Tag Archives: celebrity

How Taylor Swift Elevates Botany to Celebrity Status

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Feedback is New Scientist Popular Sideways covers the latest in science and technology. You can reach out to Feedback@newscientist.com to share items you believe will captivate our readers.

Quick Botany Lessons

We’re on top of our game, thanks to our assistant news editor and Swiftie Alexandra Thompson. The upcoming release titled The Anniversary of Botany is set for August. It’s named “Dance with Plants: Taylor Swift’s music video as a Catalyst for Engaging Botany Learning.”.

The study reveals that high school students exhibit a “generally low interest in plants,” leading to “plant blindness.” Teachers, frustrated by the challenge of igniting interest in botany, often find themselves repeating tired lessons. Plants are deemed an afterthought, making visits to the garden seem less inviting. It’s disheartening; interest in botany should be more pronounced.

However, as autumn leaves begin to fall, researchers have proposed a novel solution: showing a Taylor Swift music video.

This might appear off-track. Swift wouldn’t typically be seen as a conventional instructional tool. Yet, her videos prominently feature numerous plants. “Out of the 61 official music videos on Swift’s YouTube channel, 53 (87%) contain elements related to plants,” the authors note.

By incorporating videos like green cardigan into the curriculum, educators can introduce concepts such as “photosynthesis, light competition, forest waste, nutrient cycling, seasonal changes, canopy structure, plant growth habits, and morphology.”

Botany is a captivating field, filled with beauty and challenges, and students show enthusiasm for learning about plants, echoing, “You look like my next mistake.”

Botany Communicator: This is a game-changer. Embrace it! Stop denying your inner Swiftie and start incorporating her videos as teaching tools. Soon, you’ll have your students engaged.

Feedback eagerly awaits updates from researchers who find inspiration in Showgirl’s Life, as I slowly drift towards my favorite city.

Acronyms Galore

Feedback continues its mission to uncover the most imaginative scientific acronyms. Readers have highlighted two noteworthy examples. Credit where it’s due for discovering them!

Firstly, Eric Foxcroft points out that Graham Lawton’s discussion of chronic sinus infections included a “number of pages in columns” which mentioned mid-nasal results or runny noses. This was literally beneath our noses! While our feedback addressed the concept of “runny noses” way back in 2001, it seems we had forgotten, so it’s time to bring it back.

Meanwhile, Johann Gottalt Olsen highlighted a recent September Nature paper detailing unique rock formations discovered by the Mars rover, which may indicate ancient life on Mars. This was mentioned in New Scientist and notably included an acronym Olsen found that we missed.

One instrument is called Rimfax, a nod to the Norse mythical horse Hrímfaxi. The acronym cleverly stands for “radar imager for underground Mars experiments.”

But it gets better! “We also encountered Shelllock and Watson,” Olsen writes, representing “scanning habitable environments with Raman and organic matter emission” and “wide-angle terrain sensors for operation and engineering.” Olsen continued:

Feedback is curious as to why “patience” didn’t also lead to Raman rainbow colors and radiation tomography monitors. It’s essential to keep up with the feedback in New Scientist from time to time!

Creatures, Gremlins, and More

Exciting news from the Wall Street Journal reveals that OpenAI is producing its first film. Well, kind of. OpenAI is “lending tools and computational resources” to Vertigo Films, which will create films based on concepts from OpenAI’s “creative specialist” Chad Nelson.

The film is titled Cricktails, likely due to its clever spelling. A previous title, Creatures, belongs to a Science Fiction Comedy Horror film from 1986. The plot centers on “a forest creature embarking on an adventure following the destruction of its village by an outsider.”

This feature expands on the 2023 short film, Cricktails, which you can watch for free on YouTube. The short is noted as the first animated film crafted entirely using DALL-E’s generative AI, creating all visuals, characters, and backgrounds—the entirety of Crikterz’s world.

Only DALL-E could generate such unique designs as seen in Critterz. Where are the Wild Ones? Despite the desire for more animation, one YouTube commenter quipped, “I enjoy watching the whole movie with a character standing still, staring at me.”

Feedback has gathered ample content, so you can expect that the best joke is the film is narrated by “David Attenborough’s neighbor Dennis.” I’m eager to see how this unfolds as a full-length feature. Mark your calendars for its anticipated debut at Cannes next year!

Have you shared your feedback yet?

You can send your stories to feedback via email at feedback@newscientist.com. Don’t forget to include your home address. This week’s and past editions of feedback can be found on our website.

Source: www.newscientist.com

Meta removes over 9,000 fraudulent Facebook pages costing Australians $43.4 million in celebrity deepfake scams

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After Meta launched a new platform for sharing fraud information with banks, celebrities and others were taken away in handcuffs. The platform blocked 8,000 pages and 9,000 celebrity scams, reducing the likelihood of Australians seeing deepfake images promoting fraudulent crypto investments on Facebook. This occurred in the first 6 months following the launch.

Between January and August 2024, Australians reported $43.4 million in losses to social media scams through Scamwatch, with almost $30 million related to fake investment scams.

Meta has been dealing with scams using deepfake images of celebrities like David Koch, Gina Reinhart, Anthony Albanese, Larry Emdur, and Guy Sebastian. Politicians and regulators have pressured the company to address these scams, especially those facilitating investment fraud.

