D-TH7 Science Potpourri 9 - ONLINE

Late 4 Week Class | Available (Membership Required)

Zoom New Paltz, NY 12561 United States
online
10/16/2025-11/6/2025
3:00 PM-4:30 PM on Th
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D-TH7 Science Potpourri 9 - ONLINE

Late 4 Week Class | Available (Membership Required)

Science encompasses a wide variety of topics. This series deals with Humankind and from the beginning of time, we have sought the answer to the age-old questions of:

Who? What? When? Where? Why? How?

 

Oct 16:  Don Grice

     AI Enhanced Prosthetic Devices 

The ability of AI neural network models to be trained on real world data and figure out and recognize complex patterns has opened up a whole new avenue for the application of prosthetics of all kinds.

We will look at the wide variety of new possibilities that are enhanced with the addition of AI pattern recognition and understanding. These include the ones you may be familiar with like artificial legs and arms but enhancements of prosthetic tools needing much finer levels of activity-like hands and self-adjusting hearing aids are also making significant progress.

The most surprising however, and either scary or exciting depending on your viewpoint, are the new developments in brainwave and other nerve ending related outputs which allow the users to control a lot of new devices, including computers, by just ‘thinking about doing something’.

These new advances open up a whole new range of possibilities for people with various spinal and brain injuries that currently prevent most actions from being controlled. The brain itself is still active but the final connection to the muscular system is missing. The AI pattern recognizers can help bridge that gap.

 

 

Oct 23:  Elizabeth Call

     What is Chinese Medicine and How is it

     Useful Today?    

Chinese Medicine includes the following  

 disciplines:

    Acupuncture, Chinese Herbology,

    Dietary Therapy, Exercise, Feng Shui,                                                                            

    Deep Relaxation/Meditation, and

    TUI NA/Body Work

Some of the topics that will be discussed are:

  -  What is the history of Chinese Medicine?

  -  What are the branches of Chinese  Medicine and how they are used?

  -  What are some practical applications?

  -  What are some comparisons and  

       contrasts of Chinese Medicine and  

       Western Medicine?

 

Oct 30:  Lyla Yastion

     Living in Non-local Consciousness 

Living in non-local consciousness is partaking in that universal energy which Einstein called the unified field. We will investigate this primal energy in its several aspects.

Biologically, it is the energy of the Earth’s ecosystem which operates under the law of interconnectedness and interdependence. Socially, it is the social compact described by philosophers such as Rousseau.

Spiritually, it is the energy of compassion and love that enlivens and binds all life forms. In this aspect it is known by various names, such as the Dharmakaya or body of Buddha and the Mystical Body of Christ.

We can learn to live in this pervasive consciousness through the practice of presence, also known as mindfulness and sensory awareness. Awareness is the major attribute of consciousness.

      

 

Nov 6:  Myaing Nyunt

      The Global Threat of Malaria                                                      

Malaria has killed more people throughout human history than any other single cause, including wars. In the last century alone, malaria claimed between 150 million and 200 million lives with transmission occurring on every continent but Antarctica. About 2000 malaria cases are still reported every year in the U.S., primarily among travelers returning from malaria-endemic countries.

In this lecture, we will discuss how malaria is acquired and transmitted, how it is diagnosed and treated, malaria prevention for travelers and for those living in endemic countries, recent scientific advances in diagnosis and treatment, and ongoing efforts at global malaria eradication.”


  • Special Notes
  • Supply List
Don Grice

Dr. Grice has a PhD in Electrical Engineering and worked at IBM in system design for close to 50 years, including a big emphasis on Man-Machine Interaction and large scale parallel supercomputing.  His thesis was in the area of Voice Recognition and Communication similar to what we all take for granted today with systems like Siri and Alexa. He also worked with IBM’s Research Division on programs like Deep-Blue the Chess playing machine, and Watson the Jeopardy machine.  

Elizabeth Call

Elizabeth Call is a Licensed Acupuncturist in practice since 1993, having trained at Tri-State
College of Chinese Acupuncture. Upon graduation, Elizabeth set up one of the first hospital
based acupuncture detox programs in NYC, at Metropolitan Hospital Center in East Harlem, to
support drug abuse detox and recovery. Later, in her role as Dean of Clinical Training at TSCA,
she supervised clinical interns treating those affected by HIV-AIDS, and maintained a private
practice in NYC. When she moved to upstate NY she set up an acupuncture clinic at
Southwestern Vermont Medical Center as part of their Complementary Medicine Department
and continues her private practice in Cambridge, NY. She has also completed additional post
graduate training with several practitioners in different lineages of acupuncture.

Carole E Heyl

Carole holds multiple degrees in Earth Science, Business Administration and Computer Science. She taught Earth and Physical Science to 8th and 9th graders and was a Software Engineer at IBM for 30 years. She served on the Elting Memorial Library Board and presently has been a member of the LLI Council for 8 years. She has served as the Catalog Chairman for 5 years and presently serves as Publicity Chairman as well as Classroom Manager and member of the Curriculum Committee. She created and is Curriculum Chairman for LLI’s Winter Session.

Myaing Nyunt

Myaing Nyunt MD MPH PhD is a retired Associate Professor of Medicine who created and led malaria research programs as a faculty member at Johns Hopkins University, the University of Maryland, and Duke University, with field sites in Zambia, Mali, China’s Yunnan Province, the Chittagong Hill Tracts of Bangladesh, and her country of origin, Burma. Her work was supported by the National Institute of Health, USAID, the U.S. President’s Malaria Initiative, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and has been profiled in Science and Nature. 

Lyla Yastion

Lyla Yastion received a Ph.D. in Anthropology from University of Albany and taught courses in anthropology and religious studies for 18 years at the college level, most recently at SUNY New Paltz. Since her retirement she has been presenting courses at various lifelong learning centers in the Hudson Valley. Lyla has written two books: Pause Now: Handbook for a Spiritual Revolution (2009) and Homesick: finding our way back to a healthy planet (2018) both published by Hamilton Books. A third book, which will be released by Blossom Spring Publishing in April 2025, is entitled My Years as an Alzheimer’s Caregiver: Transcending Loss by Nurturing Spirit. Lyla is a Reiki Master with training in Shamanic Healing. She studied mindfulness under Jon Kabat Zinn and is certified in Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction.

Lyla lives in Tillson with her cat, Henry.