Researchers at Yale Law School made headlines recently, when they suggested that people often fail to question their political beliefs in the face of scientific discoveries that contradict them. The study showed how people reason selectively, and interpret data in such a way that it conforms with their political vantage point. 

Image: Sharks, like these bull sharks in Fiji, form a diverse group — along with rays and chimeras — of more than 1,000 cartilaginous fishes. Many are being overfished to the point of extinction. Credit: © Keith Ellenbogen

Companies spend a lot of time and money trying to motivate their employees.

But when was the last time a mug with your company’s logo or a coffee shop gift card made you truly excited? Real motivation doesn’t come from external rewards--it comes from making some shifts in how you think about your situation, says San Diego, California-based personal empowerment expert Susan Fowler, author of Why Motivating People Doesn’t Work . . . And What Does: The New Science of Leading, Energizing, and Engaging.

ON CREATIVITY

How do people get new ideas?

Presumably, the process of creativity, whatever it is, is essentially the same in all its branches and varieties, so that the evolution of a new art form, a new gadget, a new scientific principle, all involve common factors. We are most interested in the “creation” of a new scientific principle or a new application of an old one, but we can be general here.

Image: http://www.technologyreview.com

Founded in London in 1787, The Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) began publishing The Laws of Cricket in 1788, and later became the governing body of the game. More than two centuries later, the MCC has passed governing responsibilities to The International Cricket Council. But it still publishes The Laws of Cricket and helps young players and casual fans learn more about the bat-and-ball game that dates back to early 16th-century England, if not before. And let’s face it, if you didn’t grow up in a country that figured into the British Empire, you can probably use a primer. Or maybe 10 animated ones narrated by actor, writer, cricket lover and occasional umpire Stephen Fry. Click the play button on the video above, and you can watch the collection of animations, covering everything from what happens when a “wicket is down” to when the “batsman is out his ground.” When you’re done, you can enjoy some other Fry narrations we’ve featured in blog posts past. See the “relateds” below.

TORONTO – A new crowdfunding movement is asking Canadians to use every day acts of kindness to raise money for charity.

The ‘Giving Tuesday Challenge‘ asks people to choose a cause, create a crowdfunding campaign and encourage family and friends to donate money in exchange for an ‘act of kindness’ from the individual.

Image: http://globalnews.ca 

You’ve got an amazing product idea, and you’re looking to get it funded. You’re going to need at least a million dollars in capital to make it happen and finding that choice group of investors who’ll back your dream in exchange for a slice of equity will be a daunting task. Luckily for you and many other ingenious entrepreneurs, however, there’s another way.

At Qualcomm’s Uplinq conference last month, the company showed off a three-wheeled robot with a dragon head that — after receiving instructions from a tablet — could pick up different toys and sort them into the correct baskets by itself.

The demonstration highlighted Qualcomm’s belief that smartphone technology — sensors, cameras, processors and wireless connectivity — could drive the obscure robotics market closer to the mainstream.

Image: http://www.utsandiego.com 

Earlier this year, the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) launched the HHS IDEA Lab. With it, we unveiled a consolidated structure for the innovation activities at the Department of Health and Human Services, flashy new branding and a website. But when we launched, we weren’t totally clear on what the main message for the HHS IDEA Lab was, and over the past 6 months we heard the question – what is the HHS IDEA Lab all about? So we have looked at ourselves, focused on what your needs are to solve problems, become an entrepreneur, or just learn new skills, and have clearly defined what the HHS IDEA Lab is.

Image: http://blog.aids.gov 

DES MOINES, Iowa—This is too nice a place to spawn a war cry. But if the city had one, it would be the sentiment heard across a downtown populated by baristas, tech start-up founders, musicians, and nonprofit professionals alike: "It's Des Moines against the world."

Young people here know what you think of this city. It doesn't need repeating. But ambitious minds are in the process of building a new Des Moines, a tech hub in Silicon Prairie, an artistic center in the Heartland, a destination for people who want to create something meaningful outside of the limits imposed by an oversaturated city like Chicago or New York.

