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How did Taylor Swift get so popular? She never goes out of style

<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/kate-pattison-1407185">Kate Pattison</a>, <em><a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/rmit-university-1063">RMIT University</a></em></p> <p>Last week, USA Today/Gannett <a href="https://us231.dayforcehcm.com/CandidatePortal/en-US/gannett/Posting/View/63544">posted a job ad</a> for a Taylor Swift reporter, seeking an experienced journalist and content creator to “capture the music and cultural impact of Taylor Swift”.</p> <p>It’s not the first time Swift has been the focus of professional and academic work. In 2022, New York University’s Clive Davis Institute <a href="https://variety.com/2022/music/news/taylor-swift-course-nyu-clive-davis-institute-1235170200/">announced a course focused on Swift</a>, taught by Rolling Stone’s Brittany Spanos. They also gave Swift <a href="https://www.nyu.edu/about/news-publications/news/2022/march/Commencement_HDs_2020_2021_2022.html">an honorary doctorate in fine arts</a>, as “one of the most prolific and celebrated artists of her generation”.</p> <p>Other universities around the world followed with their own dedicated courses, including “<a href="https://www.nme.com/en_au/news/music/taylor-swift-is-the-subject-of-a-new-university-course-3483713">The Psychology of Taylor Swift</a>”, “<a href="https://www.billboard.com/music/music-news/taylor-swift-songbook-class-offered-university-of-texas-1235130293/">The Taylor Swift Songbook</a>” and “<a href="https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/style/taylor-swift-lyrics-course-belgian-university/index.html">Literature: Taylor’s Version</a>”.</p> <p>While musicians and celebrities have been the subject of our fascinations for decades, it’s not often they receive such individualised attention. Swift’s impressive career can be studied from multiple perspectives, including marketing, fandom, business and songwriting, to name a few.</p> <figure><iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/KudedLV0tP0?wmode=transparent&amp;start=0" width="440" height="260" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe></figure> <h2>So why Taylor Swift?</h2> <p>From a music perspective, Swift has broken a lot of records. Last month, she became the <a href="https://variety.com/2023/music/news/taylor-swift-spotify-record-monthly-listeners-1235707101/">first female artist in Spotify history</a> to reach 100 million monthly listeners.</p> <p>Swift has achieved 12 number one albums on Billboard, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/17/arts/music/taylor-swift-speak-now-billboard-chart-record.html">the most by a woman artist</a>, overtaking Barbra Streisand earlier this year.</p> <p>She’s the first and only woman solo artist to win the <a href="https://www.grammy.com/artists/taylor-swift/15450">Album Of The Year Grammy</a> three times, for Fearless (2009), 1989 (2015) and Folklore (2020) – each in a different musical genre. It’s a credit to Swift’s masterful songwriting, and demonstrates her ability to adapt her craft for different audiences.</p> <p>There is an expectation for female artists to constantly re-invent themselves, something <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/feb/10/interesting-reinvention-taylor-swift-celebrities">Swift reflected on</a> in her Netflix documentary Miss Americana:</p> <blockquote> <p>The female artists I know of have to remake themselves like 20 times more than the male artists, or you’re out of a job.</p> </blockquote> <p>Over the course of her career, Swift has evolved from an award-winning country music singer to one of the biggest pop stars in the world. Each of her ten original studio albums <a href="https://www.thelist.com/463869/every-taylor-swift-era-explained/">has a distinct theme and aesthetic</a>, which have been celebrated on Swift’s juggernaut Eras Tour.</p> <p>The tour, which has just wrapped up its first US leg, is set to be the highest-grossing of all time, boosting local travel and tourism revenue along the way. A <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/taylor-swift-eras-tour-boosted-economy-tourism-federal-reserve-how-much-money-made/">recent report estimates</a> the tour could help add a monumental US$5 billion (A$7.8 billion) to the worldwide economy.</p> <figure><iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/b1kbLwvqugk?wmode=transparent&amp;start=0" width="440" height="260" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe></figure> <h2>‘All I do is try, try, try’</h2> <p>But to measure Swift’s impact by her music alone would be limiting.</p> <p>Swift has been instrumental in changing the business game for musicians. She’s taken on record labels and streaming services, advocating for better deals for artists.</p> <p>In 2015, <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-33220189">Apple Music changed its payment policies</a> after Swift wrote an <a href="https://www.stereogum.com/1810310/read-taylor-swifts-open-letter-to-apple-music/news/">open letter</a> campaigning for better compensation.</p> <p>Most notably, she took a stand <a href="https://taylorswift.tumblr.com/post/185958366550/for-years-i-asked-pleaded-for-a-chance-to-own-my">against her former record label</a>, Big Machine Records, after it wouldn’t give her an opportunity to buy back her original master recordings. Her back catalogue was eventually sold to music executive Scooter Braun, kicking off a <a href="https://pitchfork.com/news/taylor-swifts-music-ownership-controversy-with-scooter-braun-what-it-means-and-why-it-matters/">very public feud</a>.</p> <p>While she’s not the first artist to go after her masters, she’s generated an enormous amount of attention to an issue that’s often overlooked. Of course, Swift is in a position of privilege – she can take risks many other artists can’t afford to. But with this power she’s driving conversations around contracts and the value of music, paving the way for emerging artists.