This week, the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Economic Development Administration (EDA) announced approximately $5 million in total funding for the 12 recipients of the 2014 Science and Research Park Development Grants, used for feasibility and planning for the construction or renovation of science or research parks. These grants, alongside i6 Challenge grants and Cluster Grants for Seed Capital Funds, comprise the EDA’s Office of Innovation and Entrepreneurship’s (OIE) Regional Innovation Strategies (RIS) program, an initiative designed to advance innovation and capacity-building activities in regions across the country. Additional information on the 2014 Regional Innovation Strategies program competition awardees can be found here.

The first installment of SSTI’s series on basic research discussed the changing nature of federal research and development spending, namely that basic research as a share of federal spending on R&D has increased over time while making up a relatively small proportion of total spending compared to development and applied research. Furthermore, U.S. spending on research and development has failed to keep up as a share of total spending. Since peaking in 2009 with the first stage of funding from The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA), research and development funding at the federal level has begun to decrease. Recently released data from the National Science Foundation (NSF) now shows funds obligated by federal agencies for research and development and R&D facilities dropped from $141 billion in FY 2012 to $127 billion in FY 2013, a decrease of 9 percent, though increases are projected for FY 2014.

20 May 2015—New York and London remain the world’s most global cities, as they are the only cities to rank in the top 10 of both the Global Cities Index and the Global Cities Outlook according to the A.T. Kearney Global Cities 2015 that was released today. San Francisco leads the Global Cities Outlook due to its strength in innovation. Other cities ranking at the top of the Global Cities Outlook include London (#2), Boston (#3), New York (#4), and Zurich (#5). 

Image: https://www.atkearney.com

When trying to grow the economy, it's really tempting for elected officials to spend the public's money on things that have an immediate impact on jobs and wages. What better way to endear yourself to your constituents than to be the driving force behind a new shopping center or luxury hotel that not only brings jobs but also increases local spending? It's certainly a lot sexier than spending money on research for some scientific mumbo-jumbo that most people haven't heard of -- especially when you can't guarantee that research will yield any significant results.

No elephant gets left behind.

Elephants are known for being especially emotional animals. So when a baby elephant collapsed on a busy road in South Africa, the rest of the herd stopped and went into rescue mode.

The massive creatures used their trunks to help the baby to its feet and continued on into the brush where we can only assume they gave him hugs and trunk kisses for being so brave.

I learned the hard way by doing a Tweetstorm below but linked every subsequent Tweet back to the original Tweet to create the thread. I faced the wrath of the community. It turns out that it works fine how I did it with the web version of Twitter but not with mobile.

When electric-car maker Tesla touched off a multistate bidding war for its Gigafactory battery plant last year, most of the attention focused on the tax breaks and other incentives states were offering. Nevada won the competition, but it turns out it wasn't the state's $1.25 billion in subsidies that sealed the deal. It was the state's workforce.

Stories seem to be everywhere about the 20-something overnight success or teen entrepreneur who’s looking to take the business world by storm. But many people don’t find their inspiration until later in life. Entrepreneurship is not just for the young. No matter what your age, when an idea hits you, sometimes the key is to just go for it.

Menlo Park, CA, Chevy Chase, MD and Vienna, Austria – May 28, 2015 – Global venture capital firm New Enterprise Associates, Inc. (NEA) and Speedinvest GmbH today announced a collaboration that could see $55 million in early-stage and growth capital reserved for the best global companies to emerge from Europe’s burgeoning startup scene.

While European countries such as Germany and Austria have produced global brands like SAP and Red Bull, European entrepreneurs traditionally face a shortage of venture capital and small, fragmented local markets. Speedinvest was designed to provide not only the necessary seed-stage capital, but also the hands-on support of its founders, all successful serial entrepreneurs, in addition to a strong EU-USA bridge program.

As the weather warms, many of us would prefer to look like we passed our winter days lounging by the pool instead of hunched before a computer screen or lab bench. But soaking up the rays to acquire a so-called “base tan” does not fool the sun or a tanning bed. Simply put, the benefits of being sun-kissed are not even skin-deep.

Scientists came to this conclusion after studying the tanned buttocks of dozens of volunteers. In study after study they have found that a base tan affords almost no protection against future ultraviolet exposure. In fact, it actually puts otherwise pale people at risk of developing skin cancers.

