--- title: Five Best Ideas of the Day: March 19 description: Contingency planning — not infighting — over an Iran nuclear deal, human DNA-powered vaccines, involving patients in their care and more. canonical: https://time.com/3750956/five-best-ideas-of-the-day-march-19/ author: TIME article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-03-19T16:01:21.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-05-11T05:04:59.116Z article:section: Ideas og:title: These Are Today's Best Ideas og:description: Contingency planning — not infighting — over an Iran nuclear deal, and more og:url: https://time.com/3750956/five-best-ideas-of-the-day-march-19/ 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: Contingency planning — not infighting — over an Iran nuclear deal, and more twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # Five Best Ideas of the Day: March 19 by [The Aspen Institute](https://time.com/author/the-aspen-institute/) ## The Aspen Institute Mar 19, 2015 4:01 PM UTC by [The Aspen Institute](https://time.com/author/the-aspen-institute/) ## The Aspen Institute Mar 19, 2015 4:01 PM UTC **1\.** [**Instead of fighting about the Iran nuclear talks, Congress and the White House should be planning smart sanctions in case a deal falls through.**](http://www.rollcall.com/news/the%5Fright%5Fway%5Fto%5Fsanction%5Firan%5Fcommentary-240677-1.html?zkPrintable=true) By Elizabeth Rosenberg and Richard Nephew in Roll Call **2\.** [**DARPA thinks it has a solution to Ebola — and lots of other infectious diseases.**](http://fusion.net/story/57515/darpa-thinks-it-has-a-solution-to-ebola-and-all-other-infectious-diseases/) By Alexis C. Madrigal at Fusion **3\.** [**A stand-out rookie’s retirement after one year in the NFL over fears of brain injury should be a wake-up call for all of football.**](http://bleacherreport.com/articles/2400929-chris-borlands-early-nfl-retirement-should-spark-changes-at-the-college-level) By Ben Kercheval in Bleacher Report **4\.** [**When patients are urged to get involved in their course of treatment, they’re more confident and satisfied with their care.**](http://kaiserhealthnews.org/news/inviting-patients-to-help-decide-their-own-treatment/) By Anna Gorman in Kaiser Health News **5\.** [**We don’t need “diversity” on television. We need television to reflect the world around us.**](https://medium.com/thelist/you-are-not-alone-69c1a10515ab) By Shonda Rhimes in Medium  [_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/3750956/five-best-ideas-of-the-day-march-19/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3750956/five-best-ideas-of-the-day-march-19/"},"headline":"Five Best Ideas of the Day: March 19","datePublished":"2015-03-19T16:01:21.000Z","dateModified":"2026-05-11T05:04:59.116Z","description":"Contingency planning — not infighting — over an Iran nuclear deal, human DNA-powered vaccines, involving patients in their care and more.","url":"https://time.com/3750956/five-best-ideas-of-the-day-march-19/","keywords":["Innovation","Congress","Iran","Television","DNA","White House","Obama","Cancer","Football","NFL","hospitals","Vaccines","ebola","DARPA","patients","Trauma"],"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/3750956/five-best-ideas-of-the-day-march-19/","name":"Five Best Ideas of the Day: March 19"}}]}] ```