</p> <p>In an effort to regain control of her earlier work, <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/taylor-swift-on-lover-and-haters/">Swift announced</a> she would be re-recording her first six albums. Each re-recorded album has included additional <a href="https://www.insider.com/taylor-swift-fearless-rerecord-release-date-unreleased-songs-2021-2">vault tracks</a>, previously unreleased songs left off the original recordings.</p> <p>These releases have each been accompanied by a robust promotional campaign, including new merchandise and multiple, limited-edition versions of each record for fans to collect.</p> <p>The release of Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) marked the halfway point of this process, which has paid off big time. Fearless (Taylor’s Version), Red (Taylor’s Version) and Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) <a href="https://www.billboard.com/lists/taylor-swift-taylors-version-stats-chart-numbers/the-equivalent-album-units-gap/">have all performed better</a> than the originals.</p> <p>This is largely due to the unwavering support from her fans, known as “Swifties”. They’ve embraced the new recordings, shaming anyone who plays the original “stolen” versions.</p> <h2>The power of Swifties</h2> <p>Swift’s loyal fandom are known for their high levels of participation and creativity. Fans have spent an extensive amount of time hand-making outfits for concerts, and discussing elaborate theories online.</p> <p>Swift has a reputation for leaving clues, known as <a href="https://junkee.com/taylor-swift-easter-eggs/219709">Easter eggs</a>, in her lyrics, music videos, social media posts and interviews. There are fan accounts dedicated to analysing these Easter eggs, studying specific number patterns and phrases to uncover hints for what Swift might do next.</p> <p>Swift and Taylor Nation, a branch of her management team, encourage these behaviours by rewarding fans for their participation.</p> <p>For the upcoming release of 1989 (Taylor’s Version), Swift has unveiled a series of puzzles on Google, which fans must solve together in order to reveal the names of the upcoming vault tracks.</p> <p>Swifties collectively <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/style/2023/09/20/taylor-swift-vault-puzzle-1989-tracks/">solved the 33 million</a> (yes, that’s <em>million</em>) puzzles in less than 24 hours. The games played a dual role - not only did <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/CxbFSR1RAOv/?img_index=1">Swift announce the vault track titles</a>, but she’s <a href="https://vt.tiktok.com/ZSN1uHN9R/">reclaimed her Google searches</a> in the process.</p> <p>Swift’s fandom crosses generations. She’s a quintessential millennial, and many fans have grown up with Swift over the past two decades. Some have even started to bring their children along to the concerts, <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@folkloreswift_/video/7255857466213158149?is_from_webapp=1&amp;sender_device=pc&amp;web_id=6972316934294291973">posting videos</a> of them set to the bridge to Long Live.</p> <p>She’s also found a younger audience on TikTok, a platform <a href="https://sproutsocial.com/insights/tiktok-stats/">predominantly used by Gen Z</a>. Affectionately dubbed “<a href="https://newsroom.tiktok.com/en-us/year-on-tiktok-music-report-2021">SwiftTok</a>” by fans (and now <a href="https://vt.tiktok.com/ZSLokp2rQ/">Swift herself</a>), users post videos to engage with other Swifties and participate in the community.</p> <p>Swift’s songs are often used in popular trends. The release of Midnights last year had many dancing to <a href="https://www.cosmopolitan.com/entertainment/celebs/a43488940/taylor-swift-surprised-fan-viral-tiktok-dance-bejeweled-eras-tour/">Bejeweled</a> and <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@tatycake/video/7216131364469427499?is_from_webapp=1&amp;sender_device=pc&amp;web_id=6972316934294291973">Karma</a>, but Swift’s older catalogue has also gotten a good run. A remix of Love Story <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/taylor-swift-tiktok-love-story-remix-disco-lines-1035691/">went viral in 2020</a>, which helped a new generation discover her older music. Most recently, her song August has been used for running on the beach and <a href="https://vt.tiktok.com/ZSLok2jRb/">spinning around</a> with your pets.</p> <p><iframe id="tc-infographic-925" class="tc-infographic" style="border: none;" src="https://cdn.theconversation.com/infographics/925/cad71d8026910236be1d5880a20a247cdee29c82/site/index.html" width="100%" height="400px" frameborder="0"></iframe></p> <p>She’s also closely aligned with young adult shows like The Summer I Turned Pretty, which has <a href="https://www.vulture.com/2023/08/taylor-swift-summer-i-turned-pretty.html">featured 13 of her songs</a> throughout the show’s first two seasons. Swift’s music is so central to the story that <a href="https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/tv/story/2023-08-19/summer-i-turned-pretty-music-jenny-han-taylor-swift">author Jenny Han nearly dedicated</a> the second book to her.</p> <p>Swift continues to dominate the cultural conversation through her music, business decisions and legions of devoted fans.</p> <p>Right now, Swift’s popularity is at an all time high, and it could be easy to dismiss this hype as a passing trend. But if these first 17 years are anything to go by, Swift’s proven she’s in it for the long haul, and worthy of our time.<!-- Below is The Conversation's page counter tag. Please DO NOT REMOVE. --><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/213871/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" /><!-- End of code. If you don't see any code above, please get new code from the Advanced tab after you click the republish button. The page counter does not collect any personal data. More info: https://theconversation.com/republishing-guidelines --></p> <p><a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/kate-pattison-1407185">K<em>ate Pattison</em></a><em>, PhD Candidate, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/rmit-university-1063">RMIT University</a></em></p> <p><em>Image credits: Getty Images</em></p> <p><em>This article is republished from <a href="https://theconversation.com">The Conversation</a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-did-taylor-swift-get-so-popular-she-never-goes-out-of-style-213871">original article</a>.</em></p>

