--- title: Five Best Ideas of the Day: February 11 description: Syria's own 'Monuments Men,' making liquid fuel from solar power with a bionic leaf and custom-made bacteria, using big data right and more. canonical: https://time.com/3705073/five-best-ideas-of-the-day-february-11/ author: TIME article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-02-11T17:01:51.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-05-11T05:05:42.438Z article:section: Ideas og:title: These Are Today's Best Ideas og:description: Syria's own 'Monuments Men,' making liquid fuel from solar power with a bionic leaf and custom-made bacteria, using big data right and more og:url: https://time.com/3705073/five-best-ideas-of-the-day-february-11/ 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: Syria's own 'Monuments Men,' making liquid fuel from solar power with a bionic leaf and custom-made bacteria, using big data right and more twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # Five Best Ideas of the Day: February 11 by [The Aspen Institute](/author/the-aspen-institute/) ## The Aspen Institute Feb 11, 2015 5:01 PM CUT by [The Aspen Institute](/author/the-aspen-institute/) ## The Aspen Institute Feb 11, 2015 5:01 PM CUT **1\.** [**Syria’s own ‘Monuments Men’ are trying to stop antiquities from becoming looted to finance terrorism.**](http://www.wsj.com/articles/syrian-monuments-men-race-to-protect-antiquities-as-looting-bankrolls-terror-1423615241 "undefined") By Joe Parkinson, Ayla Albayrak and Duncan Mavin in the Wall Street Journal **2\.** [**Scientists have combined a bionic leaf with a bioengineered bacteria to convert solar energy into liquid fuel.**](https://hms.harvard.edu/news/bionic-leaf "undefined") By Elizabeth Cooney at Harvard Medical School **3\.** [**A dozen states are using a smart data center to keep voter information up to date. Meet ERIC.**](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rlcxAy4WGP0 "undefined") By the Pew Charitable Trusts on YouTube **4\.** [**Deciding to embrace big data is a lot easier than changing your culture to use it well.**](http://readwrite.com/2015/02/09/big-data-failure-blame-corporate-culture "undefined") By Matt Asay in ReadWrite **5\.** [**Fighting malaria is going to take more than just nets.**](http://theconversation.com/fighting-malaria-is-going-to-take-more-than-just-nets-37162 "undefined") By Utibe Effiong and Lauretta Ovadje with Andrew Maynard in the Conversation  [_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/3705073/five-best-ideas-of-the-day-february-11/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3705073/five-best-ideas-of-the-day-february-11/"},"headline":"Five Best Ideas of the Day: February 11","datePublished":"2015-02-11T17:01:51.000Z","dateModified":"2026-05-11T05:05:42.438Z","description":"Syria's own 'Monuments Men,' making liquid fuel from solar power with a bionic leaf and custom-made bacteria, using big data right and more.","url":"https://time.com/3705073/five-best-ideas-of-the-day-february-11/","keywords":["Innovation","Africa","Syria","poverty","Terrorism","ISIS","Data topic","Science topic","Hunger","big data","Malaria","Mosquitoes","Solar Power","Nigeria","Culture"],"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/3705073/five-best-ideas-of-the-day-february-11/","name":"Five Best Ideas of the Day: February 11"}}]}] ```