Good news, SBIR/STTR/CPP are now extended through December 16, 2011. Both House & Senate have just passed H.R. 2112 which amongst many other things extends SBIR/STTR/CPP through December 16, 2011. The President is expect to sign the bill Friday, when the current CR funding the government expires.

Reading between the lines reveals more good news judging from congressional action on this bill. The major thrust of this bill is to fund Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies programs through the end of FY-2012 (September 30, 2012).

That serves notice that Congress wants to complete the FY-2012 funding for the remaining government's agencies (that may include SBIR) by December 16, 2011 when they break for the holidays.

The concept of the green economy has gained momentum in large extent since it provides response to multiple crises facing the world in recent years such as – climate issues, food and economic crisis. Green economy promises an alternative growth paradigm to protect earth ecosystem and alleviate poverty. Transition to a green economy means moving away from the system that encourages such crisis to one that proactively addresses and prevents them.

Failure to tackle poverty leads to increased social tensions, ecological pressures, economic crisis which emphasize on the urgency to transit to a “green economy”. Such economy fosters sustainable development and poverty eradication. The sad truth is, Zambia for instance has failed to eradicate poverty in the 21st century which has seen development growth.

Last spring, I wrote about Autom, a "social robot" initially developed at the MIT Media Lab whose job is to help dieters achieve their weight loss goals.

Autom, who looks like she could be the boxier sibling of Eve from "Wall-E," just went on sale for $199; the first units will be delivered early next year. Buyers will also need to sign up for a $19.99 per month subscription for at least one year. Autom is being sold by Intuitive Automata, the company that spun out of MIT.

Description Reflecting on his work with great entrepreneurs, investor Brad Feld believes the notion of "trying" to do something can undermine entrepreneurs from the start. At the Foundry Group, Feld and his partners look for entrepreneurs who are deeply obsessed with a vision and passion for their product and company. Feld also describes how being an angel investor versus a venture investor can shift how one views possible investments.

People who eat baked or broiled fish on a weekly basis may be improving their brain health and reducing their risk of developing mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and Alzheimer’s disease, according to a study presented today at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA).

“This is the first study to establish a direct relationship between fish consumption, brain structure and Alzheimer’s risk,” said Cyrus Raji, M.D., Ph.D., from the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. “The results showed that people who consumed baked or broiled fish at least one time per week had better preservation of gray matter volume on MRI in brain areas at risk for Alzheimer’s disease.”

The University of Utah is No. 1 in the nation at starting companies based on university research for the second year in a row, according to an annual survey recently released by the Association of University Technology Managers (AUTM). The survey ranks U.S. universities and institutions on commercialization success, and in recent years, the U of Utah has climbed to the top, overtaking such schools as MIT, Columbia, Cal Tech and Johns Hopkins.

The newest survey measures fiscal year 2010. The U of Utah had 18 startups from July 1, 2009 to June 30, 2010, while MIT was second, with 17 new companies. Other top schools included Brigham Young University with 13, Columbia and Cornell with 12, Johns Hopkins and Purdue at 11 each, while Cal Tech, Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Michigan all had 10.

The key reason to form an LLC (limited liability company) is to shield the personal assets of the owners from that of the business. This means that if your company has bad debts or is sued, banks and other lenders cannot seize your personal property. But let’s face it. For many small business owners, questions about forming an LLC typically boil down to a single topic … taxes.

Whether it’s driven by a desire to escape self-employment taxes or looking to avoid that “double taxation” whammy, small business owners ponder which legal structure is right for their business and financial situation.

Awareness is the first step of any customer outreach program. It has to be, and that’s why small business owners are always on the hunt for media coverage. You want to get your name out there to let people know who you are, what you do, and why they should give your company a shot. And when we’re talking about getting press as an SMB, it’s important to remember that we’re not just talking about your local newspapers, local television stations or even the local sections of larger news outlets. We’re also talking about bloggers – the voices who cover your industry and/or neighborhood online on a regular basis.

If you’re not sure why blogger outreach should be part of your marketing strategy, the recent State of the Blogosphere 2011 report released by Technorati (and blogged about by eMarketer) does a good job laying it all out for you.

• 38 percent of all bloggers post about brands they love or hate.
• 34 percent of bloggers write product or service reviews.
• More than 45 percent of bloggers write about the brands that they follow in social media.

Venture capitalists who are serious about turning their firms into more than one-fund wonders may want to have their associates actually start and run a company for a year.

Running a company is distinctly different from simply having operating experience, such as working in business development, sales or marketing. None of that can compare with being the CEO of a startup facing challenges such as a rapidly diminishing bank account, your best engineer quitting, working until 10pm and rushing to the airport and catching a redeye for a “Hail Mary” close of a customer, with your board demanding you do it faster.

Southern Ontario now has a stronger base of angel investment networks that will be able to connect more angel investors with the region's promising new businesses thanks to an investment by the Government of Canada. The Honourable Gary Goodyear, Minister of State for the Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario (FedDev Ontario), announced support for the angel investment community during a keynote address delivered at the 2011 National Angel Summit today.

"Our Government is working to support angels from coast to coast to coast," said Minister Goodyear. "I think it's clear that support for angel investors is a winning proposition: by unlocking investment capital, angels are helping us keep skilled workers and patents here, and helping to create sustained prosperity for our region and our country. This investment will attract new capital to our region, creating high-value jobs and long-term economic prosperity."