Music

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“My sex statue is famous”: Larry Emdur reacts to X-rated home reveal

<p dir="ltr"><em>The Morning Show</em> host Larry Emdur has been making a name for himself in the world of game show TV for a few years hosting<em> The Chase Australia</em>, but despite his success, he’s still had his sights set on one more goal: making an appearance on the<em> Have You Been Paying Attention?</em> series. </p> <p dir="ltr">And now, it seems like Larry’s dream has come true, though not exactly in the way he might have expected. </p> <p dir="ltr">The popular host and his wife, Sylvie, have had their hands full recently trying to sell their Kangaroo Valley retreat, better known as Sky Ridge. </p> <p dir="ltr">And while pictures of the property and its picturesque surrounds are available thanks to Belle Property, it wasn’t the property’s luxury four bedrooms or sweeping views that saw it get a mention on the Channel 10 game show.</p> <p dir="ltr">Instead, it was a statue situated in the home’s main living space that caught their attention, with <em>Have You Been Paying Attention? </em>host Tom Gleisner asking his panel if they knew why Larry’s holiday home had gone viral throughout the week. </p> <p dir="ltr">Ed Kavalee was quick to suggest that it was because “the price was right”, while Sam Pang asked if it was because “it has to do with the backyard, they found a shallow grave?”</p> <p dir="ltr">Kavalee eventually got to the right answer, revealing that “there was, like, a pornographic statue in there.”</p> <p dir="ltr">The statue in question could be found perched on top of Larry’s dining room table, and appeared to catch two people caught up in the moment having “X-rated raunchy sex”, as Larry himself put it. </p> <p dir="ltr">The <em>HYBPA?</em> audience found it hilarious, and thankfully, Larry was more than happy to see the funny side of it all, too. </p> <p dir="ltr">Taking to social media after learning about his unexpected cameo, Larry shared that he’d “always wanted to be on <em>Have You Been Paying Attention?</em> but not for a disgraceful reason like this.”</p> <p dir="ltr">“My sex statue is famous,” he added, before sharing details of the property and that “YES !!!! <em>The Price is Right</em>”.</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/CttOo9pByBy/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;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/CttOo9pByBy/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_campaign=loading" target="_blank" rel="noopener">A post shared by @larryemdur</a></p> </div> </blockquote> <p dir="ltr">Larry’s fans raced to express their amusement, with dozens sharing laughing emojis, while others assured him that the feature piece was certainly “a work of art”. </p> <p dir="ltr">“Love a good conversation piece,” one user said. </p> <p dir="ltr">“It’s…… unique,” another added. </p> <p dir="ltr">“Can’t stand that show,” one confessed. “But at least this time they are talking about something interesting”.</p> <p dir="ltr">And one other agreed that it had been “so funny”, noting that it was also a “nice house”, but that most importantly, they were sorry you weren't nominated for a gold logie, you sure deserved it”. </p> <p dir="ltr"><em>Images: realestate.com.au, Getty</em></p>

Real Estate

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Attention plant killers: new research shows your plants could be silently screaming at you

<p>If you’re like me, you’ve managed to kill even the hardiest of indoor plants (yes, despite a doctorate in plant biology). But imagine a world where your plants actually told you exactly when they needed watering. This thought, as it turns out, may not be so silly after all.</p> <p>You might be familiar with the growing body of work that <a href="https://theconversation.com/heard-it-on-the-grapevine-the-mysterious-chatter-of-plants-6292">provides evidence for</a> plants being able to sense sounds around them. Now, new research suggests they can also generate airborne sounds in response to stress (such as from drought, or being cut).</p> <p>A team led by experts at Tel Aviv University has shown tomato and tobacco plants, among others, not only make sounds, but do so loudly enough for other creatures to hear. Their findings, <a href="https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(23)00262-3">published today</a> in the journal Cell, are helping us tune into the rich acoustic world of plants – one that plays out all round us, yet never quite within human earshot.</p> <h2>Plants can listen, but now they can talk!</h2> <p>Plants are “sessile” organisms. They can’t run away from stressors such as herbivores or drought. </p> <p>Instead, they’ve evolved complex biochemical responses and the ability to dynamically alter their growth (and regrow body parts) in response to environmental signals including light, gravity, temperature, touch, and volatile chemicals produced by surrounding organisms.</p> <p>These signals help them maximise their growth and reproductive success, prepare for and resist stress, and form mutually beneficial relationships with other organisms such as fungi and bacteria. </p> <p>In 2019, <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/flowers-can-hear-bees-and-make-their-nectar-sweeter">researchers showed</a> the buzzing of bees can cause plants to produce sweeter nectar. Others <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/15592324.2017.1368938">have shown</a> white noise played to Arabidopsis, a flowering plant in the mustard family, can trigger a drought response.</p> <p>Now, a team led by Lilach Hadany, who also led the aforementioned bee-nectar study, has recorded airborne sounds produced by tomato and tobacco plants, and five other species (grapevine, henbit deadnettle, pincushion cactus, maize and wheat). These sounds were ultrasonic, in the range of 20-100 kilohertz, and therefore can’t be detected <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK10924/">by human ears</a>.</p> <h2>Stressed plants chatter more</h2> <p>To carry out their research, the team placed microphones 10cm from plant stems that were either exposed to drought (less than 5% soil moisture) or had been severed near the soil. They then compared the recorded sounds to those of unstressed plants, as well as empty pots, and found stressed plants emitted significantly more sounds than unstressed plants.</p> <p>In a cool addition to their paper, they also included a soundbite of a recording, downsampled to an audible range and sped up. The result is a distinguishable “pop” sound.</p> <p>The number of pops increased as drought stress increased (before starting to decline as the plant dried up). Moreover, the sounds could be detected from a distance of 3-5 metres – suggesting potential for long-range communication.</p> <h2>But what actually causes these sounds?</h2> <p>While this remains unconfirmed, the team’s findings suggest that “cavitation” may be at least partially responsible for the sounds. Cavitation is the process through which air bubbles expand and burst inside a plant’s water-conducting tissue, or “xylem”. This explanation makes sense if we consider that drought stress and cutting will both alter the water dynamics in a plant stem. </p> <p>Regardless of the mechanism, it seems the sounds produced by stressed plants were informative. Using machine learning algorithms, the researchers could distinguish not only which species produced the sound, but also what type of stress it was suffering from.</p> <p>It remains to be seen whether and how these sound signals might be involved in plant-to-plant communication or plant-to-environment communication. </p> <p>The research has so far failed to detect any sounds from the woody stems of woody species (which includes many tree species), although they could detect sounds from non-woody parts of a grapevine (a woody species). </p> <h2>What could it mean for ecology, and us?</h2> <p>It’s temping to speculate these airborne sounds could help plants communicate their stress more widely. Could this form of communication help plants, and perhaps wider ecosystems, adapt better to change?</p> <p>Or perhaps the sounds are used by other organisms to detect a plant’s health status. Moths, for example, hear within the ultrasonic range and lay their eggs on leaves, as the researchers point out. </p> <p>Then there’s the question of whether such findings could help with future food production. The <a href="https://www.agriculture.gov.au/sites/default/files/sitecollectiondocuments/abares/publications/Outlook2012FoodDemand2050.pdf">global demand</a> for food will only rise. Tailoring water use to target individual plants or sections of field making the most “noise” could help us more sustainably intensify production and minimise waste. </p> <p>For me personally, if someone could give a microphone to my neglected veggie patch and have the notifications sent to my phone, that would be much appreciated!</p> <p><em>Image credits: Getty Images</em></p> <p><em>This article originally appeared on <a href="https://theconversation.com/attention-plant-killers-new-research-shows-your-plants-could-be-silently-screaming-at-you-202833" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Conversation</a>. </em></p>

