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Through a powerful narrative that’s sure to inspire wonder and awe, Lisa Kaltenegger, director of the Carl Sagan Institute, shares her research on newly discovered planets outside our solar system. Kaltenegger is joined by astronaut and recently retired NASA science chief John Grunsfeld, who famously helped repair the Hubble Telescope in orbit. He was in charge during monumental NASA moments like the Mars rover Curiosity touchdown and New Horizons Mission flyby of Pluto. Their discussion will explore the significance of exoplanets and what it means to map the light spectrum of more than 100 alien worlds—worlds that potentially harbor different kinds of life forms.
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Science
A technological future where our brain waves could be monitored and our thoughts decoded and analyzed — sometimes against our will — is not as far away as we think. But our ex...
Setting audacious goals helps to redefine what is achievable in health, medicine, and science. As we deepen understanding of the human genome, unravel the mysteries of the bra...
What does the latest in neuroscience tell us about human health and consciousness? Aspen Ideas Festival speakers explore how biology is being integrated with technology in unp...
At the 2023 Aspen Ideas Festival, we dug into some of the most important and fascinating issues of our time, from rebuilding trust in our institutions and the promise and peri...
A.I. can find meaningful patterns in otherwise unintelligible noise, so scientists are starting to wonder: Can A.I. help humans interpret animal sounds? Scientist Karen Bakker...
DOORS OPEN AT 6PM. In the film Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Kate Winslet’s character erases painful memories of her ex-boyfriend. Could this be possible in real life...
Stories matter, as do the ways we tell them. Hear from the founder of an audiobook empire and a renowned theoretical physicist on the art and power of capturing and conveying...
The Afternoon of Conversation is the Aspen Ideas Festival's pinnacle programming moment. Over 2,000 people gather in the Benedict Music Tent, an open-air venue with acoustics...
The decline in trust of scientific institutions over the course of the pandemic is manifested in the number of Americans worried about the truth of scientific progress and the...
The mysteries of brain health are hidden deep within the ridges and grooves of the cerebral cortex. Join Mount Sinai Health System neuroscientists in this discussion of new te...
From the first galaxies that grew after the Big Bang, to black holes swallowing their neighbors, to stars and planets being born today in the Cosmic Cliffs, the James Webb Spa...
Featuring three one-on-one conversations, our tenth anniversary closing session is not to be missed! We begin with comedian Iliza Shlesinger, who opens up to bestselling autho...
The world has renewed hope that impactful treatments for Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias may finally be on the horizon. While previous therapies have modestly improv...
Vision, hearing, touch, taste, and smell are the five human senses most of us are fortunate enough to know intimately. We like to say that intuition is our sixth sense, but Em...
When it comes to biomedical research, Earth’s gravity can be an obstacle, making it harder to program stem cells into viable organs, obscuring the crystalline structure of pro...
The belief that the paralyzed will walk and the deaf will hear is a staple of religion, literature, and myth. Now, technology is actually making that happen. Zeen has designed...
Research that can generate transformative, high-impact biomedical and health breakthroughs, from the molecular to the societal, is gaining traction as the Advanced Research Pr...
For many women reaching middle age, menopause is a liberating signal that the childbearing years have come to an end. But with its characteristic hot flashes and complex effec...
Will AI bring in robot doctors? Chat GPT: “Yes, these robots can assist in various healthcare tasks, such as diagnosing illnesses, performing surgeries, or providing personali...
Although essential to ensure the safety and effectiveness of new drugs and devices, clinical trials tend to be costly and slow to reach conclusions, and there is often an imb...