--- title: Medicine: How to Reduce Deaths in the Operating Room description: Recording everything to reduce surgery deaths, leaving the Mississippi delta alone, diagnosing breast cancer without a biopsy and more. canonical: https://time.com/4011135/how-one-device-could-reduce-deaths-in-the-operating-room/ author: TIME article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-08-26T16:01:09.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-05-11T05:01:55.382Z article:section: Ideas og:title: How One Device Could Reduce Deaths in the Operating Room og:description: These are today's best ideas og:url: https://time.com/4011135/how-one-device-could-reduce-deaths-in-the-operating-room/ 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: How One Device Could Reduce Deaths in the Operating Room twitter:description: These are today's best ideas twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # How One Device Could Reduce Deaths in the Operating Room by [The Aspen Institute](https://time.com/author/the-aspen-institute/) ## The Aspen Institute Aug 26, 2015 4:01 PM UTC by [The Aspen Institute](https://time.com/author/the-aspen-institute/) ## The Aspen Institute Aug 26, 2015 4:01 PM UTC **1\.** [**Could a ‘black box’ that records everything in an operating room reduce deaths?**](http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/could-cameras-in-operating-rooms-reduce-preventable-medical-deaths/2015/08/25/fc2696c4-3ae2-11e5-b3ac-8a79bc44e5e2%5Fstory.html) By Tom Jackman in the Washington Post **2\.** [**Want to save New Orleans from the next Hurricane Katrina? Give up on taming the Mississippi River.**](http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/mississippi-river-mouth-must-be-abandoned-to-save-new-orleans-from-next-hurricane-katrina/) By Mark Fischetti in Scientific American **3\.** [**Soon we could diagnose breast cancer without a biopsy.**](http://news.rice.edu/2015/08/21/imaging-software-could-speed-breast-cancer-diagnosis-2/) By Jade Boyd at Rice University **4\.** [**Here’s how to suck carbon out of the air and make stuff.**](http://www.technologyreview.com/news/540706/researcher-demonstrates-how-to-suck-carbon-from-the-air-make-stuff-from-it/) By Mike Orcutt in MIT Technology Review **5\.** [**Why aren’t more moms coaching?**](https://www.raisingarizonakids.com/2015/08/why-arent-more-moms-coaching/) By Risa Isard in Raising Arizona Kids  [_The Aspen Institute_](http://www.aspeninstitute.org/) _is an educational and policy studies organization based in Washington, D.C._ _Read next:_ [_New Orleans, Here & Now_](http://time.com/new-orleans-here-and-now?iid=time%5Freadnext) ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"OpinionNewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4011135/how-one-device-could-reduce-deaths-in-the-operating-room/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4011135/how-one-device-could-reduce-deaths-in-the-operating-room/"},"headline":"How One Device Could Reduce Deaths in the Operating Room","datePublished":"2015-08-26T16:01:09.000Z","dateModified":"2026-05-11T05:01:55.382Z","description":"These are today's best ideas","url":"https://time.com/4011135/how-one-device-could-reduce-deaths-in-the-operating-room/","keywords":["Innovation","Sports topic","Breast Cancer","Pollution","new orleans","Surgery"],"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/4011135/how-one-device-could-reduce-deaths-in-the-operating-room/","name":"How One Device Could Reduce Deaths in the Operating Room"}}]}] ```