Home & Garden

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How an Aussie artist captured the attention of A-list celebrities

<p dir="ltr">An Australian artist who specialises in vivid contemporary pieces of art has captured the attention of celebrity A-listers, including pop singer Miley Cyrus. </p> <p dir="ltr">Nick Thomm left his native Melbourne in 2014 to move to New York in order to pursue his passion for art. </p> <p dir="ltr">Just two years later, he received a message on Instagram from Miley Cyrus, who commissioned the up and coming artist to paint a mural in her Los Angeles home. </p> <p dir="ltr">“Miley's awesome. She just followed me on Instagram and we started talking,” he told <a href="http://linda-kovacs-kokw.squarespace.com/nick-thomm">Westwood</a>. </p> <p dir="ltr">“Literally, two weeks later I was at her house putting up a mural for her. She's a really inspiring person to be around - a full genius. She kind of inspired me to get over to the United States permanently. She's been awesome to me.”</p> <p dir="ltr">​​The hyper-coloured mural is saturated with radiant shades of purple, blue and orange on a pink backdrop.</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/BBjVubar1Rh/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;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/BBjVubar1Rh/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_campaign=loading" target="_blank" rel="noopener">A post shared by NICK THOMM (@nickthomm)</a></p> </div> </blockquote> <p dir="ltr">His abstract street-style artworks explore a modern colour scheme through a deep hallucinatory style that draws you into the art.</p> <p dir="ltr">The mural serves as the backdrop for Miley Cyrus’s disco ball-esque grand piano, giving her music room a futuristic feel. </p> <p dir="ltr">Nick owes a lot of his international success to Instagram, which he used to promote his works and his small exhibits he hosted during his first years in New York. </p> <p dir="ltr">This self-exposure led to working with numerous celebrities, as well as international brands such as Nike, Maybelline and Adidas. </p> <p dir="ltr">He's also made paintings for museums around the world including the Moco Museum in Barcelona.</p> <p dir="ltr"><em>Image credits: Instagram @nickthomm</em></p>

Art

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Pay attention to this story!

<div class="copy"> <p>A team of researchers from Yale University in the US has announced that it can use data from brain scans to predict how good someone will be at paying attention to a task.</p> <p>“Attention is such a fundamentally important ability for school, sports, work and even happiness, but it is hard to put a number on it,” says Marvin Chun, a professor of psychology and neuroscience at Yale and co-corresponding author on the study.</p> <p>For example, difficulty paying attention can be linked to mental-health conditions or brain damage, the authors say.</p> <p>The study used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data from 92 people as they were asked to complete three attention-related tasks.</p> <p>The tasks involved watching a series of images and responding when they recognised a certain type of scene, tracking multiple moving objects, and a short-term memory test.</p> <p>The researchers also scanned the participants’ brains while at rest and when watching a movie.</p> <p>They then fed data from the fMRIs and performance on the tasks into a computational model to try to identify the relationships between how people scored on different tasks and how their brain behaved at rest.</p> <p>The researchers reported that the model could successfully predict how well someone would perform on attention-related tasks in general, based on scans of their brain either at rest or performing one of the three tasks.</p> <p>“The brain is all interconnected, and is always running like a beating heart,” says Chun.</p> <p>“What we can do is take all those complex patterns and analyse the data to create a fingerprint of the brain’s ability to pay attention.”</p> <p>The researchers suggest that their model could be used to help diagnose or monitor conditions such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) or dementia.</p> <p>The study is <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-022-01301-1" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">published</a> in Nature Human Behaviour.</p> <p><em>Image credits: Getty Images</em></p> <p><em><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=183921&amp;title=Pay+attention+to+this+story%21" width="1" height="1" data-spai-target="src" data-spai-orig="" data-spai-exclude="nocdn" /></em></div> <div id="contributors"> <p><em>This article was originally published on <a href="https://cosmosmagazine.com/health/body-and-mind/paying-attention-brain-scan/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">cosmosmagazine.com</a> and was written by Matilda Handsley-Davis. </em></p> </div>

