A variety of collaboration spaces are spreading across urban innovation ecosystems. This makes sense intuitively, because collaboration spaces create and — in some cases — manage and sustain the communities that make the ecosystem exist and grow.

I believe that collaboration spaces are, in fact, one of the key elements to create and grow urban innovation ecosystems in cities. Our current research in mapping urban innovation is starting to provide results that seem to validate this hypothesis. We are seeing that collaboration spaces that create and manage communities are critical nodes of city urban innovation ecosystems.

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Forget Spider-man, and meet Geckoman. Researchers at Stanford University have created a gecko-inspired human climbing system that allowed a grad student to scale a glass wall using two hand-sized sticky pads.

The researchers, led by engineer Mark Cutkosky, also hope to use the adhesives in manufacturing equipment, making grippers for manipulating huge solar panels, displays, and other objects without the need for suction power or chemical glues. The team is also working with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory to adapt the adhesive for use by robots.

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Ten years ago, scientists discovered that some people are naturally missing working copies of a gene known as PCSK9. The consequences of the mutation were extraordinary. These people, including a Texas fitness instructor, a woman from Zimbabwe, and a 49-year-old Frenchman, had almost no bad cholesterol in their blood. Otherwise, they were perfectly normal.

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Students’ choice of academic major can be influenced heavily by how information about their potential earnings is framed, suggests a new study scheduled to be discussed here at this week’s annual conference of the Association for the Study of Higher Education.

People told about pay variation in fields appear to look more favorably upon higher-risk majors with potentially big payoffs than do people who are provided only figures on average earnings, the study concluded.

The U.S. is a “Shark Tank” nation, the United Kingdom is in a “Dragon’s Den,” and India is an entrepreneur heaven. The recent uptick in entrepreneurship is more than a trend but a global spirit of innovation.

The spirit of creating your own business is not new but has escalated in today’s market. The first quarter of this year was the biggest funding quarter for startups in five years, representing more than $2 billion in capital. Being a successful entrepreneur is no longer just a hope and a dream. There is real funding backing up the multitude of new businesses and great opportunity.

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Frustrated at the lack of interest by the medical establishment in reducing the costs of diagnostic testing, and seeing almost no chance of getting the necessary research grants, Kanav Kahol returned home to New Delhi in 2011. He was a member of Arizona State University’s department of biomedical informatics. Kahol had noted that despite the similarities between most medical devices in their computer displays and circuits, their packaging made them unduly complex and difficult for anyone but highly skilled practitioners to use. As well, they were incredibly expensive — costing tens of thousands of dollars each.

Image: The Swasthya Slate is portable, affordable and offers a wide variety of tests. (Swasthya)

In the “Mystery of Capital,” Peruvian economist Hernando de Soto famously writes about the need to convert assets into capital for creation of social and economic value in developing countries and economies in transition, noting:  “Any asset whose economic and social aspects are not fixed in a formal property system is extremely hard to move in the market.”  While de Soto is describing the need to legalize informal property systems, this is equally true with respect to BRICS and other countries seeking to unlock capital resources for R&D intensive start-ups, also known as Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs).

On a campus famous for its student entrepreneurs, the Penn Center for Innovation wants to shift the spotlight to faculty ideas.

On Monday night, President Amy Gutmann and Philadelphia mayor Michael Nutter headlined a marquee launch event for the PCI. The event featured a performance by the a cappella group, Off the Beat, and took place in the Harold Prince Theater of the Annenberg Center.

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At first glance, Westfield San Francisco Centre appears to be a typical American shopping mall with the usual rotation of mass-market retailers, a food court and a movie theater. But perched on the top level is an office most shoppers probably don't know about that’s designing the next generation of retail, bearing little resemblance to the current setup.

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The ability to test new technology before buying it is a convenience many consumers have come to expect. But for government agencies, that’s the exception rather than the norm.

North Carolina is one of the exceptions. Last year, the state launched a collaborative effort with industry, educational institutions and citizens to transform the way government delivers products and services through technology. The heart of that effort centers on the North Carolina Innovation Center (iCenter), a working laboratory in Raleigh, N.C., where users can test new hardware and software before the state commits to purchasing them. Workspace design, hosted virtual desktop and self-service solutions in state offices and attractions are among the recent projects being conducted at the iCenter.

