Over the past three decades in the U.S., flood damage due to climate change has cost the country $73 billion, and it will continue to rise as long as we don't do what is necessary to help the environment.
So said a study funded by Stanford University, which details that climate change accounts for one-third of the estimated $199 billion in losses generated by flooding in the country between 1988 and 2017.
"If we apply the empirical analysis to historical rainfall and flood damage, we estimate that about one-third - 36 percent - of the cost of flood damage between 1988 and 2017 is the result of historical changes in rainfall," the paper refers.
The study, which used more than 6,600 state-level flood damage reports to quantify the historical relationship between rainfall and flood damage in the U.S., says that human impact on the environment has increased the likelihood of exceeding precipitation thresholds, which are responsible for most flood damage.
In that sense, he points out that climate models project a continued intensification of wet conditions over the next three decades, although a trajectory consistent with the objectives of the Paris Agreement of the United Nations Organization (UN) significantly slows that increase.
"Given the importance of assessing the costs of climate change against the costs of mitigation options, empirical quantification of losses due to changing natural hazards provides critical information to assist in policy and decision making," he says.
La Voz de Nuestras Raíces is a program aired every Wednesday in production by Peninsula 360 Press. Hosted by Iris Merle and Verónica Martínez Escámez, La Voz de Nuestras Raíces discusses a topic of general interest that crosses the culture and society of events that have marked important milestones for the history of mankind.
Join the conversation and follow Casa Círculo Cultural at Twitter and Facebook every Wednesday, at 1 p.m. (PST).
In the style of the fictional series "Black Mirror", Microsoft has patented a technology, created by its developers, which would make it possible to have a virtual conversation with a person who has died, or so it is believed.
The patent, filed with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, details a method for creating a "chatbot" to converse with a specific person: a "past or present entity ... such as a friend, family member, acquaintance, celebrity, fictional character or historical figure."
In theory, the tool would make it possible to chat about music with David Bowie, or politics with Winston Churchill. However pregnancy, this technology will not see the light, at least for the moment, because the company does not plan to turn the technology into a real product, CNN said in a news release.
Microsoft's general manager of artificial intelligence programs, Tim O'Brien, said in a tweet last Friday, "confirmed there is no plan for this."
According to the patent, the tool would select "social data" such as images, social media posts, messages, voice data and written letters from the chosen person, which would be used to train a chatbot to "converse and interact in the specific person's personality."
These interactions could also rely on external data sources, in case the user asked the bot a question that could not be answered based on the person's social data.
"Conversing about a specific person's personality may include determining and/or using the specific person's conversational attributes, such as style, diction, tone, voice, intent, sentence/dialogue length and complexity, topic, and coherence," as well as using behavioral attributes such as interests and opinions and demographic information such as age, gender, and profession, the patent states.
Similarly, in some cases, the tool could even be used to apply facial and voice recognition algorithms to recordings, images and videos to create a tone and a 2D or 3D model of the person to enhance the chatbot.
Tech giant Google is determined to get involved in the fight against COVID-19, investing $150 million for vaccine education and equitable access, and partnering with One Medical to open vaccination clinics.
"We've seen a five-fold increase in people searching for information about COVID vaccines, which is a sign to us that people are ready for more information," Dr. Karen DeSalvo, Google's chief health officer, told ABC7 Bay Area.
According to an interview by the media outlet, Dr. DeSalvo says Google Maps will soon provide access for people to find a vaccination site near them.
"We will support the World Health Organization (WHO). In the U.S., the CDC Foundation and local community organizations, because that's where trust is built on the front lines of the neighborhood," she added.
Dr. Karen DeSalvo, Google's Chief Health Officer to ABC7 Bay Area
He also noted that Google will provide the facilities, while One Medica will provide the vaccines in partnership with the Department of Public Health.
For the time being, however, Google will begin with vaccination clinics in the Bay Area, which are expected to be ready in the next few weeks.
For his part, Dr. Andrew Diamond, medical director of One Medical, noted that they have been in talks with the Mountain View tech giant since October 2020 so that vaccination sites could become a reality.
According to Diamond, vaccines are being received from the counties, and he said the goal is to get as many people vaccinated as quickly as possible.
He said the reason for the $199 One Medical membership is to remind people of their second dose and to give them access to their virtual care 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
However, under the partnership with Google, One Medical will offer free trial memberships.
"If you are not already a member of a single doctor, you can get a free membership that lasts 60 days. That's enough time to get your vaccine. The idea is that you can get an appointment, depending on the availability of our schedule, which is based on the amount of vaccine we have.
