LOWER LAKE, Calif. – California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation officials are searching for a minimum-security inmate who walked away from Konocti Conservation Camp on Monday morning.
Inmate Nicolas Dunning, 32, was discovered missing at 7:40 a.m. Monday, officials said. It’s believed that he escaped sometime between 6:30 and 7:15 a.m.
Officials said a search of the camp buildings and grounds was immediately conducted.
The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation’s Office of Correctional Safety, Cal Fire, the California Highway Patrol and local law enforcement agencies have been notified and are assisting in the search.
Dunning is a white male, 6 feet, 2 inches tall, and weighing 181 pounds. He is bald with green eyes.
He was committed to California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation from Imperial County in April with a five-year sentence for assault with a deadly weapon.
Anyone who sees Dunning should contact 911 or law enforcement authorities immediately. Anyone having information about or knowledge of the location of Dunning should contact the CCC Watch Commander at 530-257-2181, Extension 4173.
Since 1977, 99 percent of all offenders who have left an adult institution, camp or community-based program without permission have been apprehended, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation reported.
Babies born 10 miles apart could represent a life expectancy difference of almost 33 years. Ana Prego/shutterstock.com
Newly released data on life expectancy across the U.S. shows that where we live matters for how long we live.
A person in the U.S. can expect to live an average of 78.8 years, according to the most recent numbers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
However, life expectancy varies widely across geography. A child born in Mississippi today could expect to never reach his or her 75th birthday. But a child born in California, Hawaii or New York could expect to reach their expect to live into the early 80s.
At the neighborhood level, these differences are sometimes even more drastic, appearing even when communities are only a few miles apart. In Washington, D.C., for example, people living in the Barry Farms neighborhood face a life expectancy of 63.2 years. Yet, less than 10 miles away, a baby born in Friendship Heights and Friendship Village can expect to live 96.1 year, according to CDC data.
Just 10 miles represent a life expectancy difference of almost 33 years, a generation lost due to premature deaths. Overall, any two census tracts in the U.S. can differ in expected life expectancy by 41.2 years, a staggering range. These missing lives have important social and economic costs, for families, communities and workplaces.
Neighborhoods with large black populations tend to have lower life expectancies than communities that are majority white, Hispanic or Asian. Such racial differences reflect the places in which different races live, not the individual characteristics of people themselves. Research shows that black communities are less likely to have access to resources that promote health, like grocery stores with fresh foods, places to exercise and quality health care facilities. This is true even in middle-class neighborhoods.
These communities also have less opportunities for economic prosperity, with higher unemployment rates and fewer opportunities to work and quality education, all of which shape health outcomes across a lifespan.
How well a place is doing economically affects how long people who live there can expect to live. Places that are economically distressed, for example, tend to have the lowest life expectancies. As new research from the Census Bureau and researchers at Harvard and Brown universities shows, children from places that are economically disadvantaged tend to have worse outcomes as adults.
People who earn less also tend to die sooner. One study from Raj Chetty, a leading researcher on economic opportunity and health, and colleagues suggests that lower incomes are associated with shorter lifespans in the U.S. Income is not distributed evenly across the country. Uneven income patterns may reflect unequal public investments in social programs that help people earn more, like education.
Place, race and class shape how well, and how long, people live. But state and local governments could play a role in increasing life expectancies. Research shows that where local government spending is higher, life expectancies increase among those with lower incomes.
From my perspective of a public health researcher, investments that could improve health behaviors – such as building grocery stores, increasing exercise opportunities and discouraging smoking – could also increase life expectancy. Policies that promote economic prosperity and address the impacts of racial segregation – such as investments in quality education, safe and affordable housing, and improved public transportation – could also help.
Life expectancy is not the only or the best way to measure health and well-being in the U.S. But it is a good way to measure the country’s progress toward good health for all populations, regardless of where they live.
In science fiction, explorers can hop in futuristic spaceships and traverse half the galaxy in the blink of a plot hole.
However, this sidelines the navigational acrobatics required in order to guarantee real-life mission success.
In 2021, the feat of navigation that is the Lucy mission will launch.