Blueseed, which is planning an offshore "seastead" for foreign entrepreneurs who have difficulty obtaining visas to live or work in the U.S., said this evening that that Thiel has agreed to lead the company's initial financing round.

"We're all totally psyched," Blueseed CEO and cofounder Max Marty told CNET. It's "hard to imagine this was just an idea some months ago." (See CNET's profile of Blueseed.)

The Center for Technology Transfer and Commercialization (CTTC) at Vanderbilt, formerly the Office of Technology Transfer and Enterprise Development, is expanding its services to accommodate the growing needs of Vanderbilt researchers.

“Our role is to assist university inventors in their goal of transferring inventions to the marketplace where they can have a positive impact on society,” said Alan Bentley, who was named assistant vice chancellor of Technology Transfer and Intellectual Property Development earlier this year.

Despite increasing communication online, many professionals still use a business card more than any other single marketing tool.  Obviously, a business card features the essentials including your name, organization and contact information.  In addition to the basics, you may see a pretty logo, fancy graphic design or colors.  Beyond that, it seems rare to come across a business card worth keeping outside the value of “easy” access to that person when needed.  Well, I guess a business card could have staying power if you’re in need of a bookmark or a fridge magnet—possibly featuring the schedule of a local sports team.  The other day though, I came across a pretty creative idea for a business card while helping my wife do some car shopping.  At least it’s something I’ve never seen done with this marketing tool.

I've been out in the bay area for a few days making the rounds. One of the things I encounter out here that I don't encounter in NYC is reception desk NDAs. I really hate them.

You show up to meet someone. You are greeted by the person at the reception desk. They ask you to sign a boilerplate NDA. It's so insulting. I read one yesterday and thought "there is no way I'm going to sign this." I wasn't there to discuss anything related to the Company whose offices I was visiting. I was just there to catch up with someone on general stuff going on in the angel and VC world. But I didn't want to make a scene and I wasn't going to discuss any company business anyway so I signed it.

What’s the top life sciences market in the country? It’s Boston, according to a new study.

In what’s sure to spark debate and friendly competition among the nation’s life science hubs, real estate and financial services firm Jones Lang LaSalle (NYSE:JLL) unveiled a report ranking the top life sciences clusters. Following Boston were New York/New Jersey, the San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C./suburban Maryland.

As the holiday feast went from oven-hot to room temperature, Grandpa continued to give thanks, even reaching back into past holidays.

My Grandpa's life was one of simplicity. He went to work, did his job, and left it all there when he came home to his family. Times have changed since Grandpa's simple life and long-winded holiday blessings. It is no longer possible to include all of our thankfulness into one blessing.

COLUMN: Index of Gladys Edmunds' Entrepreneurial Tightrope columns

There are many more aspects to our busy daily lives today that my grandfather was not faced with. Words like "employees," "customers" and "clients" were not a part of his vocabulary or his life. These are things entrepreneurs have to be both mindful of and thankful for and which we often overlook in our busy efforts to keep things running.

Today, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius released a report showing that doctors’ adoption of health information technology (IT) doubled in two years.  HHS also announced new actions to speed the use of health IT in doctors’ offices and hospitals nationwide, which will improve health care and create jobs nationwide.

While protecting confidential personal information, health IT can improve access to care, help coordinate treatments, measure outcomes and reduce costs.  The new administrative actions announced today, which were made possible by the HITECH Act, will make it easier for doctors and other health care professionals to receive incentive payments for adopting and meaningfully using health IT.

Citizen scientists can help study whale communications and pass along their observations through the Whale Song Project (aka Whale FM), a whale-song identification project that Scientific American launched in partnership with the Citizen Science Alliance (CSA). The Whale Song Project, available as part of the CSA’s suite of Zooniverse citizen-science projects, is designed specifically to assist in killer (Orca) and pilot whale research being conducted by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts and the Sea Mammal Research Unit (SMRU) at the University of St Andrews in Scotland.

Through the Whale Song Project, citizen scientists are presented with a whale call and shown where it was recorded on a map of the world’s oceans and seas. After listening to the whale call—represented on screen as a spectrogram showing how the pitch of the sound changes with time—citizen scientists are asked to listen to a number of potential matching calls from the project’s database. If a match is found, the citizen scientist clicks on that sound’s spectrogram and the results are stored.

I am happy to present our fourth INNO-Grips newsletter, in which we brief you on the latest EU trends and practices in innovation policy and studies.

Open innovation is a concept which not only attracts increasing attention from the academic community, but is also continuously becoming a focus of business practices. Enterprises are recognising that cooperation with each other, sharing and sourcing knowledge from outside to create synergies, is an effective engine for innovation and growth. To complement our recent study on Open Innovation, we offer in this issue an interesting example from industry on how to benefit from Open Innovation in practice.

At the same time, we are investigating two new areas of the innovation world - the role of social attitudes to innovation and entrepreneurship, and disruptive innovation. We present a new study which explores how to achieve better understanding of the social and cultural factors that enhance entrepreneurship and innovation. This is not an easy task, but it offers some exciting perspectives. Better understanding of social determinants will help us to respond more adequately to existing challenges by shaping better, more targeted and thus more effective policies.

This edition of Ideas at Work features Kauffman Foundation President and CEO Carl Schramm's appearance on CNBC during Global Entrepreneurship Week. Schramm presents the mixed bag of data on startups that show increased enthusiasm from youth for starting businesses but a decrease in startups and job creation among new companies.