseph and Mary”.</p> <p dir="ltr">Make up artist Roberta Mastalia, who was on the shoot, said they had to ask the nun to leave thinking she was just joking.</p> <p dir="ltr">“We were on location in the Spanish Quarter in Naples, in a little sidestreet with the two models when all of a sudden the nun walked past,” he said, <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11027633/Italian-nun-splits-two-female-models-kissing-photoshoot-calling-devils-work.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Daily Mail</a> reported.</p> <p dir="ltr">“She asked us if we had been to Mass that day and when we said 'No' she started blaming young people for Coronavirus and then she saw the two models posing up ready to kiss and that's when she ran forward to split them up.</p> <p dir="ltr">“Our first reaction was we were all stunned. They took it as a bit of a joke and you can see from the video the two girls are laughing.</p> <p dir="ltr">“We then had to ask the nun to leave as we explained we had work to do and she slowly walked off.”</p> <p dir="ltr">Both Serena and Briton shared clips of the incident to their social media with the caption “God doesn’t love LGBT”.</p> <p dir="ltr">Local priest Father Salvatore Giuliano The Church is constantly updating its views but some of the older generation have not yet accepted it.</p> <p dir="ltr"><em>Images: Instagram</em></p>

Travel Trouble

“I am grateful”: Linda Evangelista returns to modelling

<p dir="ltr">After sharing the story of the “nightmare” beauty procedure that left her “brutally disfigured” earlier this year, Linda Evangelista has made her return to modelling for a special occasion in the world of fashion.</p> <p dir="ltr">On Sunday, Evangelista took to Instagram to share a photo of her upcoming collaboration with Italian luxury fashion house Fendi with her fans.</p> <p dir="ltr">In the photo, the Canadian supermodel is holding two silver Fendi Baguette bags, wearing a grey top, pink-rimmed sunglasses and multiple pink caps.</p> <p><span id="docs-internal-guid-eaab2c67-7fff-6c51-3c61-e36ca2970887"></span></p> <p dir="ltr">“On September 9 2022 Fendi will host a special fashion show in New York City to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Fendi baguette … and two years since Kim Jones joined the Maison as artistic director of couture and womenswear,” Evangelista captioned the photo, adding that she was “so grateful” to those involved in the photoshoot.</p> <blockquote class="instagram-media" style="background: #FFF; border: 0; border-radius: 3px; box-shadow: 0 0 1px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.5),0 1px 10px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.15); margin: 1px; max-width: 540px; min-width: 326px; padding: 0; width: calc(100% - 2px);" data-instgrm-captioned="" data-instgrm-permalink="https://www.instagram.com/p/CgE3cyTLoFN/?utm_source=ig_embed&utm_campaign=loading" data-instgrm-version="14"> <div style="padding: 16px;"> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: row; align-items: center;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; flex-grow: 0; height: 40px; margin-right: 14px; width: 40px;"> </div> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: column; flex-grow: 1; justify-content: center;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; margin-bottom: 6px; width: 100px;"> </div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; width: 60px;"> </div> </div> </div> <div style="padding: 19% 0;"> </div> <div style="display: block; height: 50px; margin: 0 auto 12px; width: 50px;"> </div> <div style="padding-top: 8px;"> <div style="color: #3897f0; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 550; line-height: 18px;">View this post on Instagram</div> </div> <div style="padding: 12.5% 0;"> </div> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: row; margin-bottom: 14px; align-items: center;"> <div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; height: 12.5px; width: 12.5px; transform: translateX(0px) translateY(7px);"> </div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; height: 12.5px; transform: rotate(-45deg) translateX(3px) translateY(1px); width: 12.5px; flex-grow: 0; margin-right: 14px; margin-left: 2px;"> </div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; height: 12.5px; width: 12.5px; transform: translateX(9px) translateY(-18px);"> </div> </div> <div style="margin-left: 8px;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; flex-grow: 0; height: 20px; width: 20px;"> </div> <div style="width: 0; height: 0; border-top: 2px solid transparent; border-left: 6px solid #f4f4f4; border-bottom: 2px solid transparent; transform: translateX(16px) translateY(-4px) rotate(30deg);"> </div> </div> <div style="margin-left: auto;"> <div style="width: 0px; border-top: 8px solid #F4F4F4; border-right: 8px solid transparent; transform: translateY(16px);"> </div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; flex-grow: 0; height: 12px; width: 16px; transform: translateY(-4px);"> </div> <div style="width: 0; height: 0; border-top: 8px solid #F4F4F4; border-left: 8px solid transparent; transform: translateY(-4px) translateX(8px);"> </div> </div> </div> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: column; flex-grow: 1; justify-content: center; margin-bottom: 24px;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; margin-bottom: 6px; width: 224px;"> </div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; width: 144px;"> </div> </div> <p style="color: #c9c8cd; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 17px; margin-bottom: 0; margin-top: 8px; overflow: hidden; padding: 8px 0 7px; text-align: center; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap;"><a style="color: #c9c8cd; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 17px; text-decoration: none;" href="https://www.instagram.com/p/CgE3cyTLoFN/?utm_source=ig_embed&utm_campaign=loading" target="_blank" rel="noopener">A post shared by Linda Evangelista (@lindaevangelista)</a></p> </div> </blockquote> <p dir="ltr">The collaboration marks the first time Evangelista has modelled after a fat-freezing procedure she had several years ago went horribly wrong, and comes several months after she went public with her story.</p> <p dir="ltr">After a CoolSculpting procedure, Evangelista experienced Paradoxical Adipose Hyperplasia (PAH), a rare side-effect that she said left her with hard, fatty lumps all over her body.</p> <p dir="ltr"><span id="docs-internal-guid-9b071cc8-7fff-92f5-037e-cc70fda09dd1"></span></p> <p dir="ltr">“To my followers who have wondered why I have not been working while my peers’ careers have been thriving, the reason is that I was brutally disfigured by Zeltiq’s CoolSculpting procedure which did the opposite of what it promised,” she shared on Instagram in September 2021.</p> <blockquote class="instagram-media" style="background: #FFF; border: 0; border-radius: 3px; box-shadow: 0 0 1px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.5),0 1px 10px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.15); margin: 1px; max-width: 540px; min-width: 326px; padding: 0; width: calc(100% - 2px);" data-instgrm-captioned="" data-instgrm-permalink="https://www.instagram.com/p/CaDMK_RJx3-/?utm_source=ig_embed&utm_campaign=loading" data-instgrm-version="14"> <div style="padding: 16px;"> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: row; align-items: center;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; flex-grow: 0; height: 40px; margin-right: 14px; width: 40px;"> </div> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: column; flex-grow: 1; justify-content: center;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; margin-bottom: 6px; width: 100px;"> </div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; width: 60px;"> </div> </div> </div> <div style="padding: 19% 0;"> </div> <div style="display: block; height: 50px; margin: 0 auto 12px; width: 50px;"> </div> <div style="padding-top: 8px;"> <div style="color: #3897f0; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 550; line-height: 18px;">View this post on Instagram</div> </div> <div style="padding: 12.5% 0;"> </div> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: row; margin-bottom: 14px; align-items: center;"> <div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; height: 12.5px; width: 12.5px; transform: translateX(0px) translateY(7px);"> </div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; height: 12.5px; transform: rotate(-45deg) translateX(3px) translateY(1px); width: 12.5px; flex-grow: 0; margin-right: 14px; margin-left: 2px;"> </div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; height: 12.5px; width: 12.5px; transform: translateX(9px) translateY(-18px);"> </div> </div> <div style="margin-left: 8px;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; flex-grow: 0; height: 20px; width: 20px;"> </div> <div style="width: 0; height: 0; border-top: 2px solid transparent; border-left: 6px solid #f4f4f4; border-bottom: 2px solid transparent; transform: translateX(16px) translateY(-4px) rotate(30deg);"> </div> </div> <div style="margin-left: auto;"> <div style="width: 0px; border-top: 8px solid #F4F4F4; border-right: 8px solid transparent; transform: translateY(16px);"> </div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; flex-grow: 0; height: 12px; width: 16px; transform: translateY(-4px);"> </div> <div style="width: 0; height: 0; border-top: 8px solid #F4F4F4; border-left: 8px solid transparent; transform: translateY(-4px) translateX(8px);"> </div> </div> </div> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: column; flex-grow: 1; justify-content: center; margin-bottom: 24px;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; margin-bottom: 6px; width: 224px;"> </div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; width: 144px;"> </div> </div> <p style="color: #c9c8cd; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 17px; margin-bottom: 0; margin-top: 8px; overflow: hidden; padding: 8px 0 7px; text-align: center; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap;"><a style="color: #c9c8cd; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 17px; text-decoration: none;" href="https://www.instagram.com/p/CaDMK_RJx3-/?utm_source=ig_embed&utm_campaign=loading" target="_blank" rel="noopener">A post shared by Linda Evangelista (@lindaevangelista)</a></p> </div> </blockquote> <p dir="ltr">In <a href="https://www.oversixty.com.au/lifestyle/beauty-style/linda-evangelistas-first-photoshoot-in-five-years" target="_blank" rel="noopener">an interview with <em>People</em></a><em> </em>earlier this year, the 57-year-old said she was “done hiding in shame”, having lived reclusively in New York for several years.</p> <p dir="ltr">"I can't live like this anymore, in hiding and shame. I just couldn't live in this pain any longer. I'm willing to finally speak," she told the publication.</p> <p dir="ltr">Evangelista has filed a lawsuit against Zeltiq Aesthetics, the parent company of CoolSculpting, for $50 million in damages, claiming she has been unable to work since undergoing the treatment between 2015 and 2016.</p> <p dir="ltr"><span id="docs-internal-guid-e7029d66-7fff-af38-d230-87482b4cc4a0"></span></p> <p dir="ltr"><em>Image: @lindaevangelista (Instagram)</em></p>