To steer Lucy towards its targets doesn’t simply involve programming a map into a spacecraft and giving it gas money – it will fly by six asteroid targets, each in different orbits, over the course of 12 years.
Lucy’s destination is among Jupiter’s Trojan asteroids, clusters of rocky bodies almost as old as the Sun itself, and visiting these asteroids may help unlock the secrets of the early solar system.
Lucy will encounter a Main Belt asteroid in 2025, where it will conduct a practice run of its instruments before encountering the first four Trojan targets from 2027-2028.
In 2033, Lucy will end its mission with a study of a binary system of two Trojans orbiting each other.
Getting the spacecraft where it needs to go is a massive challenge. The solar system is in constant motion, and gravitational forces will pull on Lucy at all times, especially from the targets it aims to visit. Previous missions have flown by and even orbited multiple targets, but none so many as will Lucy.
Scientists and engineers involved with trajectory design have the responsibility of figuring out that route, under Flight Dynamics Team Leader Kevin Berry of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.
One such engineer is Jacob Englander, the optimization technical lead for the Lucy mission. “There are two ways to navigate a mission like Lucy,” he said. “You can either burn an enormous amount of propellant and zig-zag your way around trying to find more targets, or you can look for an opportunity where they just all happen to line up perfectly.”
To visit these aligned targets, the majority of Lucy’s high-speed lane changes will come from gravity assists, with minimal use of fueled tweaks.
Though Lucy is programmed to throw itself out into a celestial alignment that will not occur for decades, it cannot be left to its own devices. Once the spacecraft begins to approach its asteroid targets, optical navigation is the next required step.
“OpNav,” as optical navigation technical lead Coralie Adam refers to it, is the usage of imagery from the on-board cameras to determine Lucy’s position relative to the target. This is a useful measurement used by the navigation team to tweak Lucy’s route and ensure it stays on the nominal flyby path. Adam works in Simi Valley, California, with KinetX, the company NASA selected to conduct Lucy’s deep space navigation.
By using the communications link from the spacecraft to Earth, Adam said, the Lucy team gets information about the spacecraft’s location, direction and velocity. The spacecraft takes pictures and sends them down to Earth, where Adam and other optical navigators use software to determine where the picture was taken based on the location of stars and the target.
The orbit determination team uses this data along with data from the communications link to solve for where the spacecraft is and where it is expected to be, relative to the Trojans. The team then designs a trajectory correction maneuver to get Lucy on track.
“The first maneuver is tiny,” said navigation technical lead Dale Stanbridge, who is also of KinetX. “But the second one is at 898 meters per second. That’s a characteristic of Lucy: very large delta V maneuvers.” Delta V refers to the change in speed during the maneuver.
Communicating all of these navigation commands with Lucy is a process all on its own.
“Lockheed Martin sends the commands to the spacecraft via the Deep Space Network,” Adam said. “What we do is we work with Lockheed and the Southwest Research Institute, where teams are sequencing the instruments and designing how the spacecraft is pointed, to make sure Lucy takes the pictures we want when we want them.”
“The maneuvers to correct Lucy’s trajectory are all going to be really critical because the spacecraft must encounter the Trojan at the intersection of the spacecraft and Trojan orbital planes,” Stanbridge said. “Changing the spacecraft orbital plane requires a lot of energy, so the maneuvers need to be executed at the optimal time to reach to next body while minimizing the fuel cost.”
While Lucy is conducting deep space maneuvers to correct its trajectory toward its targets, communications with the spacecraft are sometimes lost for brief periods. “Blackout periods can be up to 30 minutes for some of our bigger maneuvers,” Stanbridge said. “Other times you could lose communications would be when, for example, the Sun, comes between the Earth tracking station and the spacecraft, where the signal would be degraded by passing through the solar plasma.”
Losing contact isn’t disastrous, though. “We have high-fidelity predictions of the spacecraft trajectory which are easily good enough to resume tracking the spacecraft when the event causing a communication loss is over,” Stanbridge said.
What route will Lucy take once its mission is complete, nearly 15 years from now? “We’re just going to leave it out there,” Englander said. “We did an analysis to see if it passively hits anything, and looking far into the future, it doesn’t.”
The Lucy team has given the spacecraft a clear path for thousands of years, long after Lucy has rewritten the textbooks on our solar system’s history.
