THE WINNERS OF THE SIKORSKY HUMAN POWERED HELICOPTER COMPETITION DIDN’T "THINK OUTSIDE THE BOX." THEY JUST CHOSE THE RIGHT BOX TO THINK IN.

On June 13, an enormous, ridiculous-looking pedal-powered contraption wafted itself into midair and made history. The helicopter, called Atlas, was designed to win an aviation challenge--the Igor I. Sikorsky Human Powered Helicopter Competition--that had defeated scores of aircraft designers and engineers for 33 years. The task sounds simple: Create a human-powered aircraft that can hover three meters in the air for at least a minute without drifting outside a 10-meter square. But satisfying those constraints meant designing an aircraft like nothing you’ve ever seen:

We feel like we've been a little harsh lately. So, like, mea culpa.

Recently we've told you what not to wear to the office in the summer and the productivity-killing (smelly) lunches that you should never bring into the workplace. Sorry for the tough love, be we felt like everyone could benefit from the reminders.

More Fun: Happiness Secrets From The Staff Of Delivering Happiness At Work

Today, however, let's not focus on the negative, and instead let's talk about fun. You want to work in a fun environment. Of course you do. Who doesn't?

Although angels invest at a lower price, VCs usually ask for and get better terms for their money. Why don't angels do the same? See what terms VC's are actually using in their deals.

Angel investor. Venture capitalist. Many investors would like to be one or both. Yet few know the distinction between the two–or which is more advantageous.

Angel investors are among the first investors in a startup and put up their money when the risks are higher. As a result, they have the advantage of coming into the company at a lower price–maybe half of what VCs will pay for the same amount of stock.

National Brain Tumor Society’s inaugural event draws over 100 brain tumor researchers, biopharma executives, government officials, and venture capital investors

National Brain Tumor Society, the largest nonprofit in the United States dedicated to the brain tumor community, recently hosted the inaugural Advancing Research to Therapies (ART) for Brain Tumors Conference in Washington, D.C. The ART Conference brought together more than 100 leading experts from academic research labs, government agencies, biotech and pharmaceutical companies, and venture capital firms to increase communication and collaboration, as well as discuss licensing and investment criteria for new drug candidates to speed the discovery of new treatments for brain tumor patients.

In the world of angel investing, the law of unintended consequences just struck and struck hard.

Instead of easing the access to capital for new businesses, the just-announced rules governing the Jumpstart our Business Startups (JOBS) Act of 2012 could destroy angel investing, making it much harder, if not impossible, for some Oklahoma startups to raise capital.

Here's the situation.

Washington, DC, is growing as a close-knit entrepreneur community where startups can find angel investors who will also act as mentors to grow a business, venture capitalists say.

The DC area has fewer venture capital firms than Silicon Valley, but steady startup investment is coming from tech industry veterans who have experience working with area universities, government agencies, and telecom companies including AOL, said John Taylor, head of research for the National Venture Capital Association (NVCA).

Curtis Gunn has split his career between racing bikes and starting and funding companies. He’s chairman of the Desert Angels, a group of angel investors in Tucson that’s one of the nation’s most active. In June, Gunn joined the board of the Angel Capital Association. I talked with him recently about his career and the tech community in Tucson. Here are edited excerpts.

Anthony Wichman had nearly pulled in a massive 230-pound (104 kilograms) Ahi tuna when the fish decided not to give up without a fight, suddenly diving deeper and capsizing Wichman's boat. One problem: The Hawaiian fisherman's leg was wrapped in the line, and he was pulled underwater by the fish, according to news reports. Somehow he managed to free himself and make it back to the boat, where he called his daughter using a waterproof cell phone, according to KHON2, a Hawaiian news station.

An MBA from a top school can cost almost $100,000—a huge expense. But is it really worth it?

Top HR recruiters, CEOs, and startup innovators disagree about the value of MBAs, depending on the situation and person.

The following answers are provided by the Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC), an invite-only organization comprised of the world’s most promising young entrepreneurs. In partnership with Citi, the YEC recently launched #StartupLab, a free virtual mentorship program that helps millions of entrepreneurs start and grow businesses via live video chats, an expert content library and email lessons.

European tech companies are being starved of later-stage venture capital when compared to their U.S. counterparts, with fewer than one in three to four securing funding after a seed round, according to a leading venture capitalist.