I come across a number of people who have an idea and want to be entrepreneurs, but have no idea where to start. And most ideas remain just that, ideas. Knowing how to get to where you want to go is the part where the most ideas fall flat. That’s what this post is about: the steps you need to follow in turning your idea into a business. It’s not rocket science, but there is also no silver bullet. The steps below are just a guide where the details will depend on your idea, market and a whole bunch of other factors. This is just a place to start.

While mere mortals stumble groggily out of the bed in the morning -- or, worse, lay prostrate before the irresistible lure of the snooze button -- the world’s most successful business leaders have mastered routines to kick off their days with productive vigor.

All in all, entrepreneurs tend to be early risers, according to the below infographic, courtesy of British bed maker Dreams. Jack Dorsey, Lord Alan Sugar, Tory Burch, Tim Armstrong and Indra Nooyi, for instance, all typically wake up before 6 a.m.

Counter to what many believe, accolades are not really what success is about. To be rich is to have money and status, but to be wealthy is to have physical, emotional, mental and spiritual wellness plus financial abundance. Exceptional people are those who seemingly have it all. They have monetary success along with a deeply felt happiness and satisfaction in life.The truly exceptional focus on cultivating their inner worlds and the more soft-spoken qualities of their character because they know to be wholly successful, it takes being a really good human being. 

For years, the most important food technologies were all about scale. How could we feed a fast-growing population at less expense? By doing everything bigger: food grown on bigger farms was sold by ever-merging global food giants to grocery chains of superstore proportions.

Many of today’s food technologies seem to be moving in the opposite direction, toward methods and products that are economical for small farms as well as large corporate ones.

Image: http://www.technologyreview.com

HOW DO SOME OF THE TOP HEALTH IT EXECUTIVES IN THE FIELD REMAIN FOCUSED AND SUCCESSFUL?

Technology is taking center stage in key hospital initiatives. This focus on technology as an integral part of the overall care delivery system creates a new level of demand on high-level IT experts with increasing workloads and more complex challenges.

Lenovo is an anomaly in the PC space. While the market as a whole has struggled with declining growth, the Chinese tech giant has grown both its sales and marketshare. In fact, according to the latest stats from Gartner, Lenovo now owns nearly 20% of the global PC market.

It’s managed to get to that position through a combination of smart acquisitions (most notably IBM’s PC division), improvements in the quality of its products, and applying the lessons from its Chinese growth to other emerging markets.

UK immigration laws favour wealthy investors over forward-thinking tech innovators, according to a report out today from visa website Migreat.

Strict entrepreneur visa policies in the UK make it difficult for some of the best overseas tech innovators to migrate to the country, according to the Open Borders to Entrepreneurs report, which compares the policies of countries around the world that have created startup visas in an effort to attract entrepreneurs.

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Hawaii residents were the least likely to be obese in 2014, and Hawaii was the only state where fewer than one in five residents are obese. Mississippi had the highest obesity rate in the nation for the second year in a row, at 35.2%.

Mississippi and West Virginia have had the two highest obesity rates in the nation since 2012. Five states on the list have had consistently high obesity rates -- Mississippi, West Virginia, Louisiana, Arkansas and Kentucky. These states have been among the 10 states with the highest obesity rates every year since Gallup and Healthways began tracking obesity in 2008.

Questionable or confusing job titles have long provided fleeting office lunch-break entertainment. A quick search online brings up innumerable lists, featuring classics such as: Senior Information Adviser (otherwise known as a librarian), Wet Leisure Assistant (lifeguard) and Ideation Director (advertising). In this article Harvey Wade, Director, Innovation Strategy at Mindjet, discusses why a job title formerly found at wannabe creative companies is now playing an increasingly recognised and integral role in business.

As Greek philosopher Heraclitus said: “Everything changes and nothing stands still.” This rings all the more true for businesses operating in today’s rapid-paced, constantly changing environment, where market leaders can quickly be unseated by a small, more nimble startup.

Just look at how Tesla’s latest innovation, the PowerWall, is set to disrupt the unchallenged energy sector; how streaming music service Spotify challenged Apple, who themselves challenged the future of the record store through its iTunes; how Uber has dominated the taxi industry so quickly since its launch of its first service in San Francisco in 2010. At the end of 2014, after its last round of funding, Uber was valued at US$41-billion.