The Lucy mission is led by Principal Investigator Dr. Hal Levison from Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado. NASA Goddard in Greenbelt, Maryland, manages the mission. Lockheed Martin Space in Denver will build the spacecraft and conduct mission operations.
For more information about NASA's Lucy mission, visit www.nasa.gov/lucy.
Tamsyn Brann works for NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – The National Weather Service has issued a wind advisory for New Year’s Eve that covers southern Lake County and other parts of Northern California.
The advisory is in effect from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday.
Officials said a wind advisory means that wind gusts of 40 miles per hour are expected, which it said can cause hazardous driving conditions for small cars or high profile vehicles.
The regional forecast calls for north winds of 15 to 30 miles per hour with gusts around 40 miles per hour.
The specific Lake County forecast anticipates wind gusts into the 50s in the south county and the northern Mountains.
Temperatures in Lake County are forecast to dip into the low 30s at night, rising into the high 50s during the daytime hours.
In other weather news, chances of showers are forecast to return this weekend.
Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.
Depending on your own religious inclinations, the idea of saints conjures up different associations.
To some, they imagine comfort, protection, righteousness and concrete evidence of God’s presence in the world. To others, they imagine persecution, dogmatic adherence and clericalism.
Regardless of your views, I think it’s safe to say that many people don’t think of America, when they think of saints.
And yet, there is Elizabeth Ann Seton, the first American-born saint.
Elizabeth Ann Bayley couldn’t have been more American. She was an actual daughter of the American Revolution, having been born in 1774, just two years before the Declaration of Independence was penned.
By marriage and by parentage, she was the fruit of generations of wealthy and influential New Yorkers. Elizabeth’s father, Dr. Richard Bayley, raised her as a good Episcopalian, and she learned the disciplined religious observance characteristic of the Episcopal faith.
At 19, Elizabeth was the belle of New York and she liked it. She soon married William Magee Seton, a wealthy businessman. Over the next several years, the happy couple had five children.
Following in her father’s footsteps, Elizabeth Ann Seton became deeply involved in philanthropic work and in 1797, together with Isabella Graham and other women of elite New York society, she formed the Society for the Relief of Poor Widows with Small Children – the city’s first charitable organization.
Everything went to Hell for Elizabeth when her husband died of tuberculosis and the business failed. Widowed at just 30 and with five children to care for, she was terrified.
While her husband still lived, she had travelled with him to Italy to seek a cure for his ailment. While there, in the capital of the Catholic faith, she observed what she considered the quiet, but deep devotion to God’s will.
She also met some old friends of her husband’s, who were also Catholic, providing her a up-close look at the faith. Although her husband and her left with no cure, Elizabeth herself returned to America with a new interest.
After her husband’s death, against all sense and the wishes of family and friends, Elizabeth converted to Catholicism in March of 1805, one year after her husband’s death.
Herself now a widow with small children, she found it almost impossible to earn a living. Like many of the young women she had helped through the charitable organization, Elizabeth now had no support from her family and friends.
The moment she had converted, she was cast out from society almost entirely. For a time she operated a small school for boys, in order to scrape by, but things were still looking grim.
In early America, and for a century later, anti-Catholic sentiment was rampant. As ardent Protestants, the faithful in America held a deep-seated distrust for Catholics, in part stemming from what they perceived as their following to a distant potentate in Rome.
It didn’t help that Catholicism was so centralized compared to the more regional individuality of American Protestantism. It is easier to ascribe conspiratorial ambitions to an organized group with international reach.
Later in the 1830s, as nativist sentiment in America reached a fever pitch, lurid rumors about sexual slavery and infanticide spurred riots against Catholics in cities like Philadelphia.
For now, Elizabeth only had bigots to deal with. After facing difficulty with her school for boys, she accepted an invitation in 1808 from the priest (later bishop) Louis William Dubourg, president of St. Mary’s College in Baltimore, Maryland. Dubourg wanted Ann to open a school for Catholic girls in that city.
Together with several young women who joined in her work, Elizabeth transported her mission of charity in a new city. Meanwhile, members of the Catholic hierarchy and the Italian friends she had met in Italy, paid for the education of her two sons at Georgetown University.