Simon Cook, CEO of London venture-capital firm DFJ Esprit LLP, also said that the U.K.’s dominance as the European center for venture capital was slipping. According to Mr. Cook, somewhere between 500 to 1,000 companies a year get funding deals in Europe of under $5 million.

Venture capitalists like to describe themselves as “hands-on” when it comes to portfolio companies, but that’s not what entrepreneurs want to hear.

While 22% of venture firm representatives said “hands-on” is a phrase that best described their firm, only 1% of entrepreneurs thought that was an important quality when evaluating a VC firm, according to a survey released Tuesday by the National Venture Capital Association.

Walk into Best Buy, and you’ll find shelves stacked with easy-to-categorize products: TVs are bundled on one side, computers in another, game systems somewhere else. The unshakable conclusion: The hardware world has become dangerously predictable.

Call it an addiction to “bucketed”—or easily categorizable gadgets. I was first introduced to this term I  during a recent conversation with some employees of Grand St., a new online retailer that specializes in what they call “unbucketed” gadgets—many of which come from independent inventors—that shirk easy labels. Creative stuff: Slashy items like a cutting boards-slash-iPad-stand, and totally newfangled devices like a phone charger that uses heat from your kitchen stovetop.

If there’s one thing everyone in healthcare can probably agree on right now, it’s that there is an awful lot of data being generated each and every day. What to do with that data, however, is another question.

As Ted Driscoll, digital health director at venture capital firm Claremont Creek Ventures, sees it, the explosion of data is a definite boon for personalized medicine. Indeed, he said recently, “Medicine is becoming synonymous with big data – the data sets are just huge, now – but we had to wait for the IT revolution to happen and mature” in order to begin to put that data to use.

With the Internet and the availability of resources these days, anyone at any age can start a business for practically no money and in a relatively short period of time. A free WordPress blog, with enough of the three things below, can be turned into a profitable money-making, insight-generating machine by anyone with a computer and something to say, despite their age. That means that in order to become an entrepreneur (especially as a teenager or as a recent university grad), you truly only need three things:

I recently urged you to hack your morning routine so that it works best for you.

The first step in the morning routine I've developed for myself (go here to get a free ebook explaining the process in depth) is all about stepping back and taking a pause before life comes rushing in on you. And therein lies the absolute best advice I ever received about what to do first thing each and every day - and especially on Mondays.

If there is only one thing you do this Monday morning before beginning your week, it's this:

“If you build it, they will come.” It's a line from an old movie "Field of Dreams" which is still leading to the demise of too many startups, led by entrepreneurs who really started their business to build an exciting new product or service. Most struggle with the idea and practice of marketing and sales, and see these as a necessary evil, if even required.

Of course, for a price, there are many marketing organizations and gurus willing to come to your aid. But marketing is not “rocket science,” so I’m a big proponent of self-help and practicing the pragmatics in-house first. A great resource for all is a new book by Drew Williams and Jonathan Verney, “Feed the Startup Beast: A 7-Step Guide to Big, Hairy, Outrageous Sales Growth.”

Big business now employs the majority of private sector workers. Small business’s share of private sector employment has fallen from 54.8 percent in 1987 to 49.2 percent in 2011. This shift has occurred largely because big business has gotten better at preserving jobs.

The figure above uses Census Bureau data to calculate the small business fraction of employment over time. As you can see, with the exception of the 2001 to 2004 period, small business’s share of employment has been trending downward it peaked in 1987.

Today I thought I’d jot down some of my learnings from the past 15 or so years of running smallish to biggish businesses. I sincerely believe that many of these are lessons you can only learn from experience — and that if you have your own business you probably have to make these mistakes yourself before you can learn them. But nonetheless I’d characterise these as: the things I’d wish I’d known 15 years ago. 1. Medium is beautiful Good businesses grow. They have to for two key reasons: first, they have to keep pace with the increasing costs (and thus threats to profits) in the economy; and second they have to remain competitive for work and skills.

The Cabinet for Economic Development has created the Office of Entrepreneurship within the Cabinet’s Department for Business Development to streamline and bolster business development in Kentucky. The office will enhance existing efforts to help businesses at every step of the growth cycle.

“Small and young companies are vital to our economic health, not just in Kentucky, but across the United States,” said Gov. Steve Beshear. “By helping entrepreneurs early and broadly and by promoting innovation and entrepreneurial activity, we can improve Kentucky’s competitive position in the world and enhance job creation at the same time.”