The study was so explosive that an entire Harvard conference was convened to debunk it: research published last year concluding that being mildly obese does not shorten life span, while being slightly overweight actually could lengthen it.

Spearheaded by epidemiologist Katherine Flegal of the Centers for Disease Control’s National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS), the research reviewed 97 weight studies covering almost three million people. It found that overweight people had lower death rates than people whose weight was normal and that mildly obese people didn’t die at greater rates than normal-weight people. Researchers call this counterintuitive conclusion the “obesity paradox.”

Three-quarters of the 1,500 global senior innovation executives we surveyed in 2014 reported that innovation is among the top three priorities for their companies. And 61 percent indicated that they are spending more on innovation this year than in 2013. While these numbers are largely consistent with those for 2013, important differences emerge when we look behind the averages at individual industries and countries. Notably, we see sharp shifts in the innovation stance of specific industries, a big change in the industry mix, and a heightened priority on innovation in rapidly developing economies (RDEs). 

Image: https://www.bcgperspectives.com

How long has the world awaited a hoverboard? You can dial it back to 1989, when actor Michael J. Fox's character first hopped on a floating skateboard in Back to the Future Part II.

For inventive entrepreneurs, the more pertinent question is: What would be the consumer demand for such a toy-meets-transport device? Finally, ambitious readers, you have earthbound answers to this elevated query.

Image: http://www.inc.com

"Behold the 'innovation deficit,'" writes Science magazine's Jeffrey Mervis to begin a 24 October article. He continues:

US science lobbyists coined the phrase last year to help make an economic argument for increasing federal funding of basic research, namely, that the current spending levels are too low for the United States to remain a global leader in innovation. Given political and budget realities, erasing this "deficit" anytime soon will take a minor miracle. But the phrase seems to be catching on, despite the fact that a one-time surge of funds could create its own problems.

Image: Free Digital Photos

International VC firm SOSVentures is capitalizing on the now buzz worthy biotech investment trend with the creation of IndieBio, the first accelerator to focus on just life sciences.

Y Combinator raised a few eyebrows when it accepted five biotech companies out of the 80 startups in its program this last summer. That was a first for the Silicon Valley accelerator. But IndieBio partners tell us they were already thinking along those lines when Y Combinator started making in-roads with those life sciences startups.

The average board of directors in the biotech world is roughly 90% male, according to a new analysis, and more than half of all industry boardrooms host no women whatsoever, striking numbers that illustrate a sector that struggles with diversity. Liftstream, a recruitment services outfit, analyzed nearly 1,150 life sciences companies in the U.S. and EU, finding that biotech's boardrooms tend toward Y chromosomes. Among drug developers with fewer than 1,000 workers, women held just 10% of available board seats, and fewer than 4% had female chairs. C-suites didn't fare much better, as women accounted for fewer than 25% of leadership teams across the industry.

Image: http://www.fiercebiotech.com

Angels are almost everywhere in the financing and business landscape in the country, and globally. They either invest as individuals or as a group in almost all types of businesses, be it a startup or a growth-stage company.

They are instrumental in creating jobs as every business they invest in would need professionals and workers. Angel investments helped finance 274,800 new jobs in 2012. In 2013, 41 percent of technology sector executives mentioned angels as their source of funds. Likewise, the jobs created in 2013 due to to angel funds rose to 290,020 new jobs, or 4.1 jobs per angel investment. Businesses where Angels have invested include Yahoo, Facebook, Google, Amazon and Starbucks.

One of the outcomes of the 2008 global financial crisis was the “funding gap”. Banks were less willing to provide loans and investors moved capital into more stable platforms. In general, the market tolerated less risk.

In this new environment, raising capital became the greatest challenge for small and midsize businesses (SMBs). They needed new platforms. Enter crowdfunding.

Cancer’s become a core area of venture capital interest, particularly given the rise of personalized medicine. But in a cluttered marketplace it’s tough to differentiate the worthy from the chaff. Here are some observations from a panel of investors said at the Cleveland Clinic Medical Innovation Summit Monday:

- “Pharma’s really very good at distributing medicines, but not that good at innovating and developing them anymore,” Ashley Dombkowski, a managing director at Bay City Capital said.

Image: http://medcitynews.com

In 1881 Otto von Bismarck, the conservative minister president of Prussia, presented a radical idea to the Reichstag: government-run financial support for older members of society. In other words, retirement. The idea was radical because back then, people simply did not retire. If you were alive, you worked—probably on a farm—or, if you were wealthier, managed a farm or larger estate.

This was a big "if," at the time. That retirement age just about aligned with life expectancy in Germany then. Even with retirement, most people still worked until they died.

What reply does the interviewer expect when he asks, "Do you have any questions for us?" I am a penultimate-year student and will be appearing for my interviews very soon. How should one tackle such questions?