Mind

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4 simple strategies to reclaim your attention and look up

<p><span>After a period living and volunteering in the far north of India, Australian primary school teacher Hugh van Cuylenburg was blown away by the remarkable positivity of the comparatively underprivileged locals. How was it, he wondered, that young people he knew at home, who had food, shelter, friends and a loving family, struggled with their mental health, while these kids seemed overwhelmingly happy? This experience led him on a journey to find answers to this question.</span></p> <p><span>Years of study, research and questions followed and, through this, van Cuylenburg came to understand that practising gratitude, empathy and mindfulness leads us to happier and more fulfilling lives. </span><span>Backed by evidence-based analysis and inspiring personal anecdotes, <em>The Resilience Project</em> brings these life-changing messages to life for an ever-broadening audience. In the passage below, van Cuylenburg offers four tips to help reclaim our attention, look up from our devices and better experience the incredible real world that surrounds us.</span></p> <p><span>**</span></p> <p><span>A 2017 Deloitte survey found Australians checked their phones more than 35 times a day on average, an increase of around 17 per cent on just the year before. Thirty-five per cent of us check our phone within five minutes of waking up in the morning, and 70 per cent use phones during mealtimes with family and friends.</span></p> <p><span>Needless to say, it’s extremely hard to be mindful and mentally present when some of the world’s biggest media corporations are trying to rip our time and attention from our hands. Smartphones are here to stay, and so is social media. And they’re not the only threats; in 2018, the World Health Organization classified gaming addiction as a mental health disorder. Our kids are copping it from everywhere.</span></p> <p><span>That’s the bad news. The good news is that we are not powerless, and the other side of this shiny technological coin has many benefits that can help enrich our lives. But we need to be careful. There are four simple strategies that I strongly recommend you try, so you can reclaim much of what the attention economy has taken from you:</span></p> <p><strong><span>1. Delete Facebook from our phones</span></strong></p> <p><span>On 2 July 2018, I dumped Facebook from my mobile and vowed only to look at it when I was using my laptop. I haven’t been on Facebook since, and it’s not because I’m trying to avoid it – I’m just not as easy a target for Mark Zuckerberg’s addiction engineers as I was when I had Facebook in my pocket.</span></p> <p><span>The decision to delete the app was a life-changer. I didn’t feel that I was any less connected to the people I wanted to connect with, and I realised I had spent most of my time on Facebook looking at garbage – stuff that, if someone asked me to check out in real life, I’d laugh at and walk away. I’ve often wondered how I’d react if I walked past a cafe, saw a friend and they said, ‘Just in time! My coffee has arrived. Would you like to see how it looks from directly above?’</span></p> <p><strong><span>2. Turn off notifications</span></strong></p> <p><span>There is no reason whatsoever to have notifications on our phones switched on. The only reason they exist is to suck us back into the app abyss. We don’t need to know every single time someone has liked a photo, sent us a message, commented on a thread we’re following or tagged us on Twitter. It’s getting to the point where we don’t really decide when we check our phones; our phones are deciding for us – more than 35 times a day!</span></p> <p><strong><span>3. Rearrange our home screens</span></strong></p> <p><span>The only apps we should have on our home screens are ones we’re not addicted to. Once you clear all the addictive stuff off your home screen, you’ll be amazed how few things you really ‘need’ on your phone. In my case I was left with just three apps: music, podcasts and Google Maps. That’s it. Everything that has an addictive component I have placed in a separate file on the sixth screen across labelled ‘Regret’.</span></p> <p><strong><span>4. Leave home without our phones</span></strong></p> <p><span>When we disconnect from our phones we reconnect with life. Thanks largely to persuasive technology we’ve been conditioned to think we can’t be without them. When we leave home these days we check that we have our keys, wallet, sunnies and… ‘Where’s my bloody phone?’</span></p> <p><span>A few years back I started leaving mine at home at every opportunity. OK, often I need my phone for work, but do I need it if I’m going out to dinner? Going for a run? To the movies? Cricket training? Phones only serve to interrupt these moments and derail the joy of being present with the people we’re with, even if that person is ourselves.</span></p> <p><span>Not long after setting myself the rule about limiting my phone use, I caught up with a mate at a pub in Fitzroy.</span></p> <p><span>It was a very quiet night at the pub as I sat at the bar and swapped stories with my mate. After a while he got up to go to the gents’. ‘Back in a sec,’ he said and disappeared. Suddenly I was one of only a few punters in the entire pub. Like Pavlov’s dog I reached into my pocket to get my phone, and I actually felt annoyed that I’d left the thing at home.</span></p> <p><span>I had nothing to do for the next minute or so. It was a strange feeling, like the world had stopped. ‘How did we not look weird when we were sitting without anything to do, in the time before smartphones?’ I pondered. That’s when I noticed the barman just a few feet away, cleaning a pint glass.</span></p> <p><span>‘How’s your night going?’ I inquired. ‘It’s pretty quiet – you must love that?’</span></p> <p><span>‘No,’ he said, ‘I actually prefer it when it’s busy.’</span></p> <p><span>‘Really?’</span></p> <p><span>‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘I’m just going through some difficult stuff at the moment and when it’s really quiet I can’t get it out of my head, but when it’s busy I escape it for a bit.’</span></p> <p><span>Suddenly I was in the midst of a serious moment with a fellow human being, and the world felt very full again. ‘Oh,’ I said, giving him my complete attention. ‘Are you alright?’</span></p> <p><span>‘No, not really,’ he replied. ‘I’m just going through a breakup and it’s pretty full-on at the moment.’</span></p> <p><span>‘I’m really sorry about that,’ I said. ‘I know exactly how that feels. It’s awful.’</span></p> <p><span>The barman and I were still talking about his situation five minutes after my mate returned.</span></p> <p><span>‘Anyway,’ he said as a couple of customers appeared at the other end of the bar, ‘I’ll let you guys get back to it.’</span></p> <p><span>‘Take care of yourself, mate,’ I said as he turned to serve the others. He flashed me a little thumbs up.</span></p> <p><span>When I got home later, all I could think was, ‘Thank God I left my phone here.’ The barman clearly needed to reach out and make that connection in that moment; as soon as I opened my mouth to speak to him he grabbed the opportunity with both hands. If I’d had my phone with me, that conversation would never have happened. I’d have buried my head in the internet, and if the barman had wanted to talk about his emotional problems he’d have had to lean over and say, ‘Excuse me, do you want to talk about my breakup for a minute?’</span></p> <p><span>Increasingly, over the past ten years, more and more of us have been using social media to try to fulfil our basic psychological needs: the need to feel loved, to feel like we belong, to feel validated and achieve degrees of social status.</span></p> <p><span>If we’re hungry for love, we post a photo of ourselves and all people have to do is press a heart button to let us know they approve. If it’s status we crave, we can simply add a ‘status update’ to show people we aced the job interview, took the holiday, skied down the mountain or welcomed the child. In return we hope our screens will bloom with little blue thumbs to feed our psychological hunger.</span></p> <p><span>But it doesn’t really nourish us. The flesh-and-blood thumbs up that the barman at the Union Club Hotel gave me meant more than a million likes on Facebook could. I imagine our talk that night meant much more to him than a sad-face emoji, too. This was an everyday illustration of the benefits of communication and social connection, something I am passionately advocating for day in, day out at The Resilience Project.</span></p> <p><em><span>Extract from </span></em>The Resilience Project<em><span> by Hugh Van Cuylenburg, published by Ebury Australia on 19 November 2019, RRP 34.99</span></em></p>

