--- title: Five Best Ideas: A Soft Robot Will Pump Your Heart For You description: This soft robot will pump your heart for you, the next secretary of defense should ban PowerPoint and more. canonical: https://time.com/4639251/soft-robot-pump-heart/ author: TIME article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2017-01-19T17:00:47.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-05-11T04:59:10.267Z article:section: Ideas og:title: This Soft Robot Will Pump Your Heart For You og:description: And four more of today's best ideas og:url: https://time.com/4639251/soft-robot-pump-heart/ 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: This Soft Robot Will Pump Your Heart For You twitter:description: And four more of today's best ideas twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # This Soft Robot Will Pump Your Heart For You by [The Aspen Institute](https://time.com/author/the-aspen-institute/) ## The Aspen Institute Jan 19, 2017 5:00 PM UTC by [The Aspen Institute](https://time.com/author/the-aspen-institute/) ## The Aspen Institute Jan 19, 2017 5:00 PM UTC **1\.** [**This soft robot will pump your heart for you.**](http://www.seas.harvard.edu/news/2017/01/soft-robot-helps-heart-beat) By Leah Burrows at the _Harvard Paulson School of Engineering_ **2\.** [**To save the U.S. military, the next secretary of defense should ban PowerPoint.**](http://theweek.com/articles/673091/general-mattis-save-military-ban-powerpoint) By Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry in _The_ _Week_ **3\.** [**Put youth who break the law where they belong: in a great school.**](http://hechingerreport.org/put-youth-who-break-the-law-where-they-belong-in-a-great-school/) By Andre Perry in the _Hechinger Report_ **4\.** [**Do we trust our phones more than we trust each other?**](https://theconversation.com/does-your-smartphone-make-you-less-likely-to-trust-others-67814) By Kostadin Kushlev in _The_ _Conversation_ **5\.** [**National security is the reason we have ethics rules for government officials. That’s worth remembering.**](https://www.lawfareblog.com/ethics-rules-are-national-security-rules) By Susan Hennessey in _Lawfare_  [_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/4639251/soft-robot-pump-heart/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4639251/soft-robot-pump-heart/"},"headline":"This Soft Robot Will Pump Your Heart For You","datePublished":"2017-01-19T17:00:47.000Z","dateModified":"2026-05-11T04:59:10.267Z","description":"These are today's best ideas","url":"https://time.com/4639251/soft-robot-pump-heart/","keywords":["Innovation","Military","Education","robotics","Phones","Ethics"],"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/4639251/soft-robot-pump-heart/","name":"This Soft Robot Will Pump Your Heart For You"}}]}] ```