Beauty & Style

Swapping stamp duty for land tax would push down house prices but push up apartment prices, new modelling finds

<p>In the state budget, NSW have announced a switch from stamp duty to <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/politics/nsw/nsw-to-phase-out-stamp-duty-introduce-property-tax-20220612-p5at3p.html">land tax</a>.</p> <p>It will become the second Australian jurisdiction to do so, with the ACT halfway through a <a href="https://www.treasury.act.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0009/1618407/cops-final-report.pdf">20-year</a> switchover.</p> <p>Homebuyers who accept the offer will be taxed annually on the value of their land, instead of hit with an upfront fee (that averaged $50,000 for Sydney in 2018) when they buy.</p> <p>Once they have accepted, their property will be out of the stamp duty system and subject only to land tax for future owners.</p> <p>It’s become conventional wisdom to say that such a revenue-neutral switch would <a href="https://www.treasury.nsw.gov.au/sites/default/files/2020-10/FFR%20Final%20Report%20-%20200828%20%281%29.pdf">boost productivity</a>.</p> <p>Why? Moving house sets in motion a chain of transactions: residents engage lawyers to transfer titles, real estate agents to manage the property sale, removalists to transport possessions, and so on.</p> <p>Stamp duties compound these costs, by adding a significant, additional layer of taxation, which in some states makes up 80% of the total cost of moving house.</p> <p>Land tax, in contrast, is one of the least-damaging taxes. It encourages land owners to put land to its <a href="https://treasury.gov.au/publication/understanding-the-economy-wide-efficiency-and-incidence-of-major-australian-taxes">highest-value use</a>.</p> <p>In a landmark <a href="https://www.copsmodels.com/ftp/workpapr/g-330.pdf">modelling exercise</a> completed this month, my team at the Victoria University Centre of Policy Studies finds that the productivity gains are large by the standards of tax swaps.</p> <p>After 20 years, replacing stamp duty with a land tax would boost national income by A$0.30 for each dollar of revenue swapped, or up to $720 per household if implemented Australia-wide, about 0.34% of annual gross domestic product.</p> <p>Of greater interest for homeowners and buyers is what it would do to prices.</p> <h2>Houses versus apartments</h2> <p>Broadly, we find that the switch would put downward pressure on prices, but not for every type of home.</p> <p>Across the market as a whole, we expect downward pressure on the price paid by buyers of about 4.7%, and downward pressure on the price received by sellers of about 0.1%.</p> <p>But for houses, we expect much stronger downward pressure than the average suggests.</p> <p>We expect the price paid by house buyers to fall by about 7.6%, and the price received by sellers to fall 3%.</p> <p>Interestingly, for apartments we expect movements in the other direction, pushing up the price paid by buyers by 2%, and pushing up the price received by sellers by 6.4%.</p> <h2>What’s so different about apartments?</h2> <p>Why would the switch put downward pressure on the price of houses but upward pressure on the price of apartments?</p> <p>It is because of how two offsetting effects play out.</p> <p>One is that higher land taxes depress land prices. Buyers who know they will be lumbered with future bills find their purchases less valuable. This effect is much bigger on house prices than apartment prices, because houses occupy more land on average.</p> <p>The other effect is that removing stamp duty not only removes an impost on the current buyer, but also removes an impost that will have to be paid when the current buyer sells, and when the subsequent buyer sells, and so on, making resale more valuable to the current buyer than it would have been.</p> <p>For properties that aren’t turned over often this effect isn’t very important, but for properties that are turned over frequently, it becomes significant.</p> <p>Apartments are turned over twice as frequently as houses, meaning that for apartments the upward effect on prices from removing stamp duty overwhelms the downward effect from imposing land tax.</p> <h2>Much depends on exactly what’s proposed</h2> <p>It would be possible to lessen this upward pressure on apartment prices by imposing higher land taxes on higher density housing, an idea canvassed by the <a href="https://treasury.gov.au/review/the-australias-future-tax-system-review/publications">Henry Tax Review</a> in 2010. Planning and zoning rules could also play a role.</p> <p>Other policy design decisions could have other effects on prices. Our modelling is based on an immediate swap of stamp duty for land tax.</p> <p>This is not the same as the NSW government’s opt-in proposal, which could have different price consequences to the policy we modelled.</p> <p>The NSW government is also reported to be considering excluding the most <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/stamp-duty-move-puts-pressure-on-other-states-20220613-p5ataj.html">expensive 20%</a> of properties from the switchover, so it can continue to collect stamp duties on high-value transfers.</p> <p>In future work we plan to extend our modelling beyond a simple swap of stamp duty and land tax.</p> <p><em>Image credits: Getty Images</em></p> <p><em>This article originally appeared on <a href="https://theconversation.com/swapping-stamp-duty-for-land-tax-would-push-down-house-prices-but-push-up-apartment-prices-new-modelling-finds-184381" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Conversation</a>. </em></p>