Books

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Memory and attention difficulties are often part of a normal life

<p>From young adults to people in their 60s, everyday functioning in today’s world can place high demands on our attention and memory skills.</p> <p>Memory lapses such as forgetting an appointment, losing our keys, forgetting a distant relative’s name or not remembering why you opened the fridge can leave us believing our thinking skills are impaired.</p> <p>But you might be too hard on yourself. Tiredness, stress and worry, and feeling down or depressed are all common reasons adults experience attention and memory difficulties.</p> <p><strong>Attention and memory systems</strong></p> <p>Attention and memory skills are closely connected. Whether we can learn and remember something partly depends on our ability to concentrate on the information at the time.</p> <p>It also depends on our ability to focus our attention on retrieving that information when it’s being recalled at a later time.</p> <p>This attention system, which is so important for successful memory function, has a limited capacity – we can only make sense of, and learn, a limited amount of information in any given moment.</p> <p>Being able to learn, and later successfully remember something, also depends on our memory system, which stores the information.</p> <p><strong>Changes in attention and memory skills</strong></p> <p>In people who are ageing normally, both attention and memory systems <a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2018-45562-001">gradually decline</a>. This decline starts in our early 20s and continues slowly until our 60s, when it tends to speed up.</p> <p>During normal ageing, the number of connections between brain cells slowly reduce and some areas of the brain progressively work less efficiently. These changes particularly occur in the areas of the brain that are important for memory and attention systems.</p> <p>This normal ageing decline is different from dementia and Alzheimer’s disease, which cause progressive changes in thinking skills, emotions and behaviour that are not typical of the normal ageing process. Dementia comes from a group of diseases that affect brain tissue and cause abnormal changes in the way the brain works.</p> <p>If you’re concerned your memory difficulties may be a symptom of dementia, talk to your GP, who can refer you to a specialist, if needed, to determine whether these changes are due to normal ageing, dementia or some other cause.</p> <p>If you experience persistent changes in your thinking skills, which are clearly greater than your friends and acquaintances who are of a similar age and in similar life circumstances, see your GP.</p> <p><strong>Normal attention and memory difficulties</strong></p> <p>Broadly, there are two main reasons healthy adults experience difficulties with their memory and/or attention: highly demanding lives and normal age-related changes.</p> <p>A person can be consistently using their attention and memory skills at high levels without sufficient mental relaxation time and/or sleep to keep their brain working at its best.</p> <p>Young adults who are working, studying and then consistently using attention-demanding devices as “relaxation” techniques, such as computer games and social media interaction, <a href="https://willsull.net/resources/KaplanS1995.pdf">fall into this group</a>.</p> <p>Adults <a href="https://eds.b.ebscohost.com/abstract?site=eds&amp;scope=site&amp;jrnl=21528675&amp;AN=83525068&amp;h=746XcJnf0qjmaQYDoqYWEsXgl8RLBY8oP631iGbnBfEIOVCJNS12LFen5etfOkNg5UAJ6nKqJipZs%2b4OKOVZLw%3d%3d&amp;crl=c&amp;resultLocal=ErrCrlNoResults&amp;resultNs=Ehost&amp;crlhashurl=login.aspx%3fdirect%3dtrue%26profile%3dehost%26scope%3dsite%26authtype%3dcrawler%26jrnl%3d21528675%26AN%3d83525068">juggling the demands</a> of work or study, family and social requirements also fall into this group.</p> <p><a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-how-much-sleep-do-we-need-29759">Most adults need</a> around seven to nine hours of sleep per night for their brain to work at its best, with older adults needing seven to eight hours.</p> <p>The second common reason is a combination of ageing-related brain changes and highly demanding work requirements.</p> <p>For people in jobs that place a high load on thinking skills, the thinking changes that occur with normal ageing <a href="https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Memory-complaint-as-a-predictor-of-cognitive-a-of-Blazer-Hays/41fd23f208c261065296a54b826602ff2bf8ee09">can become noticeable</a> at some point around 55 to 70 years of age. It’s around this time age-related changes in the ability to carry out complex thinking tasks become large enough to be noticeable. People who are retired or don’t have the same mentally demanding jobs generally experience the same changes, but may not notice them as much.</p> <p>This is also the age many people become more aware of the potential risk of dementia. Consequently, these normal changes can result in high levels of stress and concern, which can result in a person experiencing even greater difficulties day to day.</p> <p><strong>Emotional distress can take its toll</strong></p> <p>Feeling down and sad can affect memory and concentration. When a person is feeling worried and/or down regularly, they may become consumed by their thoughts.</p> <p>It’s important to recognise how you’re feeling, to make changes or seek help if needed. But thinking a lot about how you’re feeling can also take a person’s attention away from the task at hand and make it difficult for them to concentrate on what is happening, or remember it clearly in the future.</p> <p>So feeling worried or down can make it seem there is something wrong with their memory and concentration.</p> <p><strong>Boosting your attention and memory skills</strong></p> <p>There are a number of things that can be done to help your day-to-day memory and attention skills.</p> <p>First, it’s important to properly rest your mind on a regular basis. This involves routinely doing something you enjoy that doesn’t demand high levels of attention or memory, such as exercising, reading for pleasure, walking the dog, listening to music, relaxed socialising with friends, and so on.</p> <p>Playing computer games, or having a lengthy and focused session on social media, requires high levels of attention and other thinking skills, so these are not good mental relaxation techniques when you are already mentally tired.</p> <p> </p> <p>It’s also important to get enough sleep, so you are not consistently tired – undertaking exercise on a regular basis often helps with getting good quality sleep, as does keeping alcohol consumption <a href="https://www.healthdirect.gov.au/managing-your-alcohol-intake">within recommended limits</a>.</p> <p>Looking after your mental health is also important. Noticing how you are feeling and getting support (social and/or professional) during longer periods of high stress or lowered mood will help ensure these things are not affecting your memory or concentration.</p> <p>Finally, be fair to yourself if you notice difficulties with your thinking. Are the changes you notice any different to those of other people your own age and in similar circumstances, or are you comparing yourself to someone younger or with less demands in their life?</p> <p>If you have ongoing concerns about your attention and memory, speak with your GP, who can refer you to a specialist, such as a clinical neuropsychologist, if needed.</p> <p><em>Written by <span>Jacqueline Anderson, Senior Lecturer in Clinical Neuropsychology, University of Melbourne</span>. Republished with permission of </em><a href="https://theconversation.com/memory-and-attention-difficulties-are-often-part-of-a-normal-life-119539"><em>The Conversation</em></a><em>. </em></p> <p> </p>

