There’s an old saying in neuroscience: neurons that fire together wire together. This means the more you run a neuro-circuit in your brain, the stronger that circuit becomes. This is why, to quote another old saw, practice makes perfect. The more you practice piano, or speaking a language, or juggling, the stronger those circuits get.

For years this has been the focus for learning new things. But as it turns out, the ability to learn is about more than building and strengthening neural connections. Even more important is our ability to break down the old ones. It's called "synaptic pruning." Here’s how it works.

Your employees may be more interested in lateral career moves than you think.

A recent study conducted by my company, Cornerstone OnDemand, sheds some light on what influences these types of career decisions. Working with Kelton, a leading global insights firm, we conducted an online survey of more than 2,000 full-time American employees across various industries, asking them about everything from how many careers they think they will have in a lifetime to what they believe is the most important benefit an employer can offer.

Interest in telehealth continues to rise in U.S. healthcare organizations. Is your organization ready?

Learn how telehealth:

generates revenue engages patients saves money We invite you to download Why ACOs Are Hot For Telehealth. Fill out the form to receive your free eBook.

One of the biggest challenges of running a business is simply getting it started in the first place. It can take a lot of time, effort and resources to build the momentum needed to turn a profit — and when you've already put your heart and soul into your business idea, it can be frustrating not to see an immediate return.

For business owners who want to move this process along faster, one option is to participate in an accelerator. Success stories from popular programs like Y Combinator and Techstars make the accelerator approach seem like an attractive path, but that doesn't mean rapid growth will come easily and effortlessly. Here's how to determine if it's the right choice for your company.

The past few years have seen an uptick in new accelerator and incubator programs that are focused on helping startups launch and grow. Participating in one of these programs can be advantageous for an emerging business looking for expert insight, seed money, venture capital, or market exposure. But not all are created equal. While most programs provide benefits such as funding, mentorship, and access to potential investors, they are not a guarantee of success. A positive experience depends on setting realistic expectations and understanding what these programs can and cannot do.

Apparently, the success of asking strangers for money all depends on how you’re doing the asking.

If you’ve turned to the Internet to raise funds through crowdfunding, you’re not alone. Studies show crowdfunding — with more than $34 billion raised in 2015 — will soon pass venture capital in overall funding generated.

However popular, crowdfunding involves more than a “build it and they will come” mentality. Those who have used the process successfully stress the value of selecting the right funding platform, ongoing contact with backers and a commitment to maximum effort before and after the campaign.

At IdeaScale, we define prolific innovators as organizations that have moved more than half of their ideas to the final stage. This doesn’t necessarily mean that every suggested idea became a value-generating, implemented reality. This means that the completed ideas had each been investigated, responded to, and a decision was made to move forward or not. But of course, at least a portion of those completed ideas generate measurable constructive outcomes.

Despite small business owners favoring Donald Trump for president, Democratic rival Hillary Clinton feels she is the candidate best qualified to champion their cause.

“I want to be the president for small business,” she said during a roundtable discussion with supporters in Nevada last May.

Clinton’s commitment to small businesses is rooted in her own family’s experience: Her father ran a small business in Chicago, printing drapery fabrics.

“When my dad ran his small printing business — he printed drapery fabrics in Chicago — it put food on the table; it gave us a good, solid, middle-class home and lifestyle,” Clinton said in a position statement regarding small business on her campaign website. “And I don’t think it’s old fashioned to say that’s what I want for every family that wants to work for that here in our country today.”

It’s no mystery that color has an impact on how we perceive things. Just think back to your favorite color growing up. You didn’t, and you still might not understand why it’s your favorite color. But that color, above all the other wavelengths our eyes can see, is your undisputed favorite.

Since we can all agree that color has power, let’s look at 7 colors that impact the way we perceive content, especially on e-commerce sites.

In a study published in the journal Molecular Cell, researchers discovered rapid aging in HIV patients. Biologist Trey Ideker and his team at the University of California, San Diego made this discovery, finding that these patients were susceptible to age-related diseases such as osteoporosis, heart disease, and dementia five years earlier than their non-infected peers. Researchers aren’t sure whether it is anti-retroviral drug treatments or the virus itself that causes this. But some aspect seems to speed up their biological age. So what is one’s biological age, and how is it different from the chronological kind?

Image: http://bigthink.com

Washington, DC is a city where innovation is a major focus. It is the seat of the federal government after all, so if DC isn’t moving forward in innovative ways, it can hardly set an example for the rest of the country. It’s also a city full of potential but lacks equal distribution of these resources for innovation to happen amongst all of the city’s innovators. The city is already making steps towards combatting this.

