--- title: Five Best Ideas of the Day: January 20 description: A novel approach to our racial divide, the first new antibiotic in decades, adapting to climate change, finish college early and more. canonical: https://time.com/3674327/five-best-ideas-of-the-day-january-20/ author: TIME article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-01-20T17:44:52.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-05-11T05:06:08.548Z article:section: Ideas og:title: These Are Today's Best Ideas og:description: A novel approach to our racial divide, the first new antibiotic in decades, adapting to climate change, finish college early and more og:url: https://time.com/3674327/five-best-ideas-of-the-day-january-20/ 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: A novel approach to our racial divide, the first new antibiotic in decades, adapting to climate change, finish college early and more twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # Five Best Ideas of the Day: January 20 by [The Aspen Institute](/author/the-aspen-institute/) ## The Aspen Institute Jan 20, 2015 5:44 PM CUT by [The Aspen Institute](/author/the-aspen-institute/) ## The Aspen Institute Jan 20, 2015 5:44 PM CUT **1\.** [**Is America willing to do the hard work to mend its racial divide?**](http://www.cnn.com/2015/01/18/opinion/liu-mlk-day-truth-and-reconciliation/index.html "undefined") By Eric Liu in CNN **2\.** [**The first new antibiotic developed in 30 years could turn the tide against the rising resistance of many diseases.**](http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/new-antibiotic-dirt-soil-can-kill-drug-resistant-bacteria-180953828/ "undefined") By Brian Handwerk in Smithsonian Magazine **3\.** [**Adapting to climate change will buy time, but rising sea levels are a major threat to low-lying cities.**](http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2015/02/climate-change-economics/parker-text "undefined") By Laura Parker in National Geographic **4\.** [**Is four years too much? More college students are jumpstarting careers by graduating early.**](http://college.usatoday.com/2015/01/06/more-students-taking-the-fast-track-to-graduation/ "undefined") By Rachel Rosenbaum in USA Today College **5\.** [**The cargo ship of the future will have a hull that acts as a giant sail, slashing fuel consumption and carbon emissions.**](http://phys.org/news/2015-01-wind-powered-freighters.html "undefined") By Fraunhofer Center for Maritime Logistics in Phys.org  [_The Aspen Institute_](http://www.aspeninstitute.org/ "undefined") _is an educational and policy studies organization based in Washington, D.C._ ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"OpinionNewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3674327/five-best-ideas-of-the-day-january-20/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3674327/five-best-ideas-of-the-day-january-20/"},"headline":"Five Best Ideas of the Day: January 20","datePublished":"2015-01-20T17:44:52.000Z","dateModified":"2026-05-11T05:06:08.548Z","description":"A novel approach to our racial divide, the first new antibiotic in decades, adapting to climate change, finish college early and more.","url":"https://time.com/3674327/five-best-ideas-of-the-day-january-20/","keywords":["Innovation","medicine","climate change","College","Race","MLK","Miami","Martin Luther King","cities","Shipping","University","antibiotics","resistance"],"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/3674327/five-best-ideas-of-the-day-january-20/","name":"Five Best Ideas of the Day: January 20"}}]}] ```