Real Estate

Model dies after battle with mental illness

<p dir="ltr">Model and influencer Niece Waidhofer has died following a long battle with mental illness, something she was very vocal about to her 4.2 million followers.</p> <p dir="ltr">The 31-year-old was found dead in her home in Katy, outside of Houston, in May 2022 after a concerned family member raised the alarm. </p> <p dir="ltr">“Sadly, Niece took her own life after a long battle with mental health issues,” a family member told TMZ.</p> <p dir="ltr">“She was very open with her followers about her struggles, even wanting to help followers who also suffered.”</p> <blockquote class="instagram-media" style="background: #FFF; border: 0; border-radius: 3px; box-shadow: 0 0 1px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.5),0 1px 10px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.15); margin: 1px; max-width: 540px; min-width: 326px; padding: 0; width: calc(100% - 2px);" data-instgrm-captioned="" data-instgrm-permalink="https://www.instagram.com/p/Cbht9HduDhj/?utm_source=ig_embed&utm_campaign=loading" data-instgrm-version="14"> <div style="padding: 16px;"> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: row; align-items: center;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; flex-grow: 0; height: 40px; margin-right: 14px; width: 40px;"> </div> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: column; flex-grow: 1; justify-content: center;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; margin-bottom: 6px; width: 100px;"> </div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; width: 60px;"> </div> </div> </div> <div style="padding: 19% 0;"> </div> <div style="display: block; height: 50px; margin: 0 auto 12px; width: 50px;"> </div> <div style="padding-top: 8px;"> <div style="color: #3897f0; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 550; line-height: 18px;">View this post on Instagram</div> </div> <div style="padding: 12.5% 0;"> </div> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: row; margin-bottom: 14px; align-items: center;"> <div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; height: 12.5px; width: 12.5px; transform: translateX(0px) translateY(7px);"> </div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; height: 12.5px; transform: rotate(-45deg) translateX(3px) translateY(1px); width: 12.5px; flex-grow: 0; margin-right: 14px; margin-left: 2px;"> </div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; height: 12.5px; width: 12.5px; transform: translateX(9px) translateY(-18px);"> </div> </div> <div style="margin-left: 8px;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; flex-grow: 0; height: 20px; width: 20px;"> </div> <div style="width: 0; height: 0; border-top: 2px solid transparent; border-left: 6px solid #f4f4f4; border-bottom: 2px solid transparent; transform: translateX(16px) translateY(-4px) rotate(30deg);"> </div> </div> <div style="margin-left: auto;"> <div style="width: 0px; border-top: 8px solid #F4F4F4; border-right: 8px solid transparent; transform: translateY(16px);"> </div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; flex-grow: 0; height: 12px; width: 16px; transform: translateY(-4px);"> </div> <div style="width: 0; height: 0; border-top: 8px solid #F4F4F4; border-left: 8px solid transparent; transform: translateY(-4px) translateX(8px);"> </div> </div> </div> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: column; flex-grow: 1; justify-content: center; margin-bottom: 24px;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; margin-bottom: 6px; width: 224px;"> </div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; width: 144px;"> </div> </div> <p style="color: #c9c8cd; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 17px; margin-bottom: 0; margin-top: 8px; overflow: hidden; padding: 8px 0 7px; text-align: center; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap;"><a style="color: #c9c8cd; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 17px; text-decoration: none;" href="https://www.instagram.com/p/Cbht9HduDhj/?utm_source=ig_embed&utm_campaign=loading" target="_blank" rel="noopener">A post shared by Niece Waidhofer (@niecewaidhofer)</a></p> </div> </blockquote> <p dir="ltr">The influencer rose to fame in 2015 after starting the popular 'Roast Me' trend on Reddit and had fans worried after deleting almost all of her Instagram posts except for three. </p> <p dir="ltr">Her final posts include a selfie complimenting her new blonde hair, a video playing with her pet dog, and the engagement photo with her ex. </p> <p dir="ltr">In her Niece’s honour, the family will be creating a non-profit organisation for mental health awareness which looks to give grants into mental illness research. </p> <p dir="ltr">It will be called “Peace from Niece”.</p> <p dir="ltr"><em>Images: Instagram/TikTok</em></p>