With her children’s future secured, Elizabeth fulfilled a dream of hers and in 1809 founded a religious community. Seton and the other women she worked with took the oath and became the Sisters of St. Joseph, the first American-based Catholic sisterhood.
A few months later Mother Seton and the sisters moved their home and school to Emmitsburg, Maryland, where they provided free education for the poor girls of the parish.
Until her death in 1821, Mother Seton piloted what many consider the first Catholic parochial school in the United States.
Not all was rosy for Mother Seton. Two of her daughters died of the very disease that had taken her husband and Mother Seton herself continuously struggled with the disease. Ultimately, tuberculosis would claim her too.
Elizabeth Ann Seton’s legacy was legion, including the inspiration for Seton Hall College, which was named after her and remains a school of higher education to this day. She was officially canonized in 1975.
St. Elizabeth Ann Seton’s feast day is Jan. 4, and she is the patron saint of widows. She was the first American born Catholic saint. Often depicted in a voluminous, black dress and bonnet typical of New England at the time, St. Elizabeth Ann Seton certainly looks the part.
Antone Pierucci is curator of history at the Riverside County Park and Open Space District and a freelance writer whose work has been featured in such magazines as Archaeology and Wild West as well as regional California newspapers.
LAKEPORT, Calif. – The Board of Supervisors convened a brief special meeting on Friday morning in order to renew several proclamations for local emergencies.
The meeting, the board’s last of 2018, was attended by all but Supervisor Rob Brown and lasted about 10 minutes.
Interim County Health Officer Dr. Erin Gustafson went before the board to ask that the proclamation of a local health emergency by the Lake County health officer due to the Mendocino Complex fire be extended.
Gustafson said the special meeting to renew the proclamation was needed due to there being two holidays in a row – which meant the board wouldn’t normally have met within the time frame needed to approve extending the proclamation.
“The debris cleanup has not been quite completed and there is still soil testing that needs to be done,” she said, and therefore there may be exposure to hazardous substances that may lead to acute and chronic health risks.
“The local health emergency proclamation is necessary in order to protect the health and safety of the public,” Gustafson added.
The board approved renewing the proclamation 4-0.
Undersheriff Chris Macedo joined Gustafson to ask the board to continue the local emergency due to the Mendocino Complex because of the ongoing recovery efforts.
Gustafson reported that 177 sites that were burned during the complex have registered for debris removal and removal has been completed on 137 of those sites, with 69 sites completed and waiting for rebuilding. Another 20 sites registered for private cleanup, with seven of those sites ready for new structures.
She said the cleanup has been postponed due to hazardous road conditions. Once the weather improves the cleanup will restart.
The board unanimously approved continuing the local emergency before going on to also approve continuing emergencies for the June Pawnee fire, the October 2017 Sulphur fire, the August 2016 Clayton fire and the 2017 atmospheric river storm.
Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.
LAKEPORT, Calif. – During its last regular meeting of the year, the Board of Supervisors held an initial discussion on rules for vacation rentals, short-term housing and unhosted units, with plans to bring the matter back for further consideration in January.
Community Development Director Michalyn DelValle held the workshop with the board at its Dec. 18 meeting.
She said vacation rentals and short-term housing – such as are featured by AirBNB – are not currently regulated under the Lake County Zoning Ordinance.
Between 250 and 300 units are believed to be occupied in Lake County, she said. The county isn’t sure if they’re vacation units, beds and breakfasts.
DelValle said the zoning ordinance does currently regulate hotels, motels, bed and breakfasts, bed and breakfast inns and recreation vehicle parks. They are used for 30 calendar days or less, with the exception of bed and breakfasts, which have a maximum stay of 14 days.
Hotels and motels have to go through a design review process for permitting. Bed and breakfasts – which have two or fewer guest rooms – are permitted with a minor use permit in several zoning designations, except for two, where they’re permitted with a major use permit. A bed and breakfast inn has three to eight guest rooms.
DelValle said a recreational vehicle park can be permitted in various zoning districts subject to obtaining a major use permit.
She wanted to talk with the board about vacation rentals and how some other jurisdictions have been permitting them.