An odd phenomenon may explain why the Southeastern United States has experienced recent earthquakes, even though the region sits snugly in the middle of a tectonic plate and not at the edges, where all the ground-shaking action usually happens.

This seismicity — or relatively frequent earthquakes — may be the result of areas along the bottom of the North American tectonic plate peeling off, the researchers said. And this peeling motion is likely to continue, leading to more earthquakes in the future, like the 2011 magnitude-5.8 temblor that shook the nation's capital.

Richard Perlman W’68 met the founders of RightCare Solutions, Eric Heil ENG’05/WG’12, Matt TanzerW’02/WG’05, and Mrinal Bhasker WG’12, at the 2012 Venture Finals of the Wharton Business Plan Competition. RightCare Solutions had just won the Grand Prize, and at the awards event, he introduced himself to the team. While giving Eric his business card, Richard told him, “The ball is in your court, please call me.”

Image: http://beacon.wharton.upenn.edu/ 

Fenwick & West LLP, one of the nation's premier law firms providing comprehensive legal services to high technology and life sciences clients, today announced the results of its First Quarter 2016 Silicon Valley Venture Capital Survey.

The survey analyzed the valuations and terms of venture financings for 148 technology and life sciences companies headquartered in the Silicon Valley that raised capital in the first quarter of 2016.

"During the first quarter of 2016, up rounds exceeded down rounds 78% to 11%, with 11% flat. This was a slight decrease from the fourth quarter of 2015 when up rounds exceeded down rounds 82% to 12%, with 6% flat," said Barry Kramer, partner in the Corporate Group of Fenwick & West and author of the survey.

Jellyfish never stop. Twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, they move through the water in search of food such as shrimp and fish larvae, on journeys that can cover several kilometers a day. They are more efficient than any other swimmer, using less energy for their size than do graceful dolphins or cruising sharks. “Their cost of transport—the oxygen they use to move—is 48 percent lower than any other swimming animal,” says Bradford J. Gemmell, a marine biologist at the University of South Florida. By studying moon jellies, the species Aurelia aurita, Gemmell and other researchers have recently found that jellyfish pull off this feat by creating zones of high and low pressure around their body that alternately suck and push them forward.

Saul and Robin Klein are a father and son team who have invested in some of Europe's biggest technology startups. Between them they have backed TransferWise, Citymapper, TweetDeck, Graze, Zoopla, Songkick, Chartbeat, MOO and Farfetch. Saul Klein also cofounded LoveFilm and startup accelerator Seedcamp, and was one of Skype's original executives.

Now the pair are joining forces for their own venture capital fund: LocalGlobe, which they say will invest in startups at the seed stage across Europe. So far the fund has announced investments in online mortgage advisor Trussle and also Estonian job search app Jobbatical.

Image: Joi Ito/Flickr (CC)/Index Ventures Saul Klein (left) and Robin Klein (right.)

Johns Hopkins University President Ronald J. Daniels was among the panelists at the Milken Institute's Global Conference last week, taking part in a discussion on how universities across the country are increasing their roles in regional economic development.

The panelists examined innovative models of collaboration with the private and government sectors that are spurring regional economic growth. They also discussed how universities are walking the tightrope of balancing a commitment to basic scientific research—where new knowledge is generated—with their desire and need to maximize returns from transferring technology to the private sector.

Kevin Haley doesn’t pay attention to the competition. As president of product and innovation for Under Armour, he encourages his team to ignore the noise and focus on their own game.

“It’s that old adage that if you follow someone’s footprints in the snow, you’re never going to pass them,” Haley said. “We have to do it differently — we have to do it better.”

Image: Under Armour Architech. Courtesy of brand.

From presidential candidates to pundits, a lot of people are talking these days about income inequality. What gets much less attention, however, is the geographic manifestation of the divide between rich and poor.

Earlier this year, the Economic Innovation Group, a new research and policy organization in D.C., released a comprehensive report detailing the economic conditions in more than 25,000 ZIP codes across the United States.

Image: http://www.kauffman.org

Good entrepreneurs are all about managing change, but too many forget that they have to change themselves as their dream evolves from a startup to a scalable business. Most begin by doing the product development, marketing and sales alone, but struggle making the transition to hiring and coaching others, defining repeatable processes and focusing on future strategy.

For example, there once was a social network called Friendster, often credited with starting the social networking boom way back in 2002. Many pundits feel entrepreneur Jonathan Abrams failed to get the professional management and resources he needed to scale, including turning down an offer from Google for $30 million and was run over by Facebook, a later competitor.

Image: http://blog.startupprofessionals.com