Caring

Elon Musk’s mum becomes oldest ‘Sports Illustrated’ model

<p dir="ltr">Maye Musk has made history at the age of 74, becoming the oldest model to appear on the cover of <em>Sports Illustrated</em>’s swimsuit edition.</p> <p dir="ltr">Musk appeared in the edition along with Kim Kardashian, musician/fashion entrepreneur Yumi Nu and Grammy-Award-winning singer Ciara as part of the magazine’s efforts to celebrate women no matter their age, life stage or job title.</p> <p dir="ltr">“The journey we’ve been on - to break out of the mould the world puts us in - may sound familiar,” Sports Illustrated Swimsuit editor-in-chief MJ Day <a href="https://swimsuit.si.com/swimnews/meet-your-cover-model-2022-maye-musk" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a>.</p> <p><span id="docs-internal-guid-d1363065-7fff-a846-84ae-e5c83dddbacf"></span></p> <p dir="ltr">“It’s certainly familiar to the women we’ve chosen to be our cover models: Maye, Ciara, Yumi, Kim. So in this issue, we encourage readers to see these models as we see them: multifaceted, multitalented - and sexy while they’re at it.</p> <blockquote class="instagram-media" style="background: #FFF; border: 0; border-radius: 3px; box-shadow: 0 0 1px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.5),0 1px 10px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.15); margin: 1px; max-width: 540px; min-width: 326px; padding: 0; width: calc(100% - 2px);" data-instgrm-captioned="" data-instgrm-permalink="https://www.instagram.com/p/CdoC4UBO1ll/?utm_source=ig_embed&utm_campaign=loading" data-instgrm-version="14"> <div style="padding: 16px;"> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: row; align-items: center;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; flex-grow: 0; height: 40px; margin-right: 14px; width: 40px;"> </div> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: column; flex-grow: 1; justify-content: center;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; margin-bottom: 6px; width: 100px;"> </div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; width: 60px;"> </div> </div> </div> <div style="padding: 19% 0;"> </div> <div style="display: block; height: 50px; margin: 0 auto 12px; width: 50px;"> </div> <div style="padding-top: 8px;"> <div style="color: #3897f0; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 550; line-height: 18px;">View this post on Instagram</div> </div> <div style="padding: 12.5% 0;"> </div> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: row; margin-bottom: 14px; align-items: center;"> <div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; height: 12.5px; width: 12.5px; transform: translateX(0px) translateY(7px);"> </div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; height: 12.5px; transform: rotate(-45deg) translateX(3px) translateY(1px); width: 12.5px; flex-grow: 0; margin-right: 14px; margin-left: 2px;"> </div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; height: 12.5px; width: 12.5px; transform: translateX(9px) translateY(-18px);"> </div> </div> <div style="margin-left: 8px;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; flex-grow: 0; height: 20px; width: 20px;"> </div> <div style="width: 0; height: 0; border-top: 2px solid transparent; border-left: 6px solid #f4f4f4; border-bottom: 2px solid transparent; transform: translateX(16px) translateY(-4px) rotate(30deg);"> </div> </div> <div style="margin-left: auto;"> <div style="width: 0px; border-top: 8px solid #F4F4F4; border-right: 8px solid transparent; transform: translateY(16px);"> </div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; flex-grow: 0; height: 12px; width: 16px; transform: translateY(-4px);"> </div> <div style="width: 0; height: 0; border-top: 8px solid #F4F4F4; border-left: 8px solid transparent; transform: translateY(-4px) translateX(8px);"> </div> </div> </div> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: column; flex-grow: 1; justify-content: center; margin-bottom: 24px;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; margin-bottom: 6px; width: 224px;"> </div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; width: 144px;"> </div> </div> <p style="color: #c9c8cd; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 17px; margin-bottom: 0; margin-top: 8px; overflow: hidden; padding: 8px 0 7px; text-align: center; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap;"><a style="color: #c9c8cd; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 17px; text-decoration: none;" href="https://www.instagram.com/p/CdoC4UBO1ll/?utm_source=ig_embed&utm_campaign=loading" target="_blank" rel="noopener">A post shared by Sports Illustrated Swimsuit (@si_swimsuit)</a></p> </div> </blockquote> <p dir="ltr">“The world may label them one way, but we want to focus our lens on all the ways they see themselves and how they own who they are,” she added.</p> <p dir="ltr">“No matter your age, whether you’re a new mom, partner, sister, entertainer, athlete, entrepreneur, advocate, student, mentor, role model, leader or dreamer - or all of the above - we want to celebrate these women, their evolution and the many dimensions of who they are.”</p> <p dir="ltr">The longtime model, author, activist and registered dietician-nutritionist took to Instagram to share the news with fans, writing of her appearance: “It’s about time!”</p> <p dir="ltr">“I am so excited to be on the cover of @si_swimsuit at the age of 74,” she continued in her caption.</p> <p dir="ltr"><span id="docs-internal-guid-142a2780-7fff-fd26-c3ec-4f39143a5383"></span></p> <p dir="ltr">Speaking to <em>People </em>magazine, Musk admitted the opportunity was something she never dreamed would happen.</p> <blockquote class="instagram-media" style="background: #FFF; border: 0; border-radius: 3px; box-shadow: 0 0 1px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.5),0 1px 10px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.15); margin: 1px; max-width: 540px; min-width: 326px; padding: 0; width: calc(100% - 2px);" data-instgrm-captioned="" data-instgrm-permalink="https://www.instagram.com/p/CdqTWnSrn4f/?utm_source=ig_embed&utm_campaign=loading" data-instgrm-version="14"> <div style="padding: 16px;"> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: row; align-items: center;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; flex-grow: 0; height: 40px; margin-right: 14px; width: 40px;"> </div> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: column; flex-grow: 1; justify-content: center;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; margin-bottom: 6px; width: 100px;"> </div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; width: 60px;"> </div> </div> </div> <div style="padding: 19% 0;"> </div> <div style="display: block; height: 50px; margin: 0 auto 12px; width: 50px;"> </div> <div style="padding-top: 8px;"> <div style="color: #3897f0; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 550; line-height: 18px;">View this post on Instagram</div> </div> <div style="padding: 12.5% 0;"> </div> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: row; margin-bottom: 14px; align-items: center;"> <div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; height: 12.5px; width: 12.5px; transform: translateX(0px) translateY(7px);"> </div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; height: 12.5px; transform: rotate(-45deg) translateX(3px) translateY(1px); width: 12.5px; flex-grow: 0; margin-right: 14px; margin-left: 2px;"> </div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; height: 12.5px; width: 12.5px; transform: translateX(9px) translateY(-18px);"> </div> </div> <div style="margin-left: 8px;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; flex-grow: 0; height: 20px; width: 20px;"> </div> <div style="width: 0; height: 0; border-top: 2px solid transparent; border-left: 6px solid #f4f4f4; border-bottom: 2px solid transparent; transform: translateX(16px) translateY(-4px) rotate(30deg);"> </div> </div> <div style="margin-left: auto;"> <div style="width: 0px; border-top: 8px solid #F4F4F4; border-right: 8px solid transparent; transform: translateY(16px);"> </div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; flex-grow: 0; height: 12px; width: 16px; transform: translateY(-4px);"> </div> <div style="width: 0; height: 0; border-top: 8px solid #F4F4F4; border-left: 8px solid transparent; transform: translateY(-4px) translateX(8px);"> </div> </div> </div> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: column; flex-grow: 1; justify-content: center; margin-bottom: 24px;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; margin-bottom: 6px; width: 224px;"> </div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; width: 144px;"> </div> </div> <p style="color: #c9c8cd; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 17px; margin-bottom: 0; margin-top: 8px; overflow: hidden; padding: 8px 0 7px; text-align: center; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap;"><a style="color: #c9c8cd; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 17px; text-decoration: none;" href="https://www.instagram.com/p/CdqTWnSrn4f/?utm_source=ig_embed&utm_campaign=loading" target="_blank" rel="noopener">A post shared by Maye Musk (@mayemusk)</a></p> </div> </blockquote> <p dir="ltr">“My first reaction was, I could never dream up something like that because why would anyone have a 74-year-old on their cover, especially in a swimsuit,” she told the publication.</p> <p dir="ltr">“I do think it’s going to make women feel more comfortable in their seventies when they swim, as well as women in their twenties and thirties.</p> <p dir="ltr">“When women go to the beach, we’re kind of shy about our bodies, but men will walk around, looking terrible and they don’t care…</p> <p dir="ltr">“I think we have to not care that much!”</p> <p dir="ltr">Musk, who lives by the motto ‘#ItsGreatToBe74’, appeared on the cover in a burnt-orange and beige Maygel Coronel one-piece with a ruffled neckline and accessorised with chunky palm tree earrings, in one of four outfits she wore for the magazine feature.</p> <p dir="ltr"><span id="docs-internal-guid-562c5fdd-7fff-5772-a71a-61983f79099d"></span></p> <p dir="ltr"><em>Image: Instagram</em></p>