Based on DelValle’s research, most other jurisdictions permit vacation rentals with a zoning permit over the counter if they’re under a threshold of a certain number of rooms. Typically, they have a maximum occupancy, and septic and sewer system loads will limit the number of rooms that can be rented out.
Some jurisdictions limit the number of daytime visitors, and many set a limit of one vacation rental per parcel and specify the number of parking spaces, she said.
Regarding noise, DelValle said applicable noise standards already are in the Lake County Zoning Ordinance.
Some other jurisdictions have quiet hours, which typically are 10 p.m. to 7 a.m.; require that a property manager be located within a certain distance so they can respond to complaints and a notice must be posted regarding the property manager’s name and contact information; and require legal noticing to notify the neighbors even if the vacation rental can be permitted with the zoning permit, she said.
Other rules DelValle found in her research included trash management guidelines, a required distance between rentals and a complaint process that allows for permit revocation if there are three complaints within a year.
“Some jurisdictions flat-out prohibit them,” DelValle said of vacation rentals.
DelValle sought direction from the board regarding whether its members wanted to establish a permit process since the county doesn’t have one or if they want to simply prohibit them. She said typically vacation rentals are prohibited where single family dwellings are a permitted use.
Board members indicated their desire to consider the matter further.
Supervisor Moke Simon – who called AirBNB the world’s largest hotel – said he is seeing a lot of homes in his district rented out, and he wanted an in-depth discussion.
Supervisor Jeff Smith said parking is the biggest issue, and making sure there is plenty of it – at least one parking space for every two people.
The board agreed to hold a longer discussioni on the matter on Jan. 29.
Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – Lake County Animal Care and Control has a new, big group of dogs – most of them puppies – seeking their perfect, loving homes.
Dogs available for adoption this week include mixes of boxer, Chihuahua, Dachshund, husky, Labrador Retriever, pit bull, Shar Pei and shepherd.
Dogs that are adopted from Lake County Animal Care and Control are either neutered or spayed, microchipped and, if old enough, given a rabies shot and county license before being released to their new owner. License fees do not apply to residents of the cities of Lakeport or Clearlake.
If you're looking for a new companion, visit the shelter. There are many great pets hoping you'll choose them.
The following dogs at the Lake County Animal Care and Control shelter have been cleared for adoption (additional dogs on the animal control Web site not listed are still “on hold”).
‘Jax’
“Jax” is a male shepherd-husky mix with a short tan and white coat.
He’s in kennel No. 15, ID No. 11547.
Male pit bull terrier
This male pit bull terrier has a short brindle and white coat.
He’s in kennel No. 18, ID No. 11543.
Senior Chihuahua
This senior male Chihuahua has a short black and gray coat.
He already has been neutered.
He’s in kennel No. 19, ID No. 11560.
Shar Pei-Labrador Retriever
This female Shar Pei-Labrador Retriever has a medium-length red coat.
She’s in kennel No. 20, ID No. 11562.
‘Tank’
“Tank” is a male pit bull terrier with a short brown brindle coat.
He already has been neutered.
He’s in kennel No. 21, ID No. 7002.
Male boxer puppy
This male boxer puppy has a medium-length black and brown coat.
He already has been neutered.
He’s in kennel No. 26, ID No. 11537.
Male boxer puppy
This male boxer puppy has a medium-length tricolor coat.
He already has been neutered.
He’s in kennel No. 26, ID No. 11538.
Male boxer puppy
This male boxer puppy has a short black and brown coat.
He already has been neutered.
He’s in kennel No. 26, ID No. 11533.
Female boxer puppy
This female boxer puppy has a medium-length black and brown coat.
She has already been spayed.
She’s in kennel No. 27, ID No. 11534.
Female boxer puppy
This female boxer puppy has a medium-length black and brown coat.
She has already been spayed.
She’s in kennel No. 27, ID No. 11535.
Female boxer puppy
This female boxer puppy has a medium-length black and brown coat.
She has already been spayed.
She’s in kennel No. 27, ID No. 11536.
Male Dachshund puppy
This male Dachshund puppy has a short buff-colored coat.
He already has been neutered.
He’s in kennel No. 31a, ID No. 11553.