Dr. Andrew Diamond, Medical Director, One Medical
Google's chief health officer, Karen DeSalvo, said the company is open and willing to work with other medical providers in the future.
"We have facilities in more than 30 states in the U.S., and we can make them available once local public health authorities think they can be useful," he said.
A team of neuroscientists and engineers at Stanford University has developed a system that can display the neural process of decision-making in real time, including the mental process of switching between options before expressing a final choice.
These scientists and engineers developed a system that read and decoded the activity of monkey brain cells while asking them to identify whether an animation of moving dots shifted slightly to the left or right.
The system successfully revealed the monkeys' continuous decision-making process in real time, with the ebb and flow of indecision along the way, according to a paper published by the university.
Subsequently, the researchers were even able to influence the monkeys' final decisions through subliminal manipulations of the movement of dots.
"Basically, much of our cognition is due to ongoing neural activity that is not overtly reflected in behavior, so what's exciting about this research is that we've shown that we can now identify and interpret some of these covert internal neural states."
William Newsome , Professor in the Department of Neurobiology at Stanford University School of Medicine
"We are opening a window into a world of cognition that has been opaque to science until now," added Newsome, who is also the Vincent VC Woo Director of the Wu Tsai Neuroscience Institute .
It is necessary to understand that neuroscience studies of decision making have generally involved estimating the average activity of populations of brain cells in hundreds of trials.
However, this process overlooks the complexities of a single decision and the fact that each instance of decision making is slightly different.
"Cognition is really complex, and when it is averaged over a bunch of evidence, important details about how we arrive at our perceptions and how we make our decisions are lost."
Jessica Verhein, neuroscience student and co-lead author of the paper
For the experiments, the monkeys were fitted with a neural implant the size of a pinky fingernail that reported the activity of 100 to 200 individual neurons every 10 milliseconds while digital dots scrolled across a screen.
The researchers placed the implant in the dorsal premotor cortex and primary motor cortex because, in previous research, they found that neural signals from these areas of the brain convey the animals' decisions and their confidence in those decisions.
If you love plants and don't have the space for a greenhouse, that's not a problem, and the Redwood City Public Library is offering a short course this January 28th online and equipping you with what you need to get started.
This Thursday, from 6:30 to 7:45, through Zoom videoconferencing platform, the bookstore will offer a mini course to create a terrarium in a hanging glass globe, which will look perfect in any part of the house, giving a sense of peace and well-being.
In addition, the small course will give information on how to keep a plant alive with a balance of light, humidity and heat.
Terrarium. Creator: Christopher Prentiss Michel
You will also be able to learn about the types of terrariums and plants in order to be able to carry out other handicraft projects.
Terrarium supplies are available for pick up at the center's library from January 23rd, while supplies last.
Please note that registrations are limited to available supplies, on a first-come, first-served basis.
The course is suggested for people over 12 years old, accompanied by an adult, and only an old tablecloth or newspapers will be asked for the work area to facilitate the cleaning.
After the state of California lifted the statewide "Regional Stay Home Order" this morning, outdoor meals and personal services can resume with the necessary modifications in San Mateo.
Thus, with certain restrictions lifted, the county returns to Level 1 purple in the state's four-level color-coded system to reduce and tighten restrictions.
"This is encouraging news, but we must warn the public that COVID-19 is still widespread across the country, with nearly 420,000 Americans having died from the virus in less than a year.
This is a great sigh of relief for our struggling small businesses, but we still have a long way to go before life returns to normal. Science and data tell us that wearing our masks stops the spread. So I'll repeat once again, wear your damn mask!"
David J. Canepa, Chair of the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors
The state lifted the order after projections of the Bay Area's four-week intensive care unit (ICU) capacity are above 15 percent, the threshold that allows regions to exit the order, the county said in a statement.
Thus, the order of limited home stay, which limits non-essential activities between 10 p.m. and 5 a.m., expires when the order of regional home stay ends.
In that regard, San Mateo County specified that it follows all applicable restrictions and guidelines of COVID-19 of California and is fully aligned with the State Plan for a Safer Economy .
Therefore, as of today, open-air restaurants can reopen as long as they respect the modifications - takeaway and open delivery with modifications -, while open-air meetings are now permitted, as long as no more than three households meet.
Similarly, they will be able to open the places of worship outdoors only with modifications, cinemas, gyms and fitness centers, museums, zoos and outdoor aquariums.
In the case of Hairdressers, Barbershops and Personal Care Services, these may be opened provided they comply with the appropriate modifications for Level 1 Purple.
