New research in The FASEB Journal suggests that rats fed homobrassinolide, found in the mustard plant, produced an anabolic effect, and increased appetite and muscle mass, as well as the number and size of muscle fibers.

Bethesda, MD—If you are looking to lean out, add muscle mass, and get ripped, a new research report published in The FASEB Journal (http://www.fasebj.org) suggests that you might want to look to your garden for a little help. That’s because scientists have found that when a specific plant steroid was given orally to rats, it triggered a response similar to anabolic steroids, with minimal side effects. In addition, the research found that the stimulatory effect of homobrassinolide (a type of brassinosteroid found in plants) on protein synthesis in muscle cells led to increases in lean body mass, muscle mass and physical performance.

Nikhil Sethi is 23 years old. He met his 22-year-old cofounder, Garret Ullom, at Northwestern University in a Probability of Statistics of Random Signals class.

Ullom was a computer science major; Sethi was studying electrical engineering and law.

Sethi's father had tried his hand at entrepreneurship, and Sethi began dabbling in it at an early age. He interned at True Ventures and HBO and, during his sophomore year, he tried to raise $80 million for a logistics company.

Eileen Walker, Chief Executive Officer of the Association of University Research Parks (AURP), has been selected for service as a Fulbright Specialist by the J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board, on behalf of the Bureau of Education and Cultural Affairs of the U.S. Department of State, and the Council for International Exchange of Scholars.

The Fulbright Specialists Program is the flagship international educational exchange program sponsored by the U.S. government. It promotes linkages between United States academics and professionals and their counterparts at universities around the world. The program is designed to support qualified U.S. faculty and professionals, in select disciplines, to engage in collaborative projects at higher education institutions in over 100 countries. Project activities focus on the strengthening and development needs of higher education institutions. The program sends U.S. faculty and professionals abroad to serve as expert consultants on curriculum, faculty development and institutional planning at overseas academic institutions.

Jobs are the single biggest political issue of the day in the U.S., and rightly so. As of August, the official unemployment rate in the United States stood at 9.1 percent. That was down one point from the October 2009 peak of 10.1 percent, but still higher than at any time since the 1930s, with the exception of the worst months of the 1982-83 recession. And today’s real unemployment rate, if you include discouraged workers who have stopped searching for jobs and people who have settled for part-time positions, is much higher, at around 16 percent. That translates into 25 million Americans who need work.

That’s a terrifying number, because no one knows how the country might create that many new jobs. Let’s say President Obama’s $447 billion jobs bill were enacted in its current form (an unlikely prospect, given the levels of partisan obstructionism in Congress). The most optimistic estimates from economists are that the new spending in the bill would add only 2 million jobs to the economy in 2012. That’s nothing to sneeze at, but it’s a tenth of what’s really needed.

The tenth anniversary of 9/11 amidst the ongoing employment crisis has opened a wide conversation about what ails America and what should be done about it. A vast ideological gap on macro-economic policy divides Washington and much of the nation, but there is almost universal agreement on one solution: innovation. Innovation is now perceived as a panacea for job creation, income generation, economic growth, dollar strength, and the revival of the U.S. as global hegemon.

But if innovation is going to save us, we must understand why is has so far failed us. Unpacking the past decade's experience with innovation can guide us. I'm working on a book, CQ — Creative Intelligence, that will, in part, explore that topic. Here's what I've been thinking.

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — The University of Florida’s Sid Martin Biotechnology Incubator program, which fosters the growth of startup bioscience companies with ties to UF, has released a study showing that over the last seven years its companies and graduates had a total economic impact on Alachua County of $753 million.

The $753 million is the result of total output, which includes value added to the local economy, labor income and all output factors — the total economic impact of the incubator companies’ economic activities. Sid Martin Biotechnology graduate companies that relocated outside the county were not included. The study also didn’t include portions of companies located elsewhere when a company had multiple locations such as Boston and Alachua.

Jeffrey Butts had a problem. In his first year as superintendent of Indianapolis’ Wayne Township schools, he faced a pressing need. Wayne Township, like most other districts, was on the hunt for more science teachers.

A solution for that problem was soon at hand. With the guidance of the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation, Indiana was one of three states running a program to train scientists to serve as public school teachers. Butts was able to hire seven to start teaching this fall. The training program has the support not only of Indiana, Michigan and Ohio and their university systems, but also counts on millions of dollars from foundations such as the Lilly Endowment and W.K. Kellogg Foundation.

Polaris Venture Partners, a US venture capital company, on Thursday announced the opening of Dogpatch Labs Europe, a technology company accelerator located in Dublin.  Meanwhile, the National Pensions Reserve Fund has invested $50m in a Polaris fund, via the Innovation Fund Ireland.

