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With the dawn of 2024, many are eager to embrace the possibilities and set a positive tone for the months ahead. Here are some useful tips on how to start the new year with purpose and enthusiasm:

Reflect on the Past Year: Take a moment to look back on the achievements and challenges of the previous year. Reflecting on the past can provide valuable insights for personal growth and goal setting.

Set Realistic Goals: Establish achievable and meaningful goals for the year. Break them down into smaller, manageable tasks to make progress more tangible and sustainable.

Create a Vision Board: Visualize your aspirations by creating a vision board. Include images and quotes that represent your goals, serving as a daily reminder of what you’re working towards.

Prioritize Self-Care: Start the year by prioritizing self-care. Whether it’s through exercise, meditation, or simply taking time for yourself, self-care contributes to overall well-being.
Declutter and Organize: A clutter-free environment can lead to a clearer mind. Declutter your space and organize your surroundings, creating a conducive environment for productivity and creativity.

Establish Healthy Habits: Integrate healthy habits into your routine, such as regular exercise, a balanced diet, and sufficient sleep. Small lifestyle changes can lead to significant improvements in overall well-being.

Connect with Loved Ones: Strengthen relationships by reaching out to friends and family. Consider scheduling regular catch-ups or quality time to foster connections and support systems.

Learn Something New: Challenge yourself by acquiring new skills or knowledge. Whether it’s taking a course, learning a language, or picking up a hobby, continuous learning adds vibrancy to life.

Practice Gratitude: Cultivate a positive mindset by expressing gratitude daily. Recognize and appreciate the positive aspects of your life, promoting a more optimistic outlook.

Plan for Fun and Adventure: Inject excitement into the year by planning enjoyable activities and adventures. Whether it’s a weekend getaway or trying something new, having experiences to look forward to enhances the overall quality of life.

As we step into the new year, these practical tips serve as a guide for individuals seeking to navigate the year with intention, purpose, and a positive mindset. Remember, the key is to embrace the opportunities that the fresh start of a new year brings and to make the most of the journey ahead.

As the calendar flips to 2024, January steps into the spotlight, adorned with the promise of fresh beginnings and the allure of untapped possibilities. Named after Janus, the Roman god of origins and transitions, this inaugural month beckons individuals to embark on a journey of self-improvement, setting the stage for resolutions and goals.

January serves as a canvas for renewed aspirations, offering the chance to turn the page on the past and envision a brighter future. In the spirit of embracing change, many individuals are gearing up to accomplish wellness, financial, and emotional well-being goals.

To kickstart the New Year with positivity, here are 10 inspiring quotes resonating with the essence of January:

1. “January is the perfect time to reflect on the past year and set intentions for the year ahead.” – Oprah Winfrey
2. “Lots of people go mad in January. Not as many as in May, of course. Nor June. But January is your third most common month for madness.” – Karen Joy Fowler
3. “The magic in new beginnings is truly the most powerful of them all.” – Josiyah Martin
4. “In January, let go of the old; welcome in the new; and cherish the possibilities that lie ahead.” – Ernie J Zelinski, The Joy of Not Working
5. “The start of January marks a time to let go of regrets and embrace the opportunity to make things right.” – Roy T. Bennett, The Light in the Heart (2018)
6. “January, the first month of the year. A perfect time to start all over again. Changing energies and deserting old moods. New beginnings, new attitudes.” – Charmaine J Forde
7. “If January is the month of change, February is the month of lasting change. January is for dreamers… February is for doers.” – Marc Parent
8. “December is letting go, of all the past year’s fails, and starting anew in January, as time again chases its tail.” – Stewart Stafford
9. “January is the threshold to new possibilities; dare to step forward and embrace the unknown.” – A.D. Posey, Poems from an Insomniac (2014)
10. “Every man should be born again on January 1. Start with a fresh page.” – Henry Ward Beecher

In the midst of these inspirational words, January stands as an open door to new opportunities, encouraging individuals to dare, dream, and take the first steps towards personal growth. As the month unfolds, the echoes of these quotes resonate, guiding many towards a positive and transformative start to the year 2024.

 Ian Williams, Alice Brock, University of Southampton
People all around the world traditionally use their new year to embark on a change in lifestyle.

The People’s Climate Vote, a UN survey of public opinion on climate change, highlights that citizens around the world recognise climate change as a global emergency and agree that we should do everything necessary in response.