All retailers - except independent grocery stores - and shopping centres, will be able to open with a maximum capacity of 25 percent.
However, common areas as well as food courts will remain closed, and offices for non-essential workers will remain remote.
Playgrounds and recreational facilities are also reopened, provided they are outdoors and with certain modifications.
While there are positive signs that the virus is spreading at a slower rate across the state, the VID-19 pandemic is far from over, so it remains critical that Californians continue to wear masks outside the home, maintaining a distance of at least two meters from other people.
Also wash your hands frequently and avoid meetings and mixing with other households.
As of Sunday, January 24, 2021, the San Mateo County Health Department reported 34,294 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 340 deaths.
Following the January 6 insurrection on Capitol Hill, QAnon, one of the main conspiracy theories of the extreme right in the United States, has become more important, as it is believed to be expanding its strength to other countries and may even become a new religion.
QAnon - short for Q-Anon - emerged in 2017, when an individual began posting under the pseudonym Q on the 4chan forum, which claimed to have access to confidential national security information in the United States.
To date, the theory has gained greater force due to the various conspiracies that are exposed through youtubers that have been hooked on such claims and today could be a real threat to internal security.
This was pointed out by Meili Criezis, a partner in the Innovation Program at the Polarization and Extremism Research Laboratory at American University in Washington, who added that QAnon's core beliefs are basically two elements: "the belief that there is a world controlled by a satanic group of pedophile elites, and the second is the prediction that these individuals will be exposed and executed when 'Recognition Day' comes.
Thus, this group of people who follow such conspiracy theory believe that eventually this Day of Recognition will come, while "conspiracy theorists consider the events on Capitol Hill to be part of the 'storm' before the calm.
The fact is that Donald Trump is part of the equation in such a daring conspiracy theory, since QAnon supporters consider the former American president to be "the one", that messiah who will expose all that network of pedophile Democrats and help the country become a superstate that will help, especially, the Caucasian race.
"A significant portion of Donald Trump's supporters have been attracted to the conspiracy theory, and I suppose it's interesting to think about what this could mean for the Republican Party itself and its future," Criezis said.
While for many of these supporters, the outcome on Capitol Hill on January 6 was not what they expected and they did not achieve their goal - of Donald Trump staying in power - so they began to question "the plan," there are those who are expressing greater loyalty and confidence in the conspiracy theory.
He noted that although companies such as Twitter and Facebook have cancelled and closed accounts for these types of groups, they find ways to communicate through other means, such as WhatsApp and Telegram messaging systems, in addition to Heavenly, Fortune and Parler.
"Although Facebook is trying to eliminate them, and they're doing a good job on Twitter, they still find a way forward despite everything... they're everywhere," he said during the session "Q-Anon, Domestic Terrorism and Threat to Democracy," conducted by Ethnic Media Services.
The associate member of the Global Network on Extremism and Technology noted that QAnon supporters have included other extremist groups on their lists, such as white supremacists or "proud boys.
He noted that, according to several researchers, the QAnon phenomenon has reached places like Canada, Germany and even Japan, in addition to 68 other countries. "It has definitely spread to many countries. The way these conspiracies are taking place in other countries is specific to that environment, so they will not necessarily follow the American context".
For his part, Colin P. Clarke, assistant professor of politics and strategy at Carnegie Mellon Institute, noted that the people who demonstrated at the Capitol are "fanatics or evangelical-Christian religious extremists who see Trump as the second coming of Christ.
This, he said, could be seen in the clothing and objects that the people who participated in the violent demonstrations on January 6 were made to wear, and even images related to the neo-Nazi movement could be seen.
"There is a large dose of anti-Semitism that serves as the connective tissue, so to speak, among many of these groups, in some of them, you also see aspects of misogyny. Especially in the 'proud boys' type and some of the white supremacist type," he said.
The fact is that the acts that took place on Capitol Hill must be re-evaluated, and viewed as "violent domestic extremism.
He explained that "there is a real type of struggle at this time within the federal government within the think tanks and the Academy to establish the right terminology and it is going to be just one of the many challenges we have as we think about how to combat this threat.
The other big challenge, he said, is that there is no domestic terrorism designation, but it is possible that the current federal administration, headed by Joe Biden, will take action.
"The First Amendment right to privacy, which comes into play and must be carefully weighed against any benefits of a domestic terrorism statute, is a solution that people have raised and I think is quite attractive because it is making domestic terrorism a federal crime," he said.