Mining tycoon Andrew Forrest is suing Meta for failing to address fraudulent activity using his image.

Meta has partnered with the Australian Financial Crime Exchange (AFCX) to launch the Fraud Information Exchange (Fire). This channel allows banks to report known fraud to Meta, enabling Meta to notify all banks involved in fraud discovered on its platform.

Seven banks, including ANZ, Bendigo Bank, CBA, HSBC, Macquarie, NAB, and Westpac, are participating in the Fire program. Another program involving AFCX’s Intel Loop information sharing service includes banks like Optus, Pivotel, Telstra, TPG, and the National Anti Scams Center.

Since the pilot launch in April, Meta has removed over 9,000 fraudulent pages and 8,000 AI-generated celebrity investment scams on Facebook and Instagram based on 102 reports received.

While the early results are promising, the number of fire reports is low compared to the losses reported to Scamwatch, with 1,600 reported losses in social media scams in August alone.

Meta reported removing 1.2 billion fake accounts worldwide in the last quarter, with 99.7% removed before user reports.

AFCX’s Rhonda Lau mentioned that the program aims to make Australia a less attractive target for fraudsters.

Meta’s David Agranovich stated that the system will help detect fraud outside the platform, connecting the dots between fraudulent activities on Facebook and Instagram.

Meta provides the list of blocked domains to partners and will grant access to the Fire platform to its threat exchange system to detect criminal activity like covert influence operations and child abuse on the platform.

Mr. Agranovich acknowledged the frustration Australians may face in reporting fraud to Meta and mentioned plans for improvement.

Both the Commonwealth Bank and ANZ welcomed the collaboration with Meta. Deputy Treasurer Stephen Jones introduced a draft bill to combat fraud and provide a proper dispute resolution process for fraud victims, with consultations ending on 4th October.

Source: www.theguardian.com

The ebb and flow of celebrity video greeting app Cameo: A tale of hello and goodbye | Technology

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IAs is often the case, this incident began with drama in a WhatsApp group. In 2021, a loose coalition of my friends and acquaintances, in order to survive repeated lockdowns, started playing a much maligned online game called “Excuse.” Betrayal and backstabbing are all part of the game.


Except this time people went too far, someone got so upset that he left the group, and to get him back, my friends came up with a dubious plan: they got Nigel Farage, of all people, to make a sarcastic apology video, urging his comrades to rejoin the group.

This was easy to do, thanks to Cameo, which Farage had recently signed up for. For around £100, Farage had 24 hours to record a 60-second video clip and distribute it through the app. The ploy worked, and peace was restored within the friend group, thanks to Cameo and Farage’s rather bewildered recitation of a series of inside jokes that he completely failed to understand.

It’s one of the many uses for Cameo, a service that lets anyone request custom videos for friends from celebrities and influencers and have them delivered within 24 hours. The site became an unexpected hit during the COVID-19 lockdown, helping it attract investment that put it at a $1 billion valuation in 2021.


The front page of the Cameo website, featuring some of the celebrities registered with the site. Photo: Cameo

But since then, things have been tough. The video is still being made, and it’s still… Eclectic. A number of celebrities and influencers (more on that later) are on board, but they seem to be struggling to pay the relatively small bills.

last month, Business Insider Reported Cameo reaches settlement with 30 U.S. states. The company was found to have violated the Federal Trade Commission’s rules regarding celebrity endorsements.

Cameo was fined $600,000, a modest sum for a billion-dollar company in theory, but court filings attested that it couldn’t afford that amount and instead settled for $100,000 (split among 30 states). So what went wrong?

Day to day, the site operates much the same as before, offering custom videos to those seeking them from a range of actors, comedians and influencers, including British names like actor Miriam Margolyes (£134 a video), former footballer John Terry (£197), singer Gareth Gates (£47) and presenter and environmental activist Ben Fogle (£71).

In the US, NSync’s Lance Bass (235 pounds) and Dean Norris (235 pounds), who played DEA agent Hank Schrader, Breaking Bad (193 pounds), and former supporters of the U.S. version. Office Kevin Malone, aka Brian Baumgartner (154 pounds), or “Drunk Meredith” Kate Flannery (150 pounds).

While each has its own fanbase, sometimes with cult followings, Cameo has struggled to attract or retain A-list celebrities and influencers with top-tier followings, in part because using the app poses significant risks to a celebrity’s reputation: Some have used the app for more nefarious purposes, such as scripting videos to trick celebrities into making racist or other insults.

Last year, the “Russian group” A series of videos was commissioned and stitched together. Video recordings from Cameo and similar services made it appear as if various prominent U.S. figures were calling Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky a corrupt drug addict, creating the illusion that they were helping to stage an intervention.

The disinformation campaign also included cameos from actor Elijah Wood and convicted rapist boxer Mike Tyson, though both have since withdrawn their cameos, and both Norris and Flannery are still active on the site.

Cameo takes 30% of creators’ fees for handling sales, transaction fees, and hosting and submitting the videos. Larger creators appear to have decided to forgo this potential revenue stream because it would require making lots of individual videos that never get published, or because of the risks. But smaller creators say it’s a convenient, hassle-free source of funding with few downsides.

Source: www.theguardian.com