Aspen Ideas to Go

The history of exploration on Mars reads like a good book with twists and turns and unexpected findings. None of these findings, though, have turned up evidence of life. After decades of searching, scientists are hopeful a NASA rover called Perseverance, which touched down on Mars in February, will reveal ancient, long-dead, fossilized life. Sarah Stewart Johnson, planetary scientist and author of...

Twenty years ago, terror attacks on September 11th took place in the United States over the course of a morning but the effects have been felt ever since — politically and psychologically. Journalist Garrett Graff says America lost its innocence that day and the attacks led to a series of consequential blunders by political leaders. The anger, hatred, and fear that emerged from 9/11 and the result...

How is social justice best pursued in a time when America is facing a reckoning on race? In today's cancel culture, many believe making the world a better place means banishing some opinions from the public sphere. John McWhorter, associate professor of English at Columbia University, says this censorious mindset threatens the value of free speech. McWhorter, a linguist and author of over 20 books...

Before Covid-19 began spreading across the globe last year, virologist Nathan Wolfe already knew what was becoming abundantly clear: The world was woefully unprepared to prevent the spread of novel viral threats. To prevent similar devastation, he challenges people to imagine a different future where viruses are regularly tracked in groups of individuals—providing a sort of weather map of viruses....

A person with grit, says psychologist Angela Duckworth, uses passion and long-term perseverance to reach goals. Reaching success, she says, is about stamina over months and years, not talent or a high IQ. In her research, Duckworth studied cadets struggling through their first days at West Point, teachers working in some of the toughest schools, and young finalists in a national spelling bee. She...

People are in constant conversation with their dogs, says dog scientist Alexandra Horowitz, and dogs pick up on things like our tone of voice. "We think meaning is all in the words but for them, the meaning is in the context, and they’re working very hard to understand it.” Horowitz studies dog cognition and the relationship between dogs and their human owners. She runs the Horowitz Dog Cognition...

Representative Liz Cheney is one of nine lawmakers investigating the January 6th attack on the Capitol. The Republican is part of a House select committee that held its first hearing last month. It's critical the committee get to the bottom of what happened that day, says Cheney, but equally important is Americans' acknowledgement that change is needed beyond Washington. “We need to have a very se...

Instead of coming together during the pandemic, many Americans have grown farther apart. People are increasingly living in different realities of news, politics, and information, which is putting public health, elections, and democracy at risk. False and misleading information online are partly to blame, says Vivian Schiller, director of Aspen Digital. "Much of this stems from malign actors, some...

Imagine a new kind of democracy — one that puts governance back in the hands of the people. This is the idea behind political theorist Hélène Landemore's book Open Democracy . Contemporary representative democracies, like in the United States, are broken, she says, so why not reinvent popular rule? In a conversation with Jeffrey Goldberg, editor in chief of The Atlantic , she describes a new parad...

Cryptocurrency is revolutionizing the global financial system and shaking up our perception of trust. Joseph Lubin, co-founder of Ethereum, says the digital currency’s open-source, decentralized system is the opposite of what we’re used to — a bank-led financial system built in backrooms. “It’s a new kind of trust foundation for the planet,” he says. In a conversation with Gillian Tett, US editor...

As many of us know personally, the coronavirus pandemic has taken a toll on mental health. As lockdowns were enacted, loneliness, isolation, and depression increased. Concerns of loved ones dying and fear of contracting the virus affected our well-being. Since April of 2020, about 40 percent of US adults have reported symptoms of depression and anxiety. In 2019, that figure was just 11 percent, ac...

The American Promise—that all men and women are inherently equal—is not being fulfilled because racism continues to corrode our society. Author and veteran Theodore R. Johnson says what’s need is a more multi-racial national solidarity, and the Black American experience has lessons on how to get there. In his book, When the Stars Begin to Fall: Overcoming Racism and Renewing the Promise of America...