Mind

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5 surprising ways to boost romance

<p>Want to inject a little magic into your relationship to bring back the ‘zing’? Here’s how!</p> <p>It’s no secret that when there is a major change in dynamics such as a new career, adult children moving out or retirement, relationships can go through testing times. It’s an enormous shift bringing with it new challenges, yet there are opportunities for growth and renewal.</p> <p>No matter what stage of life you’re at, there are several things you can do to keep things fresh, says couples therapist Peter Fox, from <a href="http://couplestherapyaustralia.com/">couplestherapyaustralia.com</a>. Here are Peter’s top five tips:</p> <p><strong>Tip 1: Make the first 4 minutes count</strong><br />The most important time in a couple’s day, Fox says, is the first four minutes that they are together, or the four minutes before they part. </p> <p>“If you have an intimacy-sustaining connection with each other in the first four minutes then your body will tend to maintain that sense of connectedness and good will, even if it is challenged by subsequent disharmony,” he says.</p> <p>“Whereas, if you get a disconnect then that tends to set the emotional tone for the following hours, too. Then there is little reserve of good will to deal with disharmony.”</p> <p>According to Fox, you can activate the “cuddle hormone” by reaching for and holding each other the minute you see each other, without any distractions. You can also ask your partner to send you a message when they’re close to home so you can be ready to give them your full attention as soon as they walk in the door.</p> <p><strong>Tip 2: Date jar with a twist</strong><br />If your idea of a brilliant date differs wildly from your partner’s, don’t worry. This is perfectly normal. But it doesn’t mean dates can’t work.</p> <p>Fox recommends writing five to ten date ideas on paper and throwing them into a jar. Each week take turns in picking out a piece of paper, and discuss beforehand how to make the date satisfying for you both. This is where compromise is key. </p> <p>So, if he wants to go fishing, perhaps suggest bringing along a picnic rug so afterwards you can enjoy a wine and cheese spread by the lake. If she wants a candlelit dinner then perhaps it could be in a restaurant in his favourite environment. </p> <p><strong>Tip 3: Take turns</strong><br />Human beings tend to fall into ruts. He does the mowing, she washes the dishes. He prepares breakfast and dinner and she does the gardening. She does yoga and he watches the football. </p> <p>“Talk about the things you can share and consciously take turns doing those things, from the small stuff like making breakfast to the big stuff like managing the family finances,” Fox says.</p> <p>Becoming more familiar with each other’s responsibilities and interests not only helps you to appreciate each other’s talents, but also assists in the development of an understanding and appreciation of the various pressures you each face as individuals. This leads to greater respect.</p> <p><strong>Tip 4: Give your undivided attention</strong><br />“Look at each other the way you look at a beautiful sunset, rather than the way you look at a problem,” Fox says. “Look at your partner with wonder, with relaxation, with complete openness.”</p> <p>“People rarely get anybody else’s full attention in this busy life. But if you can show somebody that you have the capacity to take them in fully, to even take in the things that might hurt you, then it is a wonderful gift.”</p> <p>“For this you need real presence of mind, and this comes more easily to older people. But it can have an immediate and profound effect.”</p> <p><strong>Tip 5: Make “us” special</strong><br />This is really about getting your priorities right, which sounds obvious but is rarely achieved, Fox says.</p> <p>“When couples are very busy and used to each other they can forget to give each other the feeling that they are special."</p> <p>“What can you do? Surprise them. Do something unexpected. Look them in the eyes. Hold them close. Take them for a weekend away. Don’t treat your partner as if they’re just another transaction in your day. Treat them the way you’d never treat your mechanic,” he adds.</p> <p><em>Written by Chris Sheedy. Republished with permission of <a href="https://www.wyza.com.au/articles/lifestyle/relationships/5-surprising-ways-to-boost-romance.aspx">Wyza.com.au.</a></em></p> <p><em> </em></p>

