Current Live Lessons
Future Lesson
Hello Natalia,
This time we'll discuss a change to the U.S. school lunch program which substitutes the wheat flour in pasta with chickpea flour. By doing this, the resulting pasta is not a carbohydrate but rather a protein! That's explains the funny headline about pasta being a vegetable. See the videos for lentil pita bread and chickpea pizza!
https://breakingnewsenglish.com/2001/200130-vegetables.html
Quizlet https://quizlet.com/482487523/pasta-is-now-a-vegetable-in-us-schools-flash-cards/
Apr 29, 2021
Lesson 15/17 45min
Hello Natalia,
Today we'll discuss a ted talk by Alex Kipman about holograms using Hololens by Microsoft .
Holographic technology has been around for a while. We have all seen holograms used for entertainment such as concerts with the late Michael Jackson.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDRTghGZ7XU
Do you know of other uses for holograms? In this house of the future, holograms of the parents can keep a young child company.
https://www.trueinterior.com/content/7/the-home-of-the-future
Have you heard of holographic displays?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holographic_display
What about holographic projection?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTcFV4GBX1I
Look at this video from a UAE shopping mall:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWBAhR_cbus
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=noDLH7XzN7Y
A recent news article predicts holgraphic phones calls within 10 years in the UK
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/brits-could-using-holograms-keep-23920038
Some questions about holograms:
http://www.holographer.com/frequently-asked-questions-faq/
Apr 28, 2021
Lesson 14/17 45min
Hello Natalia,
Today we'll discuss the discoveries of Mary Lou Jepsen who uses light to see deep inside our bodies and brains.
https://www.ted.com/talks/mary_lou_jepsen_how_we_can_use_light_to_see_deep_inside_our_bodies_and_brains?language=en
Quizlet:
https://quizlet.com/319172575/ted-talk-how-we-can-use-light-to-see-deep-inside-our-bodies-and-brains-flash-cards/
Wall Street Journal:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/brain-scans-can-detect-who-has-better-skills-1538589600
1. Have you heard of Jepsen before? Now that you have, what is your impression of her and her work?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Lou_Jepsen
2. What happens to the red light she shines on her hand?
3. What do you know about holograms? "In Cologne, Germany she built a holographic replica of pre-existing buildings in the city's historic district and created a holographic display encompassing a city block." Wikipedia Your reaction?
4. What does Jepsen demonstrate with the infrared light and the chicken meat?
5. What is your reaction to the red light being able to go through the skull and focus on an individual neuron?
6. So, the "big honking" MRI machine which costs a couple of million dollars can be replaced resulting in cheaper health care. Do you think the multi-billion-dollar health care industry will let her do that? I remember Elizabeth Holmes and her inexpensive blood tests...
7. She has made chips that decode the holograms she produces. The chips can scan the entire brain by moving from "spot to spot". What do you think about that?
8. What does Jepsen tell us about blood?
9. What does sunshine do and what does Jepsen intend to do based on the fact about sunlight?
10. What will her technology mean for victims of stroke?
11. How much of the world has access to medical imaging technology?
12. What does her technology mean for brain communication and those with brain disease?
Jepsen's website which highlights her projects? Some comment?https://www.maryloujepsen.com/projects
Apr 23, 2021
Lesson 13/17 45min
Hi Natalia!
Today we'll discuss the tedtalk of Dr. Eric Topol about using smartphones with attachments and apps for medical diagnostic testing.
https://www.ted.com/talks/eric_topol_the_wireless_future_of_medicine
Vocabulary.com
https://www.vocabulary.com/lists/7801998
In the video to the right, a news report featuring Dr. Topol.
1.Had you heard about these smartphone attachments and apps?
2. Did you know most Americans cannot have any lab test they want because insurance companies restrict unnecessary testing to keep costs down?
3. Did you know that American doctors and hospitals own patients' medical records? How is the situation in Russia?
4. Smartphones and other technology now make it possible to do diagnostic testing and collect one's own medical records. How will this affect medical care?
5. What do you know about the specific Smartphone attachments that give one the ability to perform a physical exam on oneself?
6. Many doctors say that we should donate our medical data. How might we benefit from a world wide health database?
7. The benefits of self testing are great, but what might the drawbacks be? Could some people avoid doctors altogether and do self diagnosis and self treatment, too?
8. Will health informatics cause high unemployment in the health care industry? Less technicians? Less laboratory workers? Less doctors? What will the impact on the economy be?
9. With electronically stored health data, could there be a loss of privacy? What problems could a breach of privacy cause?
10. It seems that health informatics will make health care more affordable for people, for the government, for employers and insurance companies. However, there will be costs for the required devices and apps and not everyone has a smartphone or the tech savvy to use them. Your comment?
11. Do you envision a new industry which will do the testing for people, but who will charge less than the labs and the doctor's offices?