People are gradually adopting more sustainable lifestyles, but many find it hard to change habits and often don’t know where to start their sustainability journey.

So if you’re looking to make your life greener in 2024, here are some manageable and affordable changes you can make.

1. Eating

We throw away a billion tonnes of food each year. Food waste often generates methane, a greenhouse gas that is more potent than carbon dioxide.

But there are simple changes you can make to eat more sustainably (and often at less expense too). These include eating locally and seasonally, or eating less meat and more plants, especially beans and greens. Beans require no nitrogen fertilisers (which are, in part, produced from natural gas) thanks to their ability to convert nitrogen from the air into nutrients.

Going meat-free on one day each week would be a good start. Eating processed “mock meats” can be a stepping stone towards a more plant-based lifestyle, although they are relatively expensive.

Planning your meals in advance and making sure you eat your leftovers will help you reduce unnecessary waste. And use a microwave for cooking where possible since it is more energy efficient than cooking over a stove.

You don’t have to do them all – choose the ones that work best for you.

2. Travelling

We all need to travel, whether to work, school, university or to the shop. Sustainable travel is a balancing act.

Choosing active travel – walking, wheeling and cycling – is the greenest option, keeping us and our children fitter and healthier while producing no carbon emissions. Try replacing one or two car journeys a week with active travel options if you can.

In urban areas, where you’re travelling shorter distances, active transport is often faster and cheaper than car travel. It also reduces congestion, which is a significant cause of urban air pollution.

For longer journeys, travelling by train or bus is more environmentally friendly than by car and plane. But you often must plan ahead to get the cheapest tickets.

A rear view of businessman commuting to work on a bicycle.
Active transport is often a faster and cheaper way of travelling around a city. Ground Picture/Shutterstock

3. Energy use

The energy we use at home is becoming increasingly expensive and is a significant contributor to greenhouse gas emissions. Making small changes to our daily energy use can make a big difference, both to our bills and household emissions.

Most of these changes are easy and convenient. Turn off lights when leaving a room. Cook food with the saucepan lid on. Turn your home thermostat down by 1°C. Wash clothes and crockery at colder temperatures. Take shorter showers. Unplug devices such as microwaves when not in use and chargers when devices are fully charged. And replace broken halogen light bulbs with more efficient LED versions.

Using the data recorded by a smart meter (if you have one) to monitor your energy use can help you make these changes.

4. Clothing

People love buying new clothes. But “fast fashion” has an astonishingly high environmental and social cost. The fashion industry generates over 92 million tonnes of waste every year, most of which is incinerated, sent to landfill or exported to developing countries.

There are lots of ways to be both fashionable and sustainable. Start by organising your wardrobe so you know what you’ve got before you start shopping, and that anything you buy will “work” with what you currently have.

Don’t throw away damaged items – there are loads of YouTube videos to help you repair clothes and accessories. You can even make your clothing more personal using repair methods such as Sashiko stitching, making the repair a visible feature of your clothing.

Buying second-hand will save you money, and the social and environmental benefits of charity retail are widely recognised. You could also swap clothing you no longer want with friends and family or at swap shops.

Alternatively, you could buy less, but higher quality clothing. These items are usually more durable and last longer.

Young women swapping clothing with each other.
Swap clothing you no longer want with friends or family. Fotoksa/Shutterstock

5. Waste management

We generate more than 2 billion metric tons of solid municipal waste worldwide each year. This figure is expected to increase by 70% by 2050. There are many small changes we can make to reduce the amount we put in our bins.

Writing a shopping list can reduce overbuying and impulse buying. Take reusable bags with you when you shop. And shop packaging free. There are lots of places to buy food without excess packaging like zero-waste shops where customers are encouraged to use containers from home to fill and refill with bulk wholefoods.

Make sure you know what you can recycle locally and follow the advice provided. Reducing waste saves valuable resources as well as reducing pollution and your weekly spend.

By making small changes to our lifestyles, we can collectively move towards a more sustainable future. ( From : The Conversation)

New Delhi — The World Health Organization urges countries in South-East Asia Region to strengthen surveillance and for people to take protective measures in view of the increasing numbers of cases of respiratory diseases, including due to COVID-19 and its new sub-variant JN.1, and influenza.