Market Size:

The angel investor market in Q1,2 2014 showed signs that the five year moderate growth has continued in the first half of 2014. Total investments in Q1,2 2014 were $10.1 billion, an increase of 4.1% over Q1,2 2013, according to the Center for Venture Research at the University of New Hampshire. A total of 30,270 entrepreneurial ventures received angel funding in Q1,2 2014, a 5.9% increase from Q1,2 2013, and the number of active investors in Q1,2 2014 was 143,140 individuals, an increase of 6.1% from Q1,2 2013. The increase in total dollars and the larger increase in total investments (deals) resulted in a deal size of $332,120 in Q1,2 2014, a decline from the deal size in Q1,2 2013 of $337,850. These data indicate that angels remain major players in this investment class and at valuations similar to Q1,2 2013. The market exhibited a sustained growth pattern over a five year period and the angel market has now recovered from the correction in 2008.

Global Entrepreneurship Week (GEW) officially opens today in 150 countries with millions of people—from young students to nascent entrepreneurs to government leaders—taking part in a wide range of events, activities and competitions throughout the week.

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In the near future millennials will occupy every consequential leadership position in the world, be it in business, academia, government, or in the non-profit sector. Will they be ready to lead?

Contrary to popular belief, millennials (the generation born between the years 1984 and 1996) around the world are ambitious and eager to work hard to become leaders. But they want to do it on their terms, in jobs that give them meaning and allow them to contribute to society.

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Patients and doctors often don’t know if surgery to remove cancerous tissue was successful until scans are performed months later. A new kind of nanoparticle could show patients if they’re in the clear much earlier.

The nanoparticles—dubbed nanoflares—attach themselves to individual cancer cells in a blood sample and then glow, allowing cancerous cells to be detected and sorted with the help of a laser. Since different types of cancer cells—some of which are far more lethal than others—can be detected and collected using the technique, and since those cells can then be cultured in a dish, the nanoparticles may also make it easier to test potential treatments before giving them to patients.

Image: Cancer cells with specific genes glow red once infiltrated by novel nanoparticles (left). The nanoparticles don’t glow in cells without the gene (right).  

Another World Records Day, another reminder that we are all connected as people through our utterly weird behavior.

Thousands of people from all corners of the world participated in delightfully strange challenges on Nov. 13 to secure their spots in the Guinness World Records book.

The day marked the 10th annual Guinness World Records Day and the 60th anniversary of the Guinness World Records book.

Image: GWR

Leaning in isn't just a metaphorical way to get ahead. It's also a legitimate way to portray good body language during a job interview.

Job interviews are notorious tightrope walks. You want to be confident, but not obnoxious; intelligent but not a know-it-all. Trying to find a balance and also explain why you deserve a job is hard enough. But what if your body language could help you out?

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As part of ongoing research into national healthcare spending, the Deloitte Center For Health Solutions recently published their findings based on health data from 2012. According to the new report, there’s an additional amount of healthcare consumer spending that isn’t included in the federal calculations (often referred to as the National Healthcare Expenditure or just NHE). The new Deloitte calculations represent out‒of‒pocket expenses by consumers and amount to an additional $672 billion for 2012.  By Deloitte’s accounting, this additional amount puts the NHE for 2012 at $3.46 trillion.

It seems that every week a new multinational announces a startup investment fund, and this week it’s Deloitte’s turn to get involved.

The accountancy giant has launched a £25m fund that it will invest in its own employees’ startup ideas.

I was a very bad Procrastinator for a very long time, until i really understood the basics of why i procrastinate.

In order to understand why you procrastinate, first you should have a strong desire to eliminate procrastination in your life and following the methods mentioned below will be helpful.

Vocabulary breadth as evidenced by a person's speech is an excellent metric for intelligence. 

Speech represents what a person has overlearned.  A person who uses precise vocabulary correctly when speaking and whose speech is similar to standard academic English is generally able to produce language that is more sophisticated still when writing.  You speak the sort of language you are deeply fluent in and no one can be an accomplished, articulate speaker without being intelligent.