Answer by Ambra Benjamin, engineering recruiter at Facebook, previously LivingSocial, Google and Expedia.

I think it's important to note both now and throughout your entire career that when you interview for a job, you are interviewing the company as much as they are interviewing you. when you interview for a job, you are interviewing the company as much as they are interviewing you... 

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VIVEK WADHWA: Corporations have always relied on industry analysts, management consultants and in-house gurus for advice on strategy and competitiveness. Since these experts understand the products, markets and industry trends, they also get paid the big bucks.

But what experts do is analyze historical trends, extrapolate forward on a linear basis and protect the status quo — their field of expertise. And technologies are not progressing linearly anymore; they are advancing exponentially. Technology is advancing so rapidly that listening to people who just have domain knowledge and vested interests will put a company on the fastest path to failure. Experts are no longer the right people to turn to; they are a waste of money.

Entrepreneurs, often romanticised as modern-day pioneers hewing their future from the raw fabric that is the global economy, have come to epitomise the current professional’s dream: master of your destiny, flexible schedule and lifestyle, ability to dictate the culture of the business with fantastic riches to be reaped.

The salutary books on the subject, buoyed by a sea of magazine articles and blogs, have spread and reinforced these dangerous ideas to every corner of the globe. Any attempt to temper or broaden the discussion is met with a tidal wave of criticism usually accusing sceptics of being anti-capitalist and closed-minded. This is unfortunate as it makes it harder for would-be entrepreneurs to receive a better idea of what can be a rewarding professional life.

Image: Free Digital Photos

Building and growing businesses has been my passion for as long as I can remember, and I’m sure thousands of other entrepreneurs would say the same. The buzz of doing deals and being your own boss is a truly rewarding experience; however I still feel that the concept of entrepreneurship, particularly in the UK, could be better acknowledged.

I would love for entrepreneurship to be recognised and respected in the same way as any other profession, like doctors, lawyers or accountants. If you were to ask students what they want to be when they grow up – why shouldn't they say an entrepreneur? It is as much of a career as anything else.

I always advise software startups to file patents to protect their “secret sauce” from competitors, and to increase their valuation. The good news is that a patent can scare off or at least delay competitors, and as a “rule of thumb” patents can add up to $1M to your startup valuation for investors or M&A exits (merger and acquisition).

In two recent articles, we have examined whether there is a need for a CEO school and what the foundations of effective CEOs are to try and understand whether the top job is one that can be learned or whether it’s even a profession one can be schooled in. In a series of interviews with chief executives from Jeff Immelt to Bob Dudley among many others, we found that a deep understanding of personal values mixed with traits such as curiosity, ambition and passion often lay the groundwork for CEOs to formulate effective "visions.”

The first real robot you own could very well be the same machine that ferries you to and from work everyday. Unfortunately for the adolescent dreamer in all of us, that doesn’t mean we’ll be driving around in cars that can magically transform into robot warriors intent on defending the Earth.

What it really means, if tech research company Gartner is to be understood, is that autonomous cars — which it believes are much closer to reality than we think — will be the first truly pervasive robots capable of autonomously sensing, interpreting, deciding, acting and communicating that most of us will experience in our lifetimes.

Image: http://motorburn.com

Speaking at the Wall Street Journal’s WSJD Live conference today, Apple chief executive Tim Cook said that the company had activated 1 million credit cards with Apple Pay in the service’s first three days of availability.

That makes Apple the number one provider of contactless payments, Cook claimed.

“And we’ve only been at it a week. I feel fantastic,” he said, according to a report on the Verge.

Image: Tim Cook, speaking at WSJD Live with Gerry Baker of the Wall Street Journal. Image Credit: The Verge

Silicon Valley long has been hailed as an exemplar of the American culture of opportunity, openness and entrepreneurship. Increasingly, however, the tech community is morphing into a ruling class with the potential for assuming unprecedented power over both our personal and political lives.

Rather than the plucky entrepreneurs of legend, America’s rising tech oligarchy constitutes a narrow emerging elite. They are primarily beneficiaries of the limited pools of risk capital – nearly half of which is concentrated in Silicon Valley. They also have access to a highly incestuous club of skilled professional managers, lawyers, PR mavens and accountants that counterparts elsewhere are unlikely to enjoy.

Image: http://www.newgeography.com

Recruiting in the tech industry these days is a cutthroat endeavor. From bloated salaries to lavish perks, the best companies are trying everything to woo the most talented, coveted engineers to their team.

That’s not necessarily the best tactic, said Jeff Weiner, CEO of LinkedIn, speaking at LinkedIn’s annual TalentConnect conference to an army of recruiters in attendance.

Image: Flickr / Sylvain Kalache