San Francisco, Calif.--I’m at a green home conference called West Coast Green and two of the more startling exhibits are for urban transportation products.

Lit Scooters has concocted an all-electric two-wheeled scooter for city driving, particularly for cities in developing nations. The cargo space in the middle can hold a 22-inch TV, so you can even shop with it.

The added bonus comes in the fold-ability. Wait 'til the end of the video to see Scott Lananna, mechanical design engineer at Lit, do that trick. It’s pretty amusing. When folded, the scooter takes up about 50 percent less space. The Lit is powered by a battery pack in the seat tube and a hub motor on the rear wheel. (Editor's Note: I had a handheld so sometimes the sound is not so hot.)

We hosted the 2010 State Science and Technology Institute annual conference in Pittsburgh last week. Thanks to many of you, it was a very successful event. One highlight was the panel we had with three Pennsylvania governors on the same stage: Governor Rendell, Governor Ridge and Governor Thornburgh. The video link has now posted to the PCN website so we thought you might enjoy watching the videos.

http://pcntv.com/pcnplus/

The city known for its bicycles is gaining just as strong a reputation for the quiet buzz of electric mobility.

Last week the City of Amsterdam signed an agreement with the Renault-Nissan Alliance that aims to register at least 1,000 electric vehicle (EV) sales by the end of 2011, helped initially by the delivery next February by Nissan of 100 of its LEAF vehicles to fleet customers, as well as a sales and service network and a public education program about electric mobility.

There is nothing quite like glass. Its smoothness and weight give it an unrivaled tactile appeal, and people are attracted to its visual presence like raccoons to tin foil. Glass bottles aren’t just another packaging option for wine; their shapes, sizes and colors are closely connected to the history of the wines they hold. The style of glass bottle used to present a wine can tell a consumer something about the wine’s provenance, varietal composition, even the winemaking style. For most projects, the glass bottle used is rarely taken seriously at the beginning of the design process, because of this, many designs are built off of assumptions that are flawed. By putting glass in context of its history, we will give designers a chance to understand the impact of their decisions.

There’s a lot of people talking about innovation these days, myself included.

The good news is that business leaders seem to be sitting up and taking notice of this important subject.  The bad news is that once a topic becomes popular in the media, people have a tendency to see it as the next “management flavor of the month.”  In other words, they perceive it as a quick fix solution rather than a long-term change in the way they do business.

Remember a few decades ago when everyone jumped on the continuous improvement bandwagon?  Very quickly, companies of all shapes and sizes began implementing six sigma, lean manufacturing, and other types of process improvement programs.  Many had no clue what they were doing or worked hard without a link to overall strategy and success.  And most had very unrealistic timelines and expectations for the results they hoped to achieve.

A new class of pain relievers that targets musculoskeletal pain receptors, instead of more general pain pathways, could alleviate osteoarthritis pain better than any drug now on the market, but hurdles remain before the FDA approves it. Research on the new therapy was published yesterday in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Osteoarthritis occurs when joint cartilage wears down, with the worst cases requiring joint replacement surgery. The pain can be unrelenting, and there's no real cure. Patients often get through the day by relying on pain relievers, typically starting with over-the-counter options such as ibuprofen or acetaminophen, both nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs). As the pain intensifies and people become inured to the drugs' effects, they gradually work their way up to opioids such as oxycodone.

Carolina North’s flagship is likely never going to be built.

Jack Evans, the executive director of Carolina North, said Wednesday that the University didn’t reach an agreement with the developers of the Innovation Center.

“It’s a casualty of the economy,” Evans said Wednesday at a public information meeting with town and University officials. “There are no discussions on the table now that would bring that project into being.”

I love e-mail marketing. I love it because it’s universally understood and suited for normal people–people like your mom, your neighbor Jane down the street, and your customers who still haven’t signed away their life and privacy for a Facebook account (yet). E-mail marketing gives small business owners an intimate way to reach the “everyone else” of their market. And that’s where its power it lives.

But not all e-mail marketing is created equal. You know this because you, too, have an inbox. You see what arrives there. You can feel the difference between the e-mails you rush to open and the ones that cause you to angrily hit the delete key. If you’re a small business owner trying to tweak your e-mail marketing campaign, where you should start? What’s most important to readers?

Here are six e-mail marketing best practices to help you get started.