Beauty & Style

Model’s tiny mole turns out to be cancer

<p dir="ltr">A model who completely disregarded what she thought was a mole on her ankle has been diagnosed with cancer. </p> <p dir="ltr">Oceana Strachan would regularly get her skin checked to ensure she was safe from melanoma and was constantly given the green light. </p> <p dir="ltr">But she knew something was wrong when the tiny mark on her ankle was itchy and had risen a bit - raising the alarm as to whether or not it was something else. </p> <p dir="ltr">Doctors dismissed it as a mole but Oceana pushed for a biopsy to be done and it was found to be stage two melanoma. </p> <p dir="ltr">“My melanoma spot looked like a regular mole but I noticed changes like itching that raised a red flag for me,” she told <a href="https://7news.com.au/lifestyle/health-wellbeing/aussie-model-shares-warning-signs-after-tiny-find-led-to-sinister-diagnosis-c-6840204" target="_blank" rel="noopener">7News</a>.</p> <p dir="ltr">“Going through melanoma, I didn’t know if I was going to survive. I didn’t know the outcome.”</p> <blockquote class="instagram-media" style="background: #FFF; border: 0; border-radius: 3px; box-shadow: 0 0 1px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.5),0 1px 10px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.15); margin: 1px; max-width: 540px; min-width: 326px; padding: 0; width: calc(100% - 2px);" data-instgrm-captioned="" data-instgrm-permalink="https://www.instagram.com/p/CdnQNQ9JBWg/?utm_source=ig_embed&utm_campaign=loading" data-instgrm-version="14"> <div style="padding: 16px;"> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: row; align-items: center;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; flex-grow: 0; height: 40px; margin-right: 14px; width: 40px;"> </div> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: column; flex-grow: 1; justify-content: center;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; margin-bottom: 6px; width: 100px;"> </div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; width: 60px;"> </div> </div> </div> <div style="padding: 19% 0;"> </div> <div style="display: block; height: 50px; margin: 0 auto 12px; width: 50px;"> </div> <div style="padding-top: 8px;"> <div style="color: #3897f0; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 550; line-height: 18px;">View this post on Instagram</div> </div> <div style="padding: 12.5% 0;"> </div> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: row; margin-bottom: 14px; align-items: center;"> <div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; height: 12.5px; width: 12.5px; transform: translateX(0px) translateY(7px);"> </div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; height: 12.5px; transform: rotate(-45deg) translateX(3px) translateY(1px); width: 12.5px; flex-grow: 0; margin-right: 14px; margin-left: 2px;"> </div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; height: 12.5px; width: 12.5px; transform: translateX(9px) translateY(-18px);"> </div> </div> <div style="margin-left: 8px;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; flex-grow: 0; height: 20px; width: 20px;"> </div> <div style="width: 0; height: 0; border-top: 2px solid transparent; border-left: 6px solid #f4f4f4; border-bottom: 2px solid transparent; transform: translateX(16px) translateY(-4px) rotate(30deg);"> </div> </div> <div style="margin-left: auto;"> <div style="width: 0px; border-top: 8px solid #F4F4F4; border-right: 8px solid transparent; transform: translateY(16px);"> </div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; flex-grow: 0; height: 12px; width: 16px; transform: translateY(-4px);"> </div> <div style="width: 0; height: 0; border-top: 8px solid #F4F4F4; border-left: 8px solid transparent; transform: translateY(-4px) translateX(8px);"> </div> </div> </div> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: column; flex-grow: 1; justify-content: center; margin-bottom: 24px;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; margin-bottom: 6px; width: 224px;"> </div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; width: 144px;"> </div> </div> <p style="color: #c9c8cd; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 17px; margin-bottom: 0; margin-top: 8px; overflow: hidden; padding: 8px 0 7px; text-align: center; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap;"><a style="color: #c9c8cd; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 17px; text-decoration: none;" href="https://www.instagram.com/p/CdnQNQ9JBWg/?utm_source=ig_embed&utm_campaign=loading" target="_blank" rel="noopener">A post shared by OCEANA HEGYI 🤍 (@oceanastrachan)</a></p> </div> </blockquote> <p dir="ltr">Oceana underwent surgery in May 2021 where the affected skin was removed and saw the then 25-year-old back on her feet not too long after.</p> <p dir="ltr">A year later, Oceana spoke out about how early detection saved her life and cringed at not being sun safe. </p> <p dir="ltr">“I was 25 with olive skin... unfortunately melanoma doesn’t care how old you are or what type of skin you have,” she said.</p> <p dir="ltr">“Obviously it sucks that I’ve had to go through this but I am just one out of too many.”</p> <p dir="ltr">Image: Instagram</p>