12. In the near future, will we all wear one device which will measure and monitor our health 24/7?
Apr 21, 2021
Lesson 12/17 45min
Hello Natalia,
This time we're discussing a ted talk about sleep by brain scientist Matt Walker.
https://www.ted.com/talks/matt_walker_sleep_is_your_superpower/up-next?language=en
Vocabulary.com:
1. Had you ever heard that we need sleep after learning to remember the new memories and not forget them?
2. Walker tells us that we also need sleep before learning to actually prepare our brains to take in new information. Is this surprising?
3. In one study, people who stayed awake all night had a 40-percent deficit in the ability of the brain to make new memories without sleep. Is this surprising to you?
4. Walker tells us the hippocampus almost like the informational inbox of your brain. With a full night of sleep, there is lots of healthy learning-related activity, but in those people who were sleep-deprived, there was no significant signal whatsoever. So it's almost as though sleep deprivation had shut down the hippocampus. All students should be informed of this don't you think?
5. Walker explains that there are big, powerful brainwaves that happen during the very deepest stages of sleep that shift memories from a short-term vulnerable reservoir to a more permanent long-term storage site within the brain. What do you know about this deep sleep?
6. We can't get this deep sleep by using sleeping pills, by the way. Unfortunately, they are blunt instruments that do not produce naturalistic sleep. Do you know this?
7. How does this direct current brain stimulation technology sound to you?. Walker inserts a small amount of voltage into the brain, so small you typically don't feel it, to amplify the size of those deep-sleep brainwaves, but in doing so, he can almost double the amount of memory benefit that you get from sleep.
8. He hopes to translate this same affordable, potentially portable piece of technology into older adults and those with dementia to restore some healthy quality of deep sleep, and in doing so, can we salvage aspects of their learning and memory function. How does this sound to you?
9. Walker tell us about sleep loss and our cardiovascular system, because of daylight saving time. Each spring, when we lose one hour of sleep, we see a subsequent 24-percent increase in heart attacks that following day. In the autumn, when we gain an hour of sleep, we see a 21-percent reduction in heart attacks. And you see exactly the same profile for car crashes, road traffic accidents, even suicide rates. Isn't this shocking?
10. Our immune system has natural killer cells which identify dangerous, unwanted elements and eliminating them. Walker shows two pictures of immune system cells attacking a cancer cell. In the second photo, the person has not slept enough so the immune system cells are few, a 70% decrease! Your comment?
11. The link between a lack of sleep and cancer is now so strong that the World Health Organization has classified any form of nighttime shift work as a probable carcinogen, because of a disruption of your sleep-wake rhythms. What do you think about that?
12. Walker tells us a simple truth: the shorter your sleep, the shorter your life. Short sleep predicts all-cause mortality. Your comment?
For more discussion about sleep in a general way, we can use this website:
https://esldiscussions.com/s/sleep.html
Apr 8, 2021
Lesson 11/17 45min
Hello Natalia,
Two ted talks today: one about a child's doll which can be controlled from outside your house by anyone with a smart
phone putting your child in danger!
And, why do we have an emotional connection to robots?
https://www.ted.com/talks/kate_darling_why_we_have_an_emotional_connection_to_robots
1. What do you know about terms and conditions which can change at any time? Do you have this in Russia?
2. How much personal data do you feel comfortable sharing with a company?
3. How do you feel knowing there is no limit to the amount of data a company can collect about you?
4. Were you surprised that the terms and conditions were 900 pages when printed? What is the purpose of that?
5. Shouldn't this be illegal? Why do governments allow companies to behave this way?
6. How shocked are you by the dating service's terms and conditions?
7. Why was Kate Darling feeling sorry for her robot dinosaur?
8. Bomb disposal units have funerals. Did you know that?
9. What is the biological response we have to autonomous moving objects?
10. How are people treating robots today, and what do we understand about ourselves by observing this behavior?
Apr 7, 2021
Lesson 10/17 45min
Hello Natalia!
This time our topic is wisdom. Barry Schwartz tells us that the world needs practical wisdom.
https://ed.ted.com/lessons/our-loss-of-wisdom-barry-schwartz#review
Schwartz characterizes the behavior of the janitors as displaying wisdom. I would describe it as a combination of morals/ethics and emotional intelligence. For me, wisdom is more transcendent and indicates a closeness to God.
Mayer and Salovey (1990) are accredited with first developing the concept of emotional intelligence.
https://positivepsychology.com/emotional-intelligence-interview-questions/
According to Daniel Goleman, an American psychologist who helped to popularize emotional intelligence, there are five key elements to it:
. Self-awareness
. Self-regulation
. Motivation
. Empathy
. Social Skills
Some discussion questions:
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Do you listen to old people in a different way to younger people?
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Do you think peoples opinions are more valid they older they are?
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What do you think it means to be wise?
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Do you think old people are wiser?
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Why?
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Can young people be wise too?
And some more:
http://iteslj.org/questions/whatif.html
https://www.moneycrashers.com/the-three-characteristics-of-a-wise-person/