Aspen Ideas Festival

Are you awake? The Afternoon Jam Session brings together some of the nation’s leading young poets, Jookin’ innovator Lil Buck, violinist Robert McDuffie, writer/activist Yosimar Reyes, and more special guests for a spirited hour of cross-disciplinary performance, collaboration, and discussion.

Black in America Since MLK

Is the Internet a “Gift from God”

Not since the atomic bomb has a technology so alarmed its inventors that they warned the world about its use. Not, that is, until the spring of 2015, when biologist Jennifer Doudna called for a worldwide moratorium on the use of the new gene-editing tool CRISPR — a revolutionary new technology that she helped create — to make heritable changes in human embryos.

Can Faith Help Unite Us in Divided Times

Music can lift the spirits and help heal the body. No musician demonstrates that better than Jon Batiste, a “crowd-thrilling rebel bandleader,” according to Rolling Stone magazine. Viewers of "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert" viewers know him best for the exuberant music he conducts with Stay Human.

The pathway to health sometimes travels through a physician’s office, but economic stability, the physical environment, access to nutritional foods, adequate schools, and social support may be even more important way stations. These and other social determinants of health need to be considered in an integrated fashion, engaging collaborators across disciplines

Congress is engaged in vigorous debates about health reform, the federal budget, and other sweeping policy changes that could have a potent impact on health. The future of Obamacare and the possibility that Medicaid may be significantly restructured or cut back dramatically are very much in play. Funding for the biomedical research and public health activities of the NIH, CDC and FDA are uncertain

When Franklin D. Roosevelt signed legislation giving birth to the National Cancer Institute (NCI) in 1937, he brought a decade of political wrangling to a close and created the world's foremost cancer research and training infrastructure. Eighty years later, with an annual budget of some $5 billion, NCI remains at the forefront of investigations into cancer biology

Whether they are tending to an elderly parent, a disabled partner, an injured child, or an ailing friend, most people are deeply committed to caring for those they love. But surely compassionate public policies, generous employer benefits, access to respite and other supportive services, and strategies to train and reward a caregiving workforce can make that arduous task easier.

Thirty-six million people have died of AIDS since 1981, and about as many are living with HIV today. But antiretroviral drugs can suppress HIV blood levels almost completely, making the virus virtually impossible to transmit. That’s the UNAIDS 90-90-90 target for 2020, achieved when 90 percent of all people living with HIV know their status

It has become almost impossible to have a reasoned conversation about reproductive rights. From birth control to abortion, this minefield is strewn with political passion, convictions of faith, and questions of gender identify. Women’s health writ large is in jeopardy as a result. Defunding Planned Parenthood would not only cut off many women from access to family planning