Body

Lauren Hutton poses topless

<p dir="ltr">With a modelling career spanning six decades, Lauren Hutton is well aware of how youth is prioritised in the industry and has shared an insight into what it’s like to continue working at 78.</p> <p dir="ltr">The model and actress, styling a Gucci blazer and plants (and nothing else) on the May issue of <em>Harper's Bazaar</em>, spoke about her career, skincare routine and what it was like to jump back into modelling by snagging the biggest modelling contract in history.</p> <p dir="ltr">“I was about to become 30, and I knew I was about to expire, and wanted to protect myself with a contract that would guarantee I kept working for years to come,” she told the publication.</p> <p><span id="docs-internal-guid-b58eebf3-7fff-35da-1679-7d5a98b1ffa4"></span></p> <p dir="ltr">“So I got a contract with Revlon. At the time, it was the biggest one in modelling history.”</p> <blockquote class="instagram-media" style="background: #FFF; border: 0; border-radius: 3px; box-shadow: 0 0 1px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.5),0 1px 10px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.15); margin: 1px; max-width: 540px; min-width: 326px; padding: 0; width: calc(100% - 2px);" data-instgrm-captioned="" data-instgrm-permalink="https://www.instagram.com/p/CcxqPN6uICx/?utm_source=ig_embed&utm_campaign=loading" data-instgrm-version="14"> <div style="padding: 16px;"> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: row; align-items: center;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; flex-grow: 0; height: 40px; margin-right: 14px; width: 40px;"> </div> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: column; flex-grow: 1; justify-content: center;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; margin-bottom: 6px; width: 100px;"> </div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; width: 60px;"> </div> </div> </div> <div style="padding: 19% 0;"> </div> <div style="display: block; height: 50px; margin: 0 auto 12px; width: 50px;"> </div> <div style="padding-top: 8px;"> <div style="color: #3897f0; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 550; line-height: 18px;">View this post on Instagram</div> </div> <div style="padding: 12.5% 0;"> </div> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: row; margin-bottom: 14px; align-items: center;"> <div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; height: 12.5px; width: 12.5px; transform: translateX(0px) translateY(7px);"> </div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; height: 12.5px; transform: rotate(-45deg) translateX(3px) translateY(1px); width: 12.5px; flex-grow: 0; margin-right: 14px; margin-left: 2px;"> </div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; height: 12.5px; width: 12.5px; transform: translateX(9px) translateY(-18px);"> </div> </div> <div style="margin-left: 8px;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; flex-grow: 0; height: 20px; width: 20px;"> </div> <div style="width: 0; height: 0; border-top: 2px solid transparent; border-left: 6px solid #f4f4f4; border-bottom: 2px solid transparent; transform: translateX(16px) translateY(-4px) rotate(30deg);"> </div> </div> <div style="margin-left: auto;"> <div style="width: 0px; border-top: 8px solid #F4F4F4; border-right: 8px solid transparent; transform: translateY(16px);"> </div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; flex-grow: 0; height: 12px; width: 16px; transform: translateY(-4px);"> </div> <div style="width: 0; height: 0; border-top: 8px solid #F4F4F4; border-left: 8px solid transparent; transform: translateY(-4px) translateX(8px);"> </div> </div> </div> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: column; flex-grow: 1; justify-content: center; margin-bottom: 24px;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; margin-bottom: 6px; width: 224px;"> </div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; width: 144px;"> </div> </div> <p style="color: #c9c8cd; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 17px; margin-bottom: 0; margin-top: 8px; overflow: hidden; padding: 8px 0 7px; text-align: center; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap;"><a style="color: #c9c8cd; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 17px; text-decoration: none;" href="https://www.instagram.com/p/CcxqPN6uICx/?utm_source=ig_embed&utm_campaign=loading" target="_blank" rel="noopener">A post shared by Harper's BAZAAR (@harpersbazaarus)</a></p> </div> </blockquote> <p dir="ltr">When she began modelling again at 40 after taking a break for her career in film, she recalled telling her photographer, Steven Meisel, she wouldn’t “try and look younger”.</p> <p dir="ltr">“And he said, ‘I love that. That’s why I’m working with you’,” Hutton said.</p> <p dir="ltr">As for cosmetic procedures, Hutton said it’s “a real thin line”.</p> <p dir="ltr">“There are people who I find hard to look at today. Their faces don’t look like the people I once knew,” she added.</p> <p dir="ltr">With that in mind, Hutton revealed that she doesn’t spend too much time on skincare.</p> <p dir="ltr">“The only beauty ritual I have is washing my face with soap and water,” she said. “It’s horrifying.” </p> <p dir="ltr">The few products she does use include <a href="https://www.priceline.com.au/strivectin-s-t-a-r-light-retinol-night-oil-30-ml" target="_blank" rel="noopener">StriVectin S.T.A.R. Light Retinol Night Oil</a> ($155), and the leaves of her aloe plant, which she cuts open before putting on her face and “décolletage”.</p> <p dir="ltr">“I put castor oil in my hair too,” she added. </p> <p dir="ltr">“I just put it on my fingertips and rub it all over my scalp, and it makes my hair a little less dry and nasty.”</p> <p dir="ltr">Though she still models, Hutton admitted “it’s embarrassing” to be in front of a camera now.</p> <p dir="ltr">“You feel strange. You become self-conscious. Modelling is like playing the violin: You have to practise every day,” she added, noting that she does have a way of working around it.</p> <p dir="ltr">“Now, when I look at the camera, I’ve learned to picture my lover’s face, my godkids’ faces, my friends’ - whoever I need there,” she said.</p> <p dir="ltr">To read the full interview with <em>Harper’s Bazaar</em>, click <a href="https://www.harpersbazaar.com/culture/features/a39697802/0122-0129-lauren-hutton-on-going-your-own-way-may-2022/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">here</a>.</p> <p dir="ltr"><span id="docs-internal-guid-78e397dd-7fff-523d-abc3-fb8d6a7fadf4"></span></p> <p dir="ltr"><em>Image: @harpersbazaaraus (Instagram)</em></p>

