--- title: Five Best Ideas of the Day: September 18 description: Islamic State wants Syria's chemical weapons, fulfilling the promise of personalized education, veterans do disaster relief and more. canonical: https://time.com/3397934/five-best-ideas-of-the-day-september-18/ author: TIME article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-09-18T16:01:07.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-05-11T04:43:03.546Z article:section: Ideas og:title: These Are Today's Best Ideas og:description: Learn about: how Islamic State is seeking Syria's chemical weapons, connecting veterans to disaster relief work, how Facebook data will enhance social science research, and more og:url: https://time.com/3397934/five-best-ideas-of-the-day-september-18/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: These Are Today's Best Ideas twitter:description: Learn about: how Islamic State is seeking Syria's chemical weapons, connecting veterans to disaster relief work, how Facebook data will enhance social science research, and more twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # Five Best Ideas of the Day: September 18 by [The Aspen Institute](https://time.com/author/the-aspen-institute/) ## The Aspen Institute Sep 18, 2014 4:01 PM UTC by [The Aspen Institute](https://time.com/author/the-aspen-institute/) ## The Aspen Institute Sep 18, 2014 4:01 PM UTC **1\.** [**Islamic State is hunting for Syrian chemical weapons that eluded international inspectors.**](http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2014/09/16/officials-assad-may-have-secret-chemical-weapons-stockpiles-and-islamic-state-wants-them) By Paul D. Shinkman in U.S. News and World Report **2\.** [**The true promise of education technology is in differentiating learning to meet the needs of each student.**](https://www.edsurge.com/n/2014-09-16-opinion-how-software-can-make-a-differentiated-difference) By Jennifer Carolan in EdSurge **3\.** [**A robot’s ethical dilemma: How would a self-driving car weigh the safety of its passengers against the risk to other motorists?**](http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22329863.700-ethical-trap-robot-paralysed-by-choice-of-who-to-save.html) By Aviva Rutkin in New Scientist **4\.** [**A disaster relief organization is giving military veterans a chance to do good and recapture the spirit of their service.**](https://medium.com/storytelling-for-good/crossing-the-rubicon-f9be01442346) By Jonathan Lesser in Medium **5\.** [**Future social scientists will have a wealth of data from Facebook likes and shares to truly understand what moves us.**](http://qz.com/261683/decades-of-facebook-likes-will-explain-how-you-became-yourself/) By Jonathan Wai in Quartz  [_The Aspen Institute_](http://www.aspeninstitute.org/) _is an educational and policy studies organization based in Washington, D.C._ ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"OpinionNewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3397934/five-best-ideas-of-the-day-september-18/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3397934/five-best-ideas-of-the-day-september-18/"},"headline":"Five Best Ideas of the Day: September 18","datePublished":"2014-09-18T16:01:07.000Z","dateModified":"2026-05-11T04:43:03.546Z","description":"Islamic State wants Syria's chemical weapons, fulfilling the promise of personalized education, veterans do disaster relief and more.","url":"https://time.com/3397934/five-best-ideas-of-the-day-september-18/","keywords":["Innovation","Veterans","Education","Syria","facebook","ISIS","Chemical Weapons","Islamic State"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"The Aspen Institute","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/the-aspen-institute/"}],"articleSection":"Ideas","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/ideas/","name":"Ideas"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/innovation/","name":"Innovation"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3397934/five-best-ideas-of-the-day-september-18/","name":"Five Best Ideas of the Day: September 18"}}]}] ```