☕️ UK election begins

Today is the UK’s general election. It is expected to be a landslide victory for the Labour Opposition after 14 years of a Conservative UK Government.

Cost of living has ranked as the top concern for UK voters. Annual inflation peaked at above 11% in 2022 — higher than inflation levels in most western economies.

Polls close tomorrow morning (Australian time). It will be very interesting to watch!

“We understand the concerns, we get it. The President did not have a great night, as you all know.”
White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre on U.S. President Joe Biden’s performance at the first Presidential debate last week.

$US176 million ($AU264m)
How much Moderna has been given by the U.S. Government to develop a bird flu vaccine. It comes as several cases have been detected at poultry farms in NSW, Victoria, and the ACT.

1924
The Caesar salad was invented by Italian chef Ceasar Cardini. This year is the 100th birthday of the iconic salad.

An increase in COVID-related deaths has been linked to a drop in Australians’ life expectancy.

The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) analysed data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS). It found the average man and woman born from 2020 to 2022 can expect to live 81.2 and 85.3 years respectively — down 0.1 years compared to 2019 figures.

It’s the first time life expectancy has gone down in Australia since the mid-1990s.

The ABS defines life expectancy as “the average number of additional years a person of a given age and sex could be expected to live”.

AIHW is a Federal Government agency. It estimates life expectancy by analysing data around current death rates specific to age and sex.

Its latest analysis of ABS figures shows Australians born from 2020 to 2022 are expected to live 36.5 fewer days than those born from 2019 to 2021.

COVID-19 was the third leading cause of death in Australia in 2022, according to AIHW. It was the first time in more than 50 years that an infectious disease has appeared in the top five causes of death.

There were nearly 10,000 COVID-19 related deaths in 2022 — 5% of total deaths in Australia that year.

COVID-19 deaths were four times higher in 2022 compared to 2021.

The leading cause of death in 2022 was coronary heart disease, followed by dementia.

Reporting by Harry Sekulich.

Images of Australian children are being used to train artificial intelligence (AI) programs, a global human rights group has found.

Human Rights Watch claims it found photos of at least 190 young people on AI programs without their knowledge or consent.

The images allegedly include information about the children's identities, including their names and locations.

HRW said the images originally appeared online via platforms including YouTube.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) analysed a tiny section of a dataset of nearly six billion images and captions being used for AI training.

In that section, it found hundreds of photos of children from across Australia, taken from personal photo and video-sharing platforms. HRW said some of these images were intended for limited viewing.

HRW raised concern about the potential misuse of these images, like creating realistic deepfake images.

The program operators said they would remove the images after the issue was brought to their attention by HRW.

Because HRW reviewed less than 0.0001% of the entire dataset, it’s warned the scale of non-consensually collected images being used for AI training programs could be significantly higher.

It noted concern around privacy implications for the image subjects, such as future data breaches and the leaking of personal information.

HRW said it found some examples of images being used to train AI that had originally been posted online with some privacy restrictions.

This included content uploaded to YouTube as ‘unlisted’ — a setting that means the video can’t be found through a basic search, and can only be accessed by those with a direct web link.

Unlisted content being hosted on AI platforms is in breach of YouTube’s guidelines. The platform didn’t respond to HRW’s findings when asked for comment.

The sharing of non-consensual deepfake child abuse material is illegal under existing laws in Australia. Last month, the Federal Government introduced a bill to Parliament that would also protect adults from the practice.

Next month, the Government will introduce a bill to enhance protection of children’s data online.

If passed, it’s hoped that these laws will improve online safety for children, and add protections against emerging technologies containing potential safety threats.

Reporting by Daniel Lo Surdo.

Did you know that the super you choose could be a form of individual climate action?

You can learn what your super fund invests in by asking them or checking their website.

According to the RIIA, 83% of Aussies expect their super and investments to be handled responsibly and ethically. If you discover that your current fund doesn't reflect your values, it might be time to consider switching to one that does.

Future Super is committed to ethical investing, steering clear of companies involved in fracking, drilling, or coal mining. Instead, they invest in climate solutions, such as wind and solar farms, alongside social initiatives like healthcare and social housing.

Join over 46,000 members* who are choosing to move their super out of fossil fuel investments and into climate solutions. Joining takes just 5 minutes.

^{*Over 46,000 members as at Jan 2024. Any advice by Future Super Investment Services Pty Ltd is general advice under AFSL 482684 without considering your objectives, financial situation or needs. Before investing, you should read the relevant PDS and TMD issued by Equity Trustees Superannuation Limited, and the FSG and consider if this product is right for you. See here for information on how we invest.}

The injection has been given the green light by the Food and Drug Administration, and will be used to treat patients who are at a mild stage of dementia or have a mild cognitive impairment.

The injection can be administered around once a month, and research has found it was able to successfully reduce the effects of Alzheimer’s on patients.

Reporting by Nandini Dhir.

It turns out humans aren’t the only species with surgeons.

New research has found that brown Florida carpenter ants know how to treat the wounded limbs of their ant friends.

Not only do these ants know how to treat wounded limbs, but they have specific treatments for different kinds of injuries, with some requiring amputation.

The ants take around 40 minutes to complete an amputation with a survival rate of around 90% for femur (thigh bone) injuries.

Isn’t that fANTastic?!

Reporting by Nandini Dhir.

The Government currently has a bill before the Senate which some argue could threaten the ability of Australians to view major sporting events for free.

The debate centres around whether paid streaming services should be able to buy the 'broadcast rights' to major sporting events. In today's deep dive, we'll explain how broadcast rights have worked in the past, why they're being changed and what it could mean for you.