Clarke noted that hate crimes are even considered a different category of crime "and there are many cases where violence has been perpetrated against racial and ethnic minorities that could be qualified in this category - domestic terrorism.
In this regard, he said that the FBI is in charge of domestic issues, the CIA has responsibility for international issues, but now it is necessary to see the links between citizens and groups operating abroad.
"We can work with partners and allies abroad to share information and cooperate on intelligence, extradition, surveillance, reconnaissance and other issues," he said, adding that there is intervention, particularly by Russia, that seeks to fund groups like QAnon that seek to destabilize the country.
The specialist highlighted that one in five people arrested for the insurrection in the Capitol was ex-military, which means they had the capacity and training to bring the demonstrations to a critical point.
"I think these groups are actively recruiting veterans because they have training in the use of weapons and in most cases they have training in operational security and not only does it bring a certain prestige or credibility to a group, but it is also a force multiplier for the group from a tactical perspective," he said.
Ricardo Corzo Moreno, a theologian specializing in Latino churches and former president of the Multiethnic Group of the Presbyterian Church in the United States, pointed out that the fact that Latinos participated in the events that took place on Capitol Hill is that 70 percent of that community is Catholic and another 20 or 25 percent is evangelical.
"Religion has a view that it is very strong in creating bonds in the community and something you have to understand is that it will not allow this world to eventually be divided," he said.
Most of the Latinos who attended the January 6 protests in Washington were evangelicals, and they, he said, "have what we call a literal understanding of the Bible," which even reads in a prophetic and apocalyptic way.
For many of these evangelicals, Donald Trump is God's anointed according to many of the prophecies, "and this is really important to understand their psychological concept when talking to evangelicals about someone being ordained by God.
Corzo Moreno said he was concerned that acts such as those seen on Capitol Hill and QAnon theories could lead to the creation of a new religion, and that it could even cross borders outside the United States.
The above, after several photographs taken on January 6 in the country's capital, the participants carried all kinds of objects and images related to religion, such as the cross, knelt, prayed, filled Bibles and rosaries with them, which links every day, a little more to politics, conspiracy and religion.
Gov. Gavin Newsom, Senate President Pro Tem Toni Atkins and Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon issued a joint clarification Monday on the extension of the moratorium on evictions, which protects California residents from losing their homes to the effects of COVID-19.
"The COVID-19 continues to devastate communities across our state and too many Californians are one paycheck away from losing their apartments or homes. These families need protection and relief now," said California Governor Gavin Newsom.
The official said that this agreement to extend the moratorium on evictions will protect tenants and small owners from losing their homes until June 30 this year.
He added that work is already underway "as quickly as possible to implement California's portion of the latest federal stimulus bill, ensuring that up to $2.6 billion in tenant assistance is administered quickly, equitably and responsibly.
"These critical federal funds, targeted at the most at-risk households with rent arrears, will help tenants stay afloat during and after this pandemic. Tenants with qualified incomes and their landlords may choose to receive direct rental assistance in exchange for forgiveness of prior rental debt," he said.
In that regard, he noted that the moratorium on evictions and the rapid deployment of funds to those most at risk are among the state's priorities; however, there is still work to be done to address the crisis of the structural cost of housing in California.
"The pandemic aggravated these problems, it didn't create them. And our work to address these fundamental problems must continue with urgency and resolution," Newsom said.
The President of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, and his counterpart from the United States, Joseph R. Biden Jr., held a telephone conversation this Friday afternoon in which they agreed to strengthen and strengthen the collaboration between both governments, based on mutual respect and shared hope, for the benefit of both peoples.
From Monterrey, the Mexican president congratulated President Biden for his recent protest, while expressing his best wishes for his administration, as well as his government's willingness to work together on the broad bilateral agenda.
The Mexican Ministry of Foreign Affairs -SRE- pointed out that during the conversation, which took place in a cordial tone, President López Obrador celebrated the recognition of the contributions of the Mexican migrant community in the United States.
In turn, he said that Mexico reiterated the thesis that the basic solution to the migration phenomenon is linked to the promotion of development in the communities of origin.
The two presidents agreed that teams from both countries will work together to advance a common approach to development and well-being.
The heads of state also discussed the challenge posed by the COVID-19 pandemic and stressed that effective cooperation among nations is required to combat it.
In this regard, they agreed that their governments will work together to address various challenges arising from the global health situation.
The President of Mexico was accompanied by the Secretary of Foreign Affairs, Marcelo Ebrard Casaubón, as well as by Alfonso Romo Garza.
