Football has become notorious for the degeneration it causes in players' brains. Now a preliminary study of soccer players has found that frequently hitting the ball with the head may adversely affect brain structure and cognition.

The study imaged the brains of 37 amateur soccer players, 21 to 44 years old, and found that players who reported “heading the ball” more frequently had microstructural changes in the white matter of their brains similar to those observed in patients with traumatic brain injury.

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The Life Sciences Discovery Fund (LSDF), a Washington state grant-making authority, supports research and development to improve health and health care, stimulate economic activity, and promote life sciences competitiveness.

The following types of grants are available:

• Proof of Concept grants to enhance the commercial viability of intellectual property developed by non-profit organizations or to enhance the competitiveness of early-stage companies for private equity investment (awards made to non- and for-profit entities, not to exceed $250,000);
• Opportunity grants to capitalize on projects that offer LSDF the ability to leverage its funds against those invested contemporaneously by other sources (awards made to non- and for-profit entities, not to exceed $1,400,000).

Up to $7,000,000 will be available for award through September 2013. As awards are made, the remaining balance of funds will be available at http://lsdfa.org/apply/competitions/2012-2013-Granting-Programs.

For more than a century researchers have been trying and failing to link perception and intelligence—for instance, do intelligent people see more detail in a scene? Now scientists at the University of Rochester and at Vanderbilt University have demonstrated that high IQ may be best predicted by combining what we perceive and what we cannot.

Image: Duje Tadin, University of Rochester 

The National Science Foundation has awarded collaborative grants totaling $892,587 to three universities to develop data mining tools for electronic health record systems, FierceEMR reports. The grants were distributed to:

• Southern Methodist University in Dallas; 
• University of Texas at Arlington; and 
• University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas.

Companies that innovate tend to prosper. Yet the process used by the most innovative firms remains a mystery. Is there a way that any company can discern whether to commit resources to an innovation idea? Kiriti Rambhatla has blended the fields of science and management and offers a new way of thinking about innovation inside any company.

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A new report released today by The Science Coalition illustrates one of the many returns on investment of federally funded scientific research: the creation of new companies. Sparking Economic Growth 2.0 highlights 100 companies that trace their roots to federally funded university research and their role in bringing transformational innovations to market, creating new jobs and contributing to economic growth. An accompanying online database provides free access to company profiles and allows users to sort companies by federal funding agency, university affiliation, type of innovation and other criteria.

All companies want to be known as innovators and want employees who are innovative. But what exactly does it mean to be innovative? Do you need grandiose thinking and a Ph.D. in molecular engineering? No, just about anyone can be “innovative” in the right environment and with the right direction.

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Federal health care reform has been catching a bit of flack the last few weeks, as health insurance exchanges continue to experience severe technical difficulties. But it’s not all bad. At a panel Thursday on health care information technology, Carolyn Quattrocki, who leads the governor’s Office of Health Care Reform, said that companies with bright ideas about how to use technology to improve health care policies are “so critical — and becoming more critical.”

Between federal health reform, a cache of federal agency headquarters and notable health care brands like Johns Hopkins, Maryland is a prime spot for up-and-coming health IT companies. But despite a wealth of resources, M. Jason Brooke had to look hard to find the help he and his business partner needed to launch their medical device company. To help pave a smoother path for others, Brooke and a team of other entrepreneurs have organized Maryland HealthTech Coalition. The group is designed to bring together health IT companies to share ideas, contacts and resources.

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"Site Selection for Life Sciences Companies,” a report released this month by business intelligence firm Venture Valuation and KPMG, uses an agglomeration of other reports and proprietary data to analyze key decision factors relevant to the leading life sciences clusters in France, Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands, Switzerland and the UK.

Photo courtesy of Roche

When you’re the head of the Consumer Electronics Association – the trade body for much of the U.S. tech industry – what gets you up in the morning? Innovation, of course, as CEA President and CEO Gary Shapiro said on Wednesday, in the first session of this year’s Mobilize conference in San Francisco.

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Connecticut College students and a professor of neuroscience have found “America’s favorite cookie” is just as addictive as cocaine – at least for lab rats. And just like most humans, rats go for the middle first.

In a study designed to shed light on the potential addictiveness of high-fat/ high-sugar foods, Professor Joseph Schroeder and his students found rats formed an equally strong association between the pleasurable effects of eating Oreos and a specific environment as they did between cocaine or morphine and a specific environment. They also found that eating cookies activated more neurons in the brain’s “pleasure center” than exposure to drugs of abuse.

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Each year, a committee of Cleveland Clinic doctors asks hundreds of their colleagues to weigh in on which emerging healthcare technologies they think will help shape their practice over the next 12 months.

Then, the committee evaluates nominations based on clinical impact, probability of commercial success, progress in commercialization and significant human interest, and produces a top 10 list announced at the end of the Clinic’s annual Medical Innovations Summit.

Image: http://medcitynews.com

Kayak cofounder Paul English has a thing for geography: not just in the travel itineraries, but also in the physical layout of his company's people.

As Rachel Feintzeig reports in the Wall Street Journal, Kayak and a handful of other companies have started to tinker with where their people sit, with reported boosts in productivity.

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Your liver could be "eating" your brain, new research suggests.

People with extra abdominal fat are three times more likely than lean individuals to develop memory loss and dementia later in life, and now scientists say they may know why.

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Venture capitalists have done fewer seed and first rounds this year but the number of second rounds is up, a further sign that their infatuation with early-stage consumer Internet companies is over despite the buzz generated by Twitter Inc.’s impending IPO.

Overall, venture investors pumped less money into fewer companies during the first nine months of 2013, according to the latest data from Dow Jones VentureSource. Investment fell 5% to $23.13 billion while deals were down 10.4% to 2,462. VentureSource is a research unit of Dow Jones & Co.

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As Mark Twain famously wrote, "I didn't have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead." His point? Strong writing is lean writing.

When you want to make your writing more powerful, cut out words you don't need--such as the 10 included in this post:

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With an executive staffing venture about to open, a business loan from the in-laws gnawing at her conscience and a new baby to care for, Michelle Fish was already feeling the pressure. But what really pushed her over the edge was an unexpected communiqué from the IRS demanding immediate payment of a "huge sum" owed from a prior business in which she was a partner. Poof! Her seed money was gone. "All the spreadsheets, all the forecasting, all the preplanning took a back seat once that bill came," recalls Fish, hearkening back to the 2003 launch of her Charlotte, N.C.-based firm, Integra Staffing.

Image: http://www.entrepreneur.com

During the recruitment process at Red Frog Events, a River North-based company specializing in event planning, nothing gives hiring manager Greg Bostrom more grief than turning down a talented applicant who doesn’t mesh with the company’s values.

"That’s the hardest hiring situation," says Bostrom, "when someone is extremely qualified and talented but doesn’t necessarily fit the culture."

Image: Antonio Perez / Chicago Tribune

Every day as a business owner you make decisions that have an impact on your business.  Sometimes you are not sure what direction to go in or what option to consider.  You could ask your friends and family, but do they really have the wealth of business knowledge that is needed to help guide you to make the right decision?  What you really need is a business mentor!

Image: under30ceo.com