Masaccio (1401-1428), the first great interpreter of Renaissance painting, combined pictorial art and mathematical art of perspective. Born in San Giovanni Valdarno, near Florence, the Tuscan artist was a pioneer of that cultural cross-fertilization which made the Italian Renaissance unique and universal. Recombining creatively the most diverse segments of the DNA of art – sculpture, painting, mathematics, geometry, architecture – Masaccio contributed significantly to the cultural literacy that characterizes the Age of the Renaissance.

In the United States, for the first time since 1933, you do not have to earn more then $200k annually or be a millionaire to invest in startups. As long as the startup raises less than fifty million dollars annually, anyone can now get into the game at the ground level.

In the past, crowdfunding has been limited to pledging donations or pre-ordering products, on platforms, such as Kickstarter and Indiegogo. This has provided some capital for startups to complete product development and to manufacture their offerings. As of June 19th, 2015, Regulation A+ has made it legal to crowdfund actual investments and these investments can take place inexpensively on online platforms such as StartEngine and SeedInvest.

Image: http://www.huffingtonpost.com

Fire up Siri and ask, "What is zero divided by zero?"

You get the true mathematical answer:

But Siri goes on a bit of a rant after that.

Here's a transcription of the bizarre answer Apple's personal assistant gives you:

Imagine that you have zero cookies and you split them evenly among zero friends. How many cookies does each person get

Now that non-accredited investors can buy shares in private companies through equity crowdfunding platforms, many people eager to get in on the ground floor of high flying startups are considering making those investments. Before they cut a check, would-be investors should consider how they will get their money back out. It won’t be nearly as easy as putting it in.

King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) has doubled down on its university venturing fund, upgrading its seed fund to an innovation fund with a larger remit to invest.

The KAUST Innovation Fund will be investing in spin-outs emanating from KAUST as well as tech companies willing to relocate to Saudi Arabia.

It's surreal to be in the south during this time in history. The hot, humid muggy Mississippi weather today was interrupted momentarily by a ferocious thunderstorm that flashed and rumbled over the Capital City, dumping buckets of warm rain in its hurry to race through the region. But neither a torrential downpour nor the loud rolls of thunder could drown out the buzz of excitement that permeates this place at this moment in time. There's a real sense that something historic is about to happen in Jackson, Mississippi that will have a positive impact on the economic course of this city, and perhaps the entire state, into the foreseeable future.

Does your startup need a reality check? Whether you’re struggling to attract the right customers or come up with a better way to process invoices, an accelerator program can mean the difference between blindly pursuing your startup and moving forward with purpose.

Accelerators provide seed investment, mentorship, and the connections necessary for success. By the end of the program, companies that go through our accelerator for instance have found more value in the experience than the $50,000 we invested in them.

The origins of ‘crowdsourcing’ lie very much in the business world. The term is widely accepted to have been coined by Wired magazine in 2006, in an article analysing how businesses were beginning to outsource tasks, usually handled by an individual to a larger number of people, in the expectation it would gain faster results for a cheaper price. Since then, business use of crowdsourcing techniques has become more established. Crowdfunding, for example, has become a common way of raising funds, while Spigit Engage customers provide a great example of how businesses are applying crowdsourcing to the innovation process.

Ten companies have won a $20 million contract to support NASA’s Center of Excellence for Collaborative Innovation.

The winners are:

Appirio

HeroX PBC

Innocentive Inc.

Kaggle Inc.

Luminary Labs

Ninesigma Inc.

Ideo LP

The Common Pool LLC

Tongual Inc.

Patexia

Well, the secret’s out. The TED Talk on teaming launched quietly, just before the newsletter for Summer, 2015 went out June 21st.   So now we are down to brass tacks, and we need your help to get the word out.   First, just in case you missed it, here it is:

Timing Isn't Everything. Teaming Is. And here are the quick links to get there:   https://bit.ly/DrJTED  This link goes directly to the YouTube page… https://bit.ly/DrJTEDx   …and this one goes to the TEDx page on TED.com.   You can leave out the https:// part when you tell someone. I’m just being super-specific. But you may be thinking, why am I mentioning two roads to the same end?

Building great businesses, achieving massive goals and rising to the top of your profession doesn't just happen by accident. It happens through a ridiculous work ethic and consistently showing up every single day.

Here are 20 quotes to help motivate you to hustle like never before:

1. "You can't have a million-dollar dream with a minimum-wage work ethic." -- Stephen C. Hogan

What's the difference between effective vs. ineffective people? Effective people take responsibility for their own success.

In short, they don’t wait around for the company to hand them a mentor and a plan. Effective people take action to get things done -- especially if they're entrepreneurs. They don’t wait around for help. That’s not to say that effective people don’t ask for help; they do. They seek help when they need it and find a way to keep moving forward when it’s not available.

How do you feel about asking for what you want or need? If words like shy, nervous, anxious or even apathetic describe you in this context, you could be missing out on a good many opportunities.

Whether it’s favors, negotiations, or routine interpersonal communications you're seeking, taking the initiative to ask and knowing how to do it well can make all the difference for both new entrepreneurs and established businesses.

We’d all love our brains to process information faster and have better memory recall. While you might think doing crossword puzzles, math puzzles like Sudoku, or brain-training apps will keep your brain in top shape, Dr. Jennifer Jones, a psychologist and expert in the science of success, says there’s no real proof that these can improve your mental acuity. She offers some daily practices that can truly grow your brain:

How much do you hate your commute to work?

Some denizens of the Bay Area were so tired of traveling back and forth to their tech jobs in Mountain View that they were willing to shell out $46 a night to sleep in a tent in someone’s backyard in close proximity to the Google campus. That works out to just under $900 per month—which in some cities is what it costs to rent a decent one-bedroom apartment.

It’s no secret: innovation is difficult for well-established companies. By and large, they are better executors than innovators, and most succeed less through game-changing creativity than by optimizing their existing businesses.

Just because more men pursue careers in science and engineering does not mean they are actually better at math than women are. The difference is that men think they are much better at math than they really are. Women, on the other hand, tend to accurately estimate their arithmetic prowess, says Shane Bench of Washington State University in the U.S., leader of a study in Springer’s journal Sex Roles.

Image: http://scienceblog.com

Ever wanted to get the story behind Eli Whitney's cotton gin and how it laid the ground work for the economic development of Apple’s iPhone?

Just in time for the Fourth of July, the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C. Wednesday opened its new "American Enterprise" exhibit, giving visitors a closer look at American innovation and business from the mid-1700s to the present.

Wilbur and Orville Wright’s airplane flew for the first time in December 1903. It was one of the most important innovations of human history, changing the world in every imaginable way.

To celebrate their accomplishment, the press offered a yawn and a shoulder shrug.

OCAST recently awarded $6,178,695 million for 41 research and development projects ranging from the development of nano-scaled lithium-ion batteries to innovative mineral recovery techniques to next generation antibiotics. “The quality of the proposals, and the innovation behind them, was truly outstanding this year,” stated Dan Luton, director of programs for OCAST.