Caring

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Warning: Why you need to pay attention when you “tap and go”

<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Consumers are being warned to keep an eye on additional surcharges that have been tacked on to their contactless payments, which include payments made via payWave or PayPass.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Businesses currently have permission to charge a bit extra for “tap and go” payments due to the fees that are incurred by offering the service, but the law prohibits businesses from making a profit by charging the fee.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">According to RateCity’s spokeswoman Sally Tindall, this isn’t always the case. She told </span><a href="https://au.news.yahoo.com/revealed-using-paywave-costing-042734001.html?guccounter=1"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Yahoo</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">:</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">“(Consumers) could be getting hit with unfair surcharges if retailers are doing the wrong thing.”</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Tindall has urged consumers not to use contactless payments if they are aware that a surcharge will be incurred.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">“A lot of surcharges can be avoided with a bit of planning – always have a little bit of cash with you up your sleeve,” Ms Tindall advised.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The ACCC’s deputy chair Mick Keogh explained that businesses are allowed to charge a flat fee for contactless payments, but it must not exceed what it cost the business to process the transaction.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">“Businesses should be careful about imposing a flat fee surcharge where the amount of a transaction is relatively small … In those circumstances the surcharge is likely to be excessive,” Mr Keogh said.</span></p>

Technology

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Baby elephant dances to get cow’s attention

<p>Navann might be the youngest elephant in this nature park, but when it comes to entertaining the cows in the neighbouring field he’s certainly not bashful.</p> <p>And, as you can see in the video above, he pulls out all the stops!</p> <p>Navann lives at the Elephant Nature Park in Chiang Mai, Thailand, and he loves nothing more than trying to communicate with the cows in the field next to him.</p> <p>Navann does everything he can think of to try and get their attention. At one point it looks as though he’s pulling off some bizarre elephant dancing moves.</p> <p>That being said, the cows aren’t having any of it. In fact, they look a little less than impressed. Oh well, at least Navann looks like he’s having fun.</p> <p>Isn’t Naveen the cutest elephant? We love baby elephants, what’s your favourite type of animal and have you ever seen it in real life?</p> <p>Share your story in the comments.</p> <p><em>Video credit: YouTube / elephantnews</em></p> <p><strong>Related links:</strong></p> <p><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><em><a href="/travel/international-travel/2016/03/where-to-see-elephants-in-the-wild/"><strong>Where to see elephants in the wild</strong></a></em></span></p> <p><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><em><a href="/news/news/2016/06/elephant-calf-rescued-from-drain-in-sri-lanka-video/"><strong>Elephant calf rescued from drain in heart-stopping video</strong></a></em></span></p> <p><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><em><a href="/news/news/2016/05/elephant-lulled-to-sleep-by-caretakers-gentle-song/"><strong>Elephant lulled to sleep by caretaker’s gentle song</strong></a></em></span></p>

News

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Nature boosts memory and attention in children

<p>While it may seem obvious that green space is a beneficial addition to any home or school, a new study has confirmed that way of thinking and gone even further by finding that green spaces and extra vegetation around schools cuts down air pollution and actually boosts memory and attention in students.</p><p>The large study based in Barcelona involved 2,623 schoolchildren and examined the link between greenery and specific cognitive outcomes. Researchers assessed the level of greenery surrounding the children’s homes, along their commutes to school and surrounding the actual schools. Each student then had their working memory and attention spans assessed through a variety of tests over a 12-month period.</p><p>The children with more access to outside space and greenery showed significant progress in working memory and attention span over the course of the research period. This was due In large part to the plant life’s ability to absorb carbon and other pollutants while the green space itself was thought to reduce noise and other environmental stressors.</p><p><strong>Related links:&nbsp;</strong></p><p><strong><em><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="/lifestyle/family/2015/09/how-to-bond-with-grandkids/">Nifty ways to bond with your grandkids</a></span></em></strong></p><p><strong><em><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="/lifestyle/family/2015/08/funny-things-grandchildren-say-3/">The funniest quotes from your grandkids</a></span></em></strong></p><p><strong><em><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="/lifestyle/family/2015/01/quotes-from-grandchildren/">What more hilarious quotes from grandchildren? Read the first part of our series here.</a></span></em></strong></p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>

Family & Pets

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