AMES, Iowa – Fuyuan Jing reached for the top shelf of his university cubicle and pulled down a box of business cards. He picked out a slick and glossy card, the company logo printed in bright blue, yellow, orange, red and green.

That card identified Jing as president of VariFAS Biorenewables LLC.

Jing said his early stage startup company wouldn’t be possible without the Biobased Foundry established by the National Science Foundation Engineering Research Center for Biorenewable Chemicals (CBiRC) based at Iowa State University.

Image: http://www.news.iastate.edu 

Car-makers spend the vast majority of their time, well, making cars. If they didn’t, of course, they wouldn’t be considered car-makers at all.

But some of these manufacturers have also tried their collective hands at building vehicles that certainly AREN’T cars. And most of these multitalented automakers – for whatever reason – seem to be based in Japan.

Image: http://motorburn.com 

Are small business owners giving up? According to a recent poll by Wells Fargo and Gallup, even though small business owners generally report being satisfied with their businesses, fewer of them feel successful than at any other time in the past 10 years. Since this annual survey began in 2003, small business owners’ satisfaction with their businesses has generally stayed the same, hovering near the current 56 percent except for a dip during 2009-2011. But just 37 percent of entrepreneurs in the survey say they feel “extremely or very” successful. That’s down from a height of 47 percent in 2007, right before the Great Recession, and the lowest figure in a decade.

 image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net

My friend Frank Samuel died yesterday in a one-car accident not far from his home in Geauga County. He was driving alone, wearing his seatbelt, in the middle of the day on a familiar road. His car slipped on a turn, spun clockwise, rammed into a guardrail, and his life was extinguished. The police have said that alcohol was not a factor, but anybody who knew Frank would have known that anyway. I occasionally saw him sip a single glass of white wine, but never more.

The Kansas City Royals face off against the San Francisco Giants for the 2014 Major League Baseball World Series on Tuesday — finally.

The last time the Royals made it to the World Series was 1985, a simpler time before Taylor Swift existed, before everyone carried the Internet in their pocket and when people watched music videos on their television.

image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net 

Massachusetts General Hospital and MIT have formed a $3 million strategic alliance in an attempt to address three “major challenges” that persist in healthcare: improving diagnoses, developing new approaches to prevent and treat infectious diseases and developing more accurate methods of diagnosing and treating neurodegenerative and psychiatric diseases.

The alliance, officials said, will add further heft to already existing efforts between individual collaborations between the two institutions, particularly as they relate to development of diagnostic tools and therapies.

Image: http://medcitynews.com 

Has there ever been a moment in your business when you've found yourself stuck between a rock and a hard place, struggling to make the right decision?

After interviewing entrepreneurs all over the world, I've found one common denominator that sets the successful apart from the struggling: the ability to conquer fear.

Big data has the ability to improve the provision of public services, enable governments to spend taxpayers' monies more efficiently, and advance societies forward. But, what exactly is BIG data?

Most definitions reflect the technological aspect of capturing and gathering a larger volume, velocity, variability, viscosity, veracity, variety, and volatility of data... Simply put, big data is large, diverse, complex data sets generated from sophisticated instruments.

Someone sends you an email message or a text, and you’re unsure how to respond.  It’s about a complex negotiation, or a politically sensitive situation. Or maybe it’s just from a person who unnerves you.

For a moment, you pause. But for most of us, most of the time, that pause doesn’t last long. Instead we react, feeling the need to immediately craft a response. And often we then hit “send” without fully thinking. The result: an awkward or incomplete message that causes the recipient to pause, then react, often starting or continuing a cycle of miscommunication and misunderstanding.

image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net 

Many biotech ventures begin life as an invention conceived by a scientist/professor working in a laboratory at a federally-funded university or scientific institute. The intellectual property underlying such inventions is owned by the academic institution, a potentially valuable asset to be nurtured. Since enactment of the Bayh-Dole Act in 1980, academic institutions through their technology transfer offices have assumed responsibility for dissemination of the results of scientific research to benefit the public, a welcomed consequence of which has been the generation of income to such institutions in the form of fees, royalty payments and equity interests from out-licensing inventions to biotech ventures – startups often led by the inventors – dedicated to financing and launching companies to carry-out the commercialization effort.