Beauty & Style

5 things to know about foundation models and the next generation of AI

<p>If you’ve seen photos of <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/06/technology/openai-images-dall-e.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">a teapot shaped like an avocado</a> or read a well-written article that <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/sep/08/robot-wrote-this-article-gpt-3" target="_blank" rel="noopener">veers off on slightly weird tangents</a>, you may have been exposed to a new trend in artificial intelligence (AI).</p> <p>Machine learning systems called <a href="https://openai.com/dall-e-2/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">DALL-E</a>, <a href="https://openai.com/blog/gpt-3-edit-insert/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">GPT</a> and <a href="https://ai.googleblog.com/2022/04/pathways-language-model-palm-scaling-to.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">PaLM</a> are making a splash with their incredible ability to generate creative work.</p> <blockquote class="twitter-tweet"> <p dir="ltr" lang="en">DALL·E 2 is here! It can generate images from text, like "teddy bears working on new AI research on the moon in the 1980s".</p> <p>It's so fun, and sometimes beautiful.<a href="https://t.co/XZmh6WkMAS">https://t.co/XZmh6WkMAS</a> <a href="https://t.co/3zOu30IqCZ">pic.twitter.com/3zOu30IqCZ</a></p> <p>— Sam Altman (@sama) <a href="https://twitter.com/sama/status/1511715302265942024?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 6, 2022</a></p></blockquote> <p>These systems are known as “foundation models” and are not all hype and party tricks. So how does this new approach to AI work? And will it be the end of human creativity and the start of a deep-fake nightmare?</p> <p><strong>1. What are foundation models?</strong></p> <p><a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2108.07258" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Foundation models</a> work by training a single huge system on large amounts of general data, then adapting the system to new problems. Earlier models tended to start from scratch for each new problem.</p> <p>DALL-E 2, for example, was trained to match pictures (such as a photo of a pet cat) with the caption (“Mr. Fuzzyboots the tabby cat is relaxing in the sun”) by scanning hundreds of millions of examples. Once trained, this model knows what cats (and other things) look like in pictures.</p> <p>But the model can also be used for many other interesting AI tasks, such as generating new images from a caption alone (“Show me a koala dunking a basketball”) or editing images based on written instructions (“Make it look like this monkey is paying taxes”).</p> <blockquote class="twitter-tweet"> <p dir="ltr" lang="en">Our newest system DALL·E 2 can create realistic images and art from a description in natural language. See it here: <a href="https://t.co/Kmjko82YO5">https://t.co/Kmjko82YO5</a> <a href="https://t.co/QEh9kWUE8A">pic.twitter.com/QEh9kWUE8A</a></p> <p>— OpenAI (@OpenAI) <a href="https://twitter.com/OpenAI/status/1511707245536428034?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 6, 2022</a></p></blockquote> <p><strong>2. How do they work?</strong></p> <p>Foundation models run on “<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-is-a-neural-network-a-computer-scientist-explains-151897" target="_blank" rel="noopener">deep neural networks</a>”, which are loosely inspired by how the brain works. These involve sophisticated mathematics and a huge amount of computing power, but they boil down to a very sophisticated type of pattern matching.</p> <p>For example, by looking at millions of example images, a deep neural network can associate the word “cat” with patterns of pixels that often appear in images of cats – like soft, fuzzy, hairy blobs of texture. The more examples the model sees (the more data it is shown), and the bigger the model (the more “layers” or “depth” it has), the more complex these patterns and correlations can be.</p> <p>Foundation models are, in one sense, just an extension of the “deep learning” paradigm that has dominated AI research for the past decade. However, they exhibit un-programmed or “emergent” behaviours that can be both surprising and novel.</p> <p>For example, Google’s PaLM language model seems to be able to produce explanations for complicated metaphors and jokes. This goes beyond simply <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2204.02311" target="_blank" rel="noopener">imitating the types of data it was originally trained to process</a>.</p> <figure class="align-center "><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/457594/original/file-20220412-10836-vaj8rb.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/457594/original/file-20220412-10836-vaj8rb.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=333&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457594/original/file-20220412-10836-vaj8rb.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=333&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457594/original/file-20220412-10836-vaj8rb.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=333&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457594/original/file-20220412-10836-vaj8rb.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=418&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457594/original/file-20220412-10836-vaj8rb.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=418&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457594/original/file-20220412-10836-vaj8rb.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=418&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" alt="A user interacting with the PaLM language model by typing questions. The AI system responds by typing back answers." /><figcaption><span class="caption">The PaLM language model can answer complicated questions.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://ai.googleblog.com/2022/04/pathways-language-model-palm-scaling-to.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Google AI</a></span></figcaption></figure> <p><strong>3. Access is limited – for now</strong></p> <p>The sheer scale of these AI systems is difficult to think about. PaLM has <em>540 billion</em> parameters, meaning even if everyone on the planet memorised 50 numbers, we still wouldn’t have enough storage to reproduce the model.</p> <p>The models are so enormous that training them requires massive amounts of computational and other resources. One estimate put the cost of training OpenAI’s language model GPT-3 at <a href="https://lambdalabs.com/blog/gpt-3/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">around US$5 million</a>.</p> <p>As a result, only huge tech companies such as OpenAI, Google and Baidu can afford to build foundation models at the moment. These companies limit who can access the systems, which makes economic sense.</p> <p>Usage restrictions may give us some comfort these systems won’t be used for nefarious purposes (such as generating fake news or defamatory content) any time soon. But this also means independent researchers are unable to interrogate these systems and share the results in an open and accountable way. So we don’t yet know the full implications of their use.</p> <p><strong>4. What will these models mean for ‘creative’ industries?</strong></p> <p>More foundation models will be produced in coming years. Smaller models are already being published in <a href="https://openai.com/blog/gpt-2-1-5b-release/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">open-source forms</a>, tech companies are starting to <a href="https://openai.com/blog/openai-api/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">experiment with licensing and commercialising these tools</a> and AI researchers are working hard to make the technology more efficient and accessible.</p> <p>The remarkable creativity shown by models such as PaLM and DALL-E 2 demonstrates that creative professional jobs could be impacted by this technology sooner than initially expected.</p> <p>Traditional wisdom always said robots would displace “blue collar” jobs first. “White collar” work was meant to be relatively safe from automation – especially professional work that required creativity and training.</p> <p>Deep learning AI models already exhibit super-human accuracy in tasks like <a href="https://theconversation.com/ai-could-be-our-radiologists-of-the-future-amid-a-healthcare-staff-crisis-120631" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reviewing x-rays</a> and <a href="https://www.macularsociety.org/about/media/news/breakthrough-artificial-intelligence-ai-helps-detect-dry-amd/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">detecting the eye condition macular degeneration</a>. Foundation models may soon provide cheap, “good enough” creativity in fields such as advertising, copywriting, stock imagery or graphic design.</p> <p>The future of professional and creative work could look a little different than we expected.</p> <p><strong>5. What this means for legal evidence, news and media</strong></p> <p>Foundation models will inevitably <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-08-01/historic-decision-allows-ai-to-be-recognised-as-an-inventor/100339264" target="_blank" rel="noopener">affect the law</a> in areas such as intellectual property and evidence, because we won’t be able to assume <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/us-copyright-office-rules-ai-art-cant-be-copyrighted-180979808/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">creative content is the result of human activity</a>.</p> <p>We will also have to confront the challenge of disinformation and misinformation generated by these systems. We already face enormous problems with disinformation, as we are seeing in the <a href="https://theconversation.com/fake-viral-footage-is-spreading-alongside-the-real-horror-in-ukraine-here-are-5-ways-to-spot-it-177921" target="_blank" rel="noopener">unfolding Russian invasion of Ukraine</a> and the nascent problem of <a href="https://theconversation.com/3-2-billion-images-and-720-000-hours-of-video-are-shared-online-daily-can-you-sort-real-from-fake-148630" target="_blank" rel="noopener">deep fake</a> images and video, but foundation models are poised to super-charge these challenges.</p> <p><strong>Time to prepare</strong></p> <p>As researchers who <a href="https://www.admscentre.org.au/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">study the the effects of AI on society</a>, we think foundation models will bring about huge transformations. They are tightly controlled (for now), so we probably have a little time to understand their implications before they become a huge issue.</p> <p>The genie isn’t quite out of the bottle yet, but foundation models are a very big bottle – and inside there is a very clever genie.<img style="border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; margin: 0 !important; max-height: 1px !important; max-width: 1px !important; min-height: 1px !important; min-width: 1px !important; opacity: 0 !important; outline: none !important; padding: 0 !important;" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/181150/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" /></p> <p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/aaron-j-snoswell-1331146" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Aaron J. Snoswell</a>, Post-doctoral Research Fellow, Computational Law & AI Accountability, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/queensland-university-of-technology-847" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Queensland University of Technology</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/dan-hunter-1336925" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Dan Hunter</a>, Executive Dean of the Faculty of Law, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/queensland-university-of-technology-847" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Queensland University of Technology</a></em></p> <p><em>This article is republished from <a href="https://theconversation.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Conversation</a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/robots-are-creating-images-and-telling-jokes-5-things-to-know-about-foundation-models-and-the-next-generation-of-ai-181150" target="_blank" rel="noopener">original article</a>.</em></p> <p><em>Image: OpenAI</em></p>