The prediction that the transition to a green or low carbon economy will result in a booming demand for so-called green collar workers is already being borne out in government policies. President Obama’s plan to turn around the US economy includes a USD150bn investment in green energy over the next ten years, driving America towards energy independence whilst creating five million ‘green collar’ jobs. Similarly, high levels of demand for green collar construction workers are being seen in the UK. The government’s commitment to ensure that all new homes qualify as zero carbon by 2016 had provided impetus for construction firms to invest in developing green building skills. The value of the refurbishment market alone will be £4bn (approximately USD6.3bn) a year.

For Asian economies, the challenge in facing the green market as well as the resource crunch is twofold. First is the availability of economic capital to simulate growth and drive the necessary transition. Second is the implementation of those green policies and targets. The availability of skilled human capital could be the real limiting factor in this respect.

These are among a list of ten key areas for action drawn up by the 22-member board, after a peer review process. The list was requested by the EU Commissioner for Research, Innovation and Science, Máire Geoghegan-Quinn, as input to her wide-ranging review of EU innovation policy. That policy will be published in early October, setting the stage for months of debate among the EU member-states about the future direction of EU R&D funding and policies.

The Commissioner called on ERAB to give her a list of actions she can focus on delivering at a conference which took place in May this year under the Spanish Presidency. “Provide me with at least ten concrete proposals on how research, innovation and science can contribute to address society’s grand challenges,” she told academics, industrialists and policy makers gathered at the meeting in Seville.

In conjunction with the 7th Annual Conference of the Technopolicy Network, delegates had the opportunity to tour many of the key installations that make up the Heidelberg bioscience cluster. The tour was facilitated by conference partner BioRN, the dynamic cluster organization that is driving this world class biotechnology cluster, the leading bioscience cluster in Germany and recognized as one of the best overall clusters in the country.

The tour started with an excellent overview presentation of the cluster by managing director Christian Tidona and his team. BioRN stands for the Rhine-Neckar region where the cluster is situated and the goal is to become Europe’s leading health economy. Not only is the cluster home to global industry leaders such as Roche, Merck Serono and Abbott, the cluster benefits from an impressive array of research and learning institutions located in the Heidelberg Technology Park.

There are more than 12,000 employess in the research institutions, including 2,500 in DKFZ, the German cancer research institute which was one of the highlights of the Technopolicy innovation tour.  DKFZ is Germany’s largest biomedical research institute and is focused on investigating mechanisms of cancer development and risk factors and is home to the 2008 Nobel prize winner for medicine, Dr. Harald zur Hausen, whose research made it possible to develop a vaccine against cervical cancer. Another highlight of the tour was a visit to the Heidelberg Ion-Beam Therapy Centre (HIT), the world’s first heavy ion therapy facility with a moveable radiation source. One of the largest research projects ever implementted in Germany, HIT cost 119 million Euros and occupies an are the size of a football field. And like so many of the exciting activities taking place in the BioRN cluster, HIT is very much a collaborative initiative with a number of key partner organizations.

Other sites covered on this most stimulating innovation tour included the Heidelberg Institute for Stem Cell Technology and Experimental Medicine, the Centre of Molecular Biology (ZMBH), and the Max Planck Institute for Medical Research. More information on BioRN and this world class cluster can be found at www.biorn.org .  Following the innovation tour, the Technopolicy delegates were treated to a guided tour of the old city of Heidelberg, truly one of Europe’s most beatiful and historic cities, setting the stage for a most interesting annual conference.

This was an extremely impressive tour of a Bio Science Cluster that you don't hear much of , but is definitely a real Global Player......Rich Bendis

Startup Weekend, an organization dedicated to the worldwide education and proliferation of entrepreneurship, has made a name for itself over the last few years with its unique weekend-long events. Over 17,000 participants have attended one of the organization's 120+ global events, from which over 560 new startups have launched. Thanks to a grant announced today from the Kauffman Foundation, Startup Weekend to continue to grow and better educate entrepreneurs in more cities around the globe.

For those unfamiliar with the Startup Weekend model, the 54-hour event takes place, as its name would suggest, over the course of a weekend. On a Friday night, attendees meet up for the first time and pitch their ideas for startups, eventually breaking into groups. For the remainder of the weekend, the groups work to bring their idea to life, wrapping up with a pitch contest at the end of night on Sunday.