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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 figur...
How has extreme individual freedom led to a crisis of isolation?
Tim O’Reilly says we should be harnessing technology, rather than fearing it.
How is online learning changing classroooms?
How the clothing industry can change to help the planet.
How can 20 hours of focused practice help you develop surprising levels of new skills?
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 th...
What role does faith play in bringing people together?
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. “...
Explore the role of faith in public conversation
In the United States, the number of people attending church is declining. So where are people going to find meaning and community?
When Duke divinity school professor Kate Bowler wrote her best-selling memoir, “Everything Happens for a Reason (and Other Lies I’ve Loved),” she was grappling with the consequences of a shocking cancer diagnosis. Many of the common messages about hardship, tragedy and success that she’d grown up hearing – and even studied as a religious scholar – no longer seemed to make...
The world seems to be moving and evolving faster than ever before, and democratic ideals are under threat in many countries around the globe. New York Times columnist and journalist Thomas Friedman has spent his career learning how to see things from many sides and identify the seams in the fabric of society. He believes we’re at a moment in time when it’s critical that we...
How do we save ourselves from repeating errors of our past?
Parents have always cared about what their kids are learning in school, but education debates have become particularly explosive in the U.S. in the last couple of years. All over the country, parent groups have introduced bills that try to control and restrict what children learn – especially around issues of race, history, and LGBTQ identity. What’s behind the recent push...
Hear stories on health and human connection around the world from Aspen New Voices fellows.
So much of adult life is about learning the rules and then using those rules to navigate the world. We become certain that we know what we know — that we’re right, and we’re safer and more secure that way. But certainty, argues neuroscientist Beau Lotto, might actually be one of society’s biggest sources of emotional and physical unwellness. Certainty causes us to have les...
Do we really understand what’s happening in the economic lives of regular Americans? Gene Ludwig, founder of the Ludwig Institute for Shared Economic Prosperity, discusses how and why we should pay attention to different economic indicators with Duke law professor and risk analyst Sarah Bloom Raskin, and Oren Cass, director of the conservative think tank American Compass....
How are diet and lifestyle linked to bacterial communities in the gut?
Trust in civic, religious, and academic institutions is at an all-time low in America.