Male Dachshund puppy
This male Dachshund puppy has a short black and tan coat.
He already has been neutered.
He’s in kennel No. 31b, ID No. 11554.
‘Luna’
“Luna” is a female Dachshund with a short black and tan coat.
She’s in kennel No. 32, ID No. 11552.
Lake County Animal Care and Control is located at 4949 Helbush in Lakeport, next to the Hill Road Correctional Facility.
Office hours are Monday through Friday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., and 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., Saturday. The shelter is open from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday and on Saturday from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.
For more information call Lake County Animal Care and Control at 707-263-0278.
Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – “New Books for the New Year” will be on display through Jan. 5 at all branches of the Lake County Library.
The library invites the public to browse and check out more than 500 new books and DVDs that were purchased with $8,500 from the Friends of the Lake County Library.
The Friends of the Lake County Library raised the money through a capital campaign fundraiser earlier this year.
All branches of the Lake County Library will receive books and other items from this new collection. New items include children’s books, audio books, DVDs, large print fiction and non-fiction adults.
Jan Cook is a library technician at the Lakeport Library.
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – Cal Fire’s Sonoma Lake Napa Unit would like to remind residents to please use caution while conducting debris burning this winter and urges residents to be aware of the weather – particularly wind – before conducting their debris burning.
Residents of Sonoma, Lake, Napa, Colusa, Yolo and Solano counties can expect to see smoke in the air regularly, as their neighbors and Cal Fire prepare for the 2019 fire season.
Safe residential pile burning of forest residue by landowners is a crucial tool in reducing fire hazards, said Cal Fire Sonoma Lake Napa Unit Chief Shana Jones.
Jones said residents are responsible for making sure all guidelines and regulations from your local air quality management districts are followed.
Debris burning requirements include:
• Only dry, natural vegetative material such as leaves, pine needles and tree trimmings may be burned. • The burning of trash, painted wood or other debris is not allowed. • Do not burn on windy days. • Piles should be no larger than four feet in diameter and in height. You can add to pile as it burns down. • Clear a 10-foot line down to bare soil around your piles. • Have a shovel and a water source nearby. • An adult is required to be in attendance of the fire at all times.
Individuals are asked to use caution and follow all guidelines and maintain control of the fire at all times.
Residents must verify it is a permissive burn day prior to burning.
Call the Lake County Air Quality Management District at 707-263-7000.
Other regional fires districts are as follows:
• Northern Sonoma County Air Pollution Control District: 707-565-2876. • Colusa County Air Pollution Control District: 530-458-0581. • Yolo-Solano Air Quality Management District: 530-757-3660. • Bay Area Air Quality (for Napa and southern Sonoma County): 415-749-5000.
As technologies change, so does the advice security experts give for how to best stay safe. As 2019 begins, I’ve pulled together a short list of suggestions for keeping your digital life secure and free of manipulative disinformation.
1. Set your boundaries and stick to them
As part of my research, I’ve recently been speaking with a number of sex workers in Europe about their digital security and privacy. One consistent thing I’ve heard from them is, “The best way to stay safe is to set boundaries.” Decide – on your own, and in advance – what data you’re willing to share with apps and online services, and stick to those limits.
That way, when the latest new app asks you for a permission that oversteps what you’re willing to share, you’ll be more prepared to answer. Also set limits on the online discussions you’re willing to participate in; bow out when a discussion is hurting more than helping you. It’s even useful to set boundaries for how much time you’re willing to spend on digital security – which could be an endless task.
Free online tools like AllSides and Purple Feed are some places that show news reports and social media posts from differing political perspectives, and identify information that’s generally agreed upon across the political spectrum.
3. Manage your passwords
The biggest threat to password security is no longer the strength of your passwords but the fact that many people reuse the same passwords for all, or many, of their accounts. Researchers are busy designing notifications to tell you when one of these reused passwords has been leaked to the world, but it’s safer to use different passwords, especially for your most valuable accounts.
You can use password manager software. Or, use the original low-tech method, writing your passwords down on paper. Believe it or not, it’s much safer to write them down than reuse the same password everywhere. Of course, this is true only if you’re sure the people you live with or frequent visitors to your home won’t try to get into your accounts.