Polaris said its Dogpatch Labs provide technology entrepreneurs with access to experienced mentors, free space, connectivity, and a community of peers that encourage a constant atmosphere of innovation. In addition to Dublin, Polaris has Dogpatch Labs communities in other vibrant technology hubs, including Cambridge, Massachusetts, New York, and Palo Alto, California.

Perhaps you’ve heard about the Google millionaires: 1,000 of the company’s early employees (including the company masseuse) who earned their wealth through company stock options. A terrific story, but unfortunately, not all stock options have as happy an ending. Pets.com and Webvan, for example, went bankrupt after high-profile Initial Public Offerings, leaving stock grants worthless.

BEIJING: General Electric, the conglomerate, is using open innovation as a way to source ideas capable of boosting sales and solving major energy problems in China.

The organisation has announced a competition in the world's most populous nation, promising $100m in resources to back third party firms and individuals providing solutions to changing energy needs.

Its latest initiative features indigenous partners like Citic Capital and Sequoia Capital China, with the winning entrants potentially working in GE's local R&D centre, being handed funding or receiving an equity investment.

Des Moines is among eight pilot cities chosen for a new global initiative on entrepreneurship and startup businesses.

The Des Moines Register reports ( http://bit.ly/rb0gOd) that The Startup Foundation is a construct of Startup Weekend and the Kauffman Foundation in Kansas City, Mo.

Startup Weekends are events at which entrepreneurs and startup supporters share ideas, form teams and launch companies.

To assess the value of a diamond, an appraiser looks at the 5 C’s (Cut, Color, Clarity, Cash balance of Customer). Turns out the C word options for evaluating anything are virtually limitless. So, long desiring to write a blog topic about the Critical Constituent Components of the ideal emerging med tech CEO in a Clever but not too Challenging manner, I naturally turned to the letter C.

There have been many books, articles and probably blogs written about what it takes to corner the corner office. When that corner office is overlooking the HVAC system of a sub-sub-leased space crammed with tired-looking engineers, low-paid summer interns, 3 day old pizza, EBAY-purchased testing devices, duct tape covered chairs, and the strewn parts of multiple cannibalized pieces of equipment, otherwise known as a start-up med tech company, different rules apply

Seven scientists, mostly in molecular biology and genetics, received the National Medal of Science, and five innovators were awarded the technology version, the White House announced this week.

“Each of these extraordinary scientists, engineers, and inventors is guided by a passion for innovation, a fearlessness even as they explore the very frontiers of human knowledge, and a desire to make the world a better place,” President Barack Obama said in a prepared statement. “Their ingenuity inspires us all to reach higher and try harder, no matter how difficult the challenges we face.”

Few would argue that STEM-educated workers are vital to advancing innovative ideas and new products. But here’s another fact borne out by labor market data: The regions with the strongest presence of STEM-related employment are heavily dependent on government funding.

Washington, D.C. has more than two times the concentration of STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) jobs than the national average, according to EMSI’s latest employment estimates. Fairfax and Arlington counties — whose economies are interconnected to D.C.’s — have helped Virginia expand its presence of STEM-related workers, on a per-capita basis, more than any other state in the last decade.

After you've been working on your business blog for a while, there are a number of great things that you can do to give it a boost. When you were first getting started with blogging, your primary concern was probably just getting content shipped on a regular basis so you could generate your initial momentum and begin to build an audience and readership. But after a few months of regular publishing and generating growth, it can be beneficial to give your readers some variety by creating and publishing different types of content in various formats to help your blog grow and keep the content exciting. There are many possible ways to do this, and today we'll cover three of them: integrating video content, incorporating interviews, and incorporating weekly posts covering lighter topics.

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Stanley Hainsworth has been a catalyst for the great brands of modern times. He was creative director at Nike and then Lego. He was vice president global creative at Starbucks in an era when the coffee purveyor was experiencing phenomenal growth. Starbucks has been hailed, acknowledged, and praised again and again for its excellence in branding and marketing, in creating a branded experience that can satisfy the connoisseur, bring in new converts, be accessible to all, and irresistible in its appeal. Stanley defined the very feel of Starbucks in an era when the brand was becoming a cultural icon.

Stanley has a reputation for being extremely rigorous in his work, comprehensively rethinking brands when necessary, and helping them to expand into new areas of endeavor while remaining true to their original identity. As he had done at Nike, he helped Lego expand into entertainment properties that allowed the company to gracefully enter the brand multiverse. At Starbucks, he created an innovative criteria of five filters--handcrafted, artistic, sophisticated, human, and enduring--that defined the work for the company. Stanley's extraordinarily thorough approach to design and branding is complemented by an equally good nature; he has been a revered colleague and mentor at the companies where he worked.