This course is a follow-on to "AI--What is it and Why Should I Care?". It is recommended that participants have completed that course and/or have a basic understanding of the concepts and history of artificial intelligence, especially GenAi.

Genealogy research online has become more popular as records are digitized and made available through Ancestry, Family Search, Find a Grave, Google, and many, many other web sites. We will look at the more popular ones to see what is available.

Generative AI (GenAI) is a type of Artificial Intelligence that can create a wide variety of data, such as images, videos, audio, text, and 3D models. It does this by learning patterns from existing data, then using this knowledge to generate new and unique outputs. GenAI is capable of producing highly realistic and complex content that mimics human creativity, making it a valuable tool for many industries such as gaming, entertainment, and product design. Recent breakthroughs in the field, such as GPT (Generative Pre-trained Transformer) and Midjourney, have significantly advanced the capabilities of GenAI. The first class will be held on campus, the second class will be on Zoom.

This lecture will discuss the techniques that paleontologists and archeologists use to date objects that they find in the field. Most people have some awareness of carbon 14 dating and uranium series dating, but they are unaware of the refinements that have been made to make these techniques reliable. We will discuss these techniques and some of the many other techniques that are used in geochronology. In early versions of Hank Fitzhugh's Ancient DNA class, a version of this lecture was presented as the first session of Hank's class, so for some Silver Frogs, this lecture will be largely repetitive. This lecture is intended to function as an introduction to the lecture entitled "The Fossil Record of Human Evolution: A Very Brief Survey".

Step back into the thrilling 1960s, when NASA’s Project Mercury captured the imagination of an entire generation. This lecture explores the challenges, achievements, and key missions that shaped early space exploration, including the historic flights of astronauts like Alan Shepard and John Glenn. Whether you followed the space missions on your black and white TV set or are only discovering these events for the first time, this class is intended to spark the excitement and sense of possibility at the beginnings of the Space Race.

There's been a lot of recent talk about building Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) instead of new, large nuclear power plants to meet the needs of "The Cloud," Crypto Mining, and Artificial Intelligence. Even non-electric companies are rumored to want to build these to power new facilities. But, so far it is still all talk. SMRs aren't new, numerous companies worldwide had designed and proposed these over the last 30 years. But, up to now, nobody has actually built one. Take this class and see what some of this talk is all about.

This lecture will explore the social and cultural impacts of new technologies on our society. We'll delve into 3D/4D printing-including human organ replacements, medical technology such artificial intelligence/robotic surgeries and finally driverless/autonomous automobiles, buses, trucks, taxi cabs/trains, airplanes, ships.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is all the rage right now. What is AI? Why should I care? How does it impact me? What should I do about it?