4. Turn on multi-factor authentication
Adding an additional step for logging in to your most important social media, email and financial accounts can add lots of protection. Multi-factor authentication systems are best known for texting you a six-digit code to type in as part of your login process. While any multi-factor authentication is better than none, text messages can fairly easily be intercepted or spied on. An even safer route is to use a special code-generating app on your phone.
People who change phones or SIM cards often, or who want additional protection, might consider using a physical key that plugs into your computer to authorize a login. They can take a bit more time to set up initially, but then work much faster than most other methods.
If you don’t use an app anymore, uninstall it from your phone. If you need it again, you can always reinstall it quickly – but in the meantime, it won’t be tracking you around the world and around the web.
6. Keep the apps you do use up-to-date
Software companies don’t always know about all the vulnerabilities in their programs – and when they issue updates users don’t always know if they’re fixing a major problem or something minor. The top piece of advice experts give is to keep your software up-to-date on your computers and your mobile devices.
Having spent 2018 worrying about how hackers, corporate executives and hurried programmers might be trying to exploit your data and your cognitive and digital vulnerabilities, resolve to be more secure in 2019.
ALBANY, Calif. – Smoke generated by wildfires can cool river and stream water temperatures by reducing solar radiation and cooling air temperatures, according to a new study in California’s Klamath River Basin.
“Wildfire Smoke Cools Summer River and Stream Water Temperatures,” published recently online in the journal Water Resources Research, suggests that smoke-induced cooling has the potential to benefit aquatic species that require cool water to survive because high summer water temperatures are a major factor contributing to population declines, and wildfires are more likely to occur during the warmest and driest time of year.
Native American tribes and other entities measuring river water temperatures in the Klamath Basin had previously noticed drops in river temperatures during periods of heavy smoke, but this is the first study to demonstrate this phenomenon with rigorous statistical analysis of long-term datasets.
Co-author Frank Lake, a research ecologist with the U.S. Forest Service’s Pacific Southwest Research Station, says historical wildfire patterns are quite different than those of present day, yet likely share similarities in regards to this new concept.
“Prior to modern fire suppression, wildfires burned extensively throughout much of the Western United States, and smoke from these fires may have naturally cooled water temperatures during the summer when temperatures are hottest,” Lake said.
Bill Tripp, deputy director of the Karuk Tribe Department of Natural Resources, says this research provides a great example of how traditional ecological knowledge is used to focus a refined view under the western scientific framework and better understand the specific functions these processes provide.
“The ecological principles explored here are in no way new,” Tripp said. “In fact, there are cultural burning practices associated with Karuk World Renewal Ceremonies specifically for the purpose of ‘calling in the salmon’ that are directly connected to these factors.”
This study analyzed ground-based measurements of water, air and river hydrological data collected from stations throughout the lower Klamath River Basin in correlation with atmospheric smoke data derived from NASA satellite imagery.
In total, the data encompassed six years of extensive wildfire occurrence between 2006 and 2015.
LeRoy Cyr, a fish biologist with the Six Rivers National Forest, said this research is a result of a long-term collaborative effort.
“Over 20 years ago, we set out to answer some basic research questions when we began our collaborative stream temperature monitoring at numerous sites along the lower-mid Klamath River," Cyr said. "This pattern that emerged from the data is advancing our understanding of the cooling effects of smoke from wildland fires and the beneficial effects to salmonid survival during our critical summer period.”
Lake co-authored the study along with U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologist Aaron David and aquatic ecologist Eli Asarian of the consulting firm Riverbend Sciences. The project was funded in part by the Klamath Tribal Water Quality Consortium.
Headquartered in Albany, California, the Pacific Southwest Research Station is part of the U.S. Forest Service’s Research and Development branch developing and communicating science needed to sustain forest ecosystems and other benefits to nature and society.
Pacific Southwest Research Station scientists are engaged in research across a network of 14 experimental watersheds, ranges and forests and eight research facilities in California, Hawaii and the U.S.–affiliated Pacific Islands.
Research is organized into five research units: conservation of biodiversity, ecosystem function and health, fire and fuels, urban ecosystems and social dynamics, as well as Pacific Islands forestry.