“The COVID-19 virus continues to evolve, change, and circulate in all countries globally.  While current evidence suggests the additional public health risk posed by JN.1 is low, we must continue to track the evolution of these viruses to tailor our response. For this, countries must strengthen surveillance and sequencing, and ensure sharing of data,” said Dr Poonam Khetrapal Singh, Regional Director, WHO South-East Asia.

WHO has classified JN.1 as a variant of interest following its rapid global spread. In recent weeks, JN.1 was reported in multiple countries, and its prevalence has been rapidly increasing globally.  Considering the available, yet limited evidence, the additional public health risk posed by JN.1 is currently evaluated as low at the global level. It is anticipated that this variant may cause an increase in COVID-19 cases amid surge of infections of other viral and bacterial infections, especially in countries entering the winter season.

“As people travel and gather for festivities during the holiday season, spending a lot of time together indoors where poor ventilation facilitates transmission of viruses that cause respiratory diseases, they must take protective measures and seek timely clinical care when unwell,” said Dr Khetrapal Singh.

The Regional Director also emphasized on the importance of vaccination against COVID-19 and influenza, especially for people at high risk. “All WHO-approved COVID-19 vaccines continue to protect against severe disease and death from all variants including JN.1,” she said.

In May this year, following sustained decline in the trajectory of COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations and deaths, and high levels of population immunity to SARS-CoV2, WHO declared COVID-19 no longer constituted a public health emergency of international concern.

While considerable progress has been made in establishing and strengthening a global system to detect and rapidly assess risks posed by SARS-CoV-2, testing and reporting of COVID-19 cases has decreased.With COVID-19 continuing to circulate at high levels globally, countries must strengthen surveillance, sequencing, and reporting to effectively manage respiratory diseases and to protect people’s health, the Regional Director said.

New York: Hidden inside the foundation of popular artificial intelligence image-generators are thousands of images of child sexual abuse, according to a new report that urges companies to take action to address a harmful flaw in the technology they built.

Those same images have made it easier for AI systems to produce realistic and explicit imagery of fake children as well as transform social media photos of fully clothed real teens into nudes, much to the alarm of schools and law enforcement around the world.

Until recently, anti-abuse researchers thought the only way that some unchecked AI tools produced abusive imagery of children was by essentially combining what they’ve learned from two separate buckets of online images — adult pornography and benign photos of kids.

But the Stanford Internet Observatory found more than 3,200 images of suspected child sexual abuse in the giant AI database LAION, an index of online images and captions that’s been used to train leading AI image-makers such as Stable Diffusion. The watchdog group based at Stanford University worked with the Canadian Centre for Child Protection and other anti-abuse charities to identify the illegal material and report the original photo links to law enforcement. It said roughly 1,000 of the images it found were externally validated.

The response was immediate. On the eve of the Wednesday release of the Stanford Internet Observatory’s report, LAION told The Associated Press it was temporarily removing its datasets.

LAION, which stands for the nonprofit Large-scale Artificial Intelligence Open Network, said in a statement that it “has a zero tolerance policy for illegal content and in an abundance of caution, we have taken down the LAION datasets to ensure they are safe before republishing them.”

While the images account for just a fraction of LAION’s index of some 5.8 billion images, the Stanford group says it is likely influencing the ability of AI tools to generate harmful outputs and reinforcing the prior abuse of real victims who appear multiple times.

It’s not an easy problem to fix, and traces back to many generative AI projects being “effectively rushed to market” and made widely accessible because the field is so competitive, said Stanford Internet Observatory’s chief technologist David Thiel, who authored the report.

“Taking an entire internet-wide scrape and making that dataset to train models is something that should have been confined to a research operation, if anything, and is not something that should have been open-sourced without a lot more rigorous attention,” Thiel said in an interview.

A prominent LAION user that helped shape the dataset’s development is London-based startup Stability AI, maker of the Stable Diffusion text-to-image models. New versions of Stable Diffusion have made it much harder to create harmful content, but an older version introduced last year — which Stability AI says it didn’t release — is still baked into other applications and tools and remains “the most popular model for generating explicit imagery,” according to the Stanford report.

“We can’t take that back. That model is in the hands of many people on their local machines,” said Lloyd Richardson, director of information technology at the Canadian Centre for Child Protection, which runs Canada’s hotline for reporting online sexual exploitation.

Stability AI on Wednesday said it only hosts filtered versions of Stable Diffusion and that “since taking over the exclusive development of Stable Diffusion, Stability AI has taken proactive steps to mitigate the risk of misuse.” (AP)