The emotionally charged trial of Derek Chauvin for the murder of George Floyd was a milestone case in a country whose legal system has historically been resistant to convict officers for alleged abuses. What did it take to break the blue wall of silence, the informal code among police officers protecting their own? Is it possible to get a fair trial and an impartial jury with this degree of pre-pu...

Insanity can be defined as doing the same thing over and over again but expecting a different result. As a nation, America has cycled through the same defense and intelligence issues since the end of the Cold War. In her book Insanity Defense , Congresswoman Jane Harman chronicles how four administrations have failed to confront some of the toughest national security policy problems and suggests a...

Ransomware attacks on Colonial Pipeline and top meat producer, JBS, have catapulted malware into the mainstream. Ransomware isn't a new threat but it's getting significantly worse, say cybersecurity experts. In recent years, thousands of schools, government agencies, healthcare providers, and small businesses have fallen prey to it. The malicious software that's designed to block access to compute...

People often talk about maintaining their physical health but brain health is an afterthought. It turns out brain fitness at any age heightens and protects brain function and can even prevent brain disease. Sanjay Gupta, author of Keep Sharp: Build a Better Brain at Any Age , Maria Shriver, founder of the Women’s Alzheimer’s Movement, and Natalie Morales, West Coast anchor of NBC’s Today Show, all...

Award-winning author and playwright Ayad Akhtar grapples with identity and belonging just like the protagonist in his book Homeland Elegies . "In some ways being an outsider has given me a freedom to be able to withstand and bear some of the forced outsiderness. It gives me a perspective," he says. His fictional book, named one of the 10 Best Books of the Year by the New York Times , draws from Ak...

Throughout American history, racism has been embedded in health and health care. To justify slavery, scientists promulgated falsehoods about African Americans and health. More recently, social policies rooted in racism have led to less access to care, higher disease rates, and lower life expectancies for communities of color. Science writer Harriet Washington says structural racism is a well-oiled...

The type of conflict that's permeating America today is the intractable kind where normal rules of engagement don't apply. High conflict is the opposite of useful friction or healthy conflict. It's when discord distills into a good-versus-evil kind of feud — an  us  and a  them . Sound familiar? In this time when everything is political, including aspects of the pandemic, everyday Americans are at...

The world's largest economy is rebounding from the pandemic more slowly than other global powerhouses. The European Union's economy is "on crutches," and isn't yet ready to stand on its own, says Christine Lagarde, president of the European Central Bank, which serves the 19 EU countries that use the Euro. Now that Europeans are getting vaccinated and the pandemic's peak has likely passed, she pred...

The professional sports industry in the United States has historically been a man's game. Men have held leadership roles, designed competition formats, chosen which sports stories get elevated, and dictated how athletes are treated. What if pro sports were owned, designed, and run by women? It's already happening, in part, because fans are demanding it. But in the midst of this change, pro sports...

Rodney Foxworth says the racial “wealth gap” is a misnomer because it implies something that’s achievable to close. “Wealth chasm” is more on the nose since we’re talking about disparities created by centuries of oppression. Growing up in Baltimore, Rodney witnessed firsthand what many Black and brown communities face in America—systemic racism, over policing, economic dislocation. Now, as CEO of...

There's no denying the world is already paying for climate change. The price is stronger hurricanes, bigger wildfires, and unpredictable heat waves. So, how can people living on a changing globe literally pay to mitigate the effects of climate change? One solution is to utilize the social cost of carbon, says economist Michael Greenstone. He co-led the development of the US government’s social cos...

America has been shaped by a hidden phenomenon that touches all of our lives. A rigid hierarchy of human rankings, or caste system, influences our culture, politics, and even our health. Race is the metric by which one’s position in the caste system is determined. In her book, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents, Isabel Wilkerson describes how these inherited rankings have been passed down throu...

The United States is facing one of the most difficult tests in its 244-year history. American democracy is struggling, economic and social justice are under interrogation, faith in institutions is declining, and a pandemic is touching us all. Is national unity a far-off dream? Jon Meacham, presidential historian, Samar Ali, research professor of political science and law, and Bill Haslam, former T...