Technology

Modelling the ‘superhighways’ travelled by First Australians

<p>Indigenous Australians have long pointed out that their ancestors have lived on and cared for this continent since time immemorial. Hampered by entrenched misconceptions and <a href="https://theconversation.com/i-spoke-about-dreamtime-i-ticked-a-box-teachers-say-they-lack-confidence-to-teach-indigenous-perspectives-129064" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">outdated curricula</a>, it’s only in recent decades – with <a href="http://www.visitmungo.com.au/mungo-lady-mungo-man" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">discoveries</a> like Mungo Man and Mungo Lady – that science has started to catch up.</p> <p>A new <a href="https://doi.org/Nature%20Communications%20doi:10.1038/s41467-021-21551-3%20Nature%20Human%20Behaviour%20doi:%2010.1038/s41562-021-01106-8" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">study</a> by the ARC Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage (CABAH) has attempted to map the peopling of Australia by using a simulation model. The model ran more than 120 scenarios to predict population sizes and growth rates on the mega-continent of Sahul, which joined Australia and New Guinea before <a href="https://theconversation.com/australias-coastal-living-is-at-risk-from-sea-level-rise-but-its-happened-before-87686" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">sea levels rose</a>.</p> <p>Because archaeological evidence of human arrival into Sahul is rare, the research team used real-world data about long-distance dispersal of people, human survival, fertility rates and the chance of natural disasters, in combination with anthropological, ecological and environmental data to build the model.</p> <p>Their findings have been published in two companion papers in <em>Nature Communications </em>and <em>Nature Human Behaviour.</em></p> <div style="position: relative; display: block; max-width: 100%;"> <div style="padding-top: 56.25%;"><iframe style="position: absolute; top: 0px; right: 0px; bottom: 0px; left: 0px; width: 100%; height: 100%;" src="https://players.brightcove.net/5483960636001/HJH3i8Guf_default/index.html?videoId=6250771043001" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe></div> </div> <p class="has-text-align-center caption"><em>Credit: CABAH</em></p> <p>The scenario with the strongest support suggested that people arrived between 50,000 and 75,000 years ago, and that the population of Sahul may have reached up to 6.5 million.</p> <p>In order to clarify the pathways the First Australians took across the continent, the team – comprising archaeologists, anthropologists, geographers, ecologists, geneticists, geologists and computer scientists – built the most complete digital elevation model ever constructed for Australia, including areas now underwater.</p> <div class="newsletter-box"> <div id="wpcf7-f6-p149463-o1" class="wpcf7" dir="ltr" lang="en-US" role="form"> <form class="wpcf7-form mailchimp-ext-0.5.61 init" action="/history/modelling-superhighways-travelled-by-first-australians/#wpcf7-f6-p149463-o1" method="post" novalidate="novalidate" data-status="init"> <p style="display: none !important;"><span class="wpcf7-form-control-wrap referer-page"><input class="wpcf7-form-control wpcf7-text referer-page" name="referer-page" type="hidden" value="https://cosmosmagazine.com/search/?query=travel" data-value="https://cosmosmagazine.com/search/?query=travel" aria-invalid="false" /></span></p> <p></form> </div> </div> <p>The model allowed the researchers to build a picture of what these early people would have seen, such as prominent land features in a relatively flat landscape.</p> <p>“If it’s a new landscape and we don’t have a map, we’re going to want to know how to move efficiently throughout a space, where to find water, and where to camp — and we’ll orient ourselves based on high points around the lands,” explains lead author, archaeologist and computational social scientist Stefani Crabtree from Utah State University, US.</p> <p>The team tested more than 125 billion possible pathways using computational analysis, comparing those pathways with the oldest known archaeological sites on the continent.</p> <p>The patterns that emerged suggest there were distinct ‘superhighways’ across the landscape, as well as tributaries of secondary, lesser-travelled routes. Several of the superhighways echo documented Aboriginal trade routes that transect the country, including the trade of pituri (native tobacco) from Cape York to South Australia via Birdsville.</p> <p>“In many Aboriginal societies, landscape features are believed to have been created by ancestral beings during the Dreaming,” says CABAH deputy director Sean Ulm from James Cook University. “Every ridgeline, hill, river, beach and water source is named, storied and inscribed into the very fabric of societies, emphasising the intimate relationship between people and place.</p> <p>“The landscape is literally woven into peoples’ lives and their histories. It seems that these relationships between people and Country probably date back to the earliest peopling of the continent.”</p> <p>The researchers suggest that in the future, the model could be used to map other epic migrations, such as the first waves of migration out of Africa – or to forecast future movements of human populations due to climate disruptions and sea-level rise.</p> <p></p> <p><img id="cosmos-post-tracker" style="opacity: 0; height: 1px!important; width: 1px!important; border: 0!important; position: absolute!important; z-index: -1!important;" src="https://syndication.cosmosmagazine.com/?id=149463&title=Modelling+the+%E2%80%98superhighways%E2%80%99+travelled+by+First+Australians" width="1" height="1" data-spai-target="src" data-spai-orig="" data-spai-exclude="nocdn" /></p> <p></p> <div id="contributors"> <p><em><a href="https://cosmosmagazine.com/history/modelling-superhighways-travelled-by-first-australians/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">This article</a> was originally published on <a href="https://cosmosmagazine.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Cosmos Magazine</a> and was written by <a href="https://cosmosmagazine.com/contributor/amalyah-hart" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Amalyah Hart</a>. Amalyah Hart is a science journalist based in Melbourne. She has a BA (Hons) in Archaeology and Anthropology from the University of Oxford and an MA in Journalism from the University of Melbourne.</em></p> <p><em>Image: </em><em>Megan Hotchkiss Davidson/Sandia National Laboratories, Zoe Taylor, CABAH</em></p> </div>

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5 things to know about foundation models and the next generation of AI

Modelling the ‘superhighways’ travelled by First Australians

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