Teachers in the US – one of the world’s richest countries – often bear the burden of education funding cuts and systemic poverty by paying for their students’ crayons, books and even hand soap.

The Guardian spoke with five teachers across the country who turn to the crowdfunding site DonorsChoose for help after they’ve already paid for pencils and toothbrushes out of their own pockets – or asked friends and family for book donations and applied for grants to buy educational games and computers.

The stated goal of our piece on healthy eating was to cut through all the noise and help everyone see how simple it is to eat well — even though it’s in the interests of those who market most of our food to make it confusing.

At the beginning and end of the day, the basic rules of good eating are few and easy to remember (if not always easy to follow). The minutiae, of course, are endless, and there’s no way to address every single aspect of eating well. With that, we’re answering some of the flood of follow-up questions that the first piece stimulated.

Image: http://www.grubstreet.com

The European Union is planning to spend €100 billion (US$120 billion) on its next major research-funding programme, for 2021 to 2027 — a disappointment to some scientists and policy groups who were hoping for up to 60% more. The budget does not include a contribution from the United Kingdom, whose departure from the bloc in 2019 is likely to shake up the distribution of funds among the remaining 27 EU countries.

The older you get the more difficult it is to learn to speak French like a Parisian. But no one knows exactly what the cutoff point is—at what age it becomes harder, for instance, to pick up noun-verb agreements in a new language. In one of the largest linguistics studies ever conducted—a viral internet survey that drew two thirds of a million respondents—researchers from three Boston-based universities showed children are proficient at learning a second language up until the age of 18, roughly 10 years later than earlier estimates. But the study also showed that it is best to start by age 10 if you want to achieve the grammatical fluency of a native speaker.

Eli Goldstein, a fresh-faced cofounder of SkyCool Systems, pulled open the garage door on the side of the Stanford spinout's cramped workspace in Burlingame, California, and rolled a set of square silver panels into the parking lot.

They were tilted toward the sun, covered in what looked like perfectly creaseless aluminum foil and attached to a metal frame holding an array of pipes, tubes, and thermometers.

Image: https://www.technologyreview.com

At the risk of sounding arrogant my view is that the world consists of two fundamental personalities, those who persevere and simply refuse to give up on their dreams, and those who give in to fear, uncertainty, and doubt and walk away from their dreams. That’s not meant to be arrogant, it’s accurate.

Image: http://innovationexcellence.com

Financial technology, or fintech, has become a huge industry over the last decade, with new companies springing up doing everything from online lending to high-frequency trading technology or next-generation credit scoring software.

CB Insights, which tracks the venture capital industry, recently provided a list of what it believes are all the fintech unicorns in the world — venture capital-backed, private businesses worth over $1 billion.

Image: Glassdoor/Coinbase

According to most definitions, an entrepreneur is one who envisions a new and different business, meaning one that is not a copy of an existing business model. Many entrepreneurs have a passion and an idea, or even invent a new product, but are never able to execute to the point of creating a startup. Even fewer are able to grow the startup into a viable business.

Today’s digital world is organized around two centers of gravity: the U.S. West Coast and the east coast of China. These gold coasts are home to nine of the top 10, and 18 of the top 20, internet companies, as measured by market capitalization. The leading companies in online search, social media, and e-commerce are all based in one or the other of these two regions. But as the digital revolution continues to spark widespread disruption in other industries — automotive, financial services, health care, and retail — who will win? As other nations consider their own stakes in the game, and as incumbents engage with digital disruption, will the two centers of gravity hold, or will the gains be more widely distributed?

Have you ever left a meeting feeling that you dominated the whole thing — and not in a good way? You talked a lot, and in the end, you felt that nobody else had enough time to speak. This is a bad dynamic for several reasons. People don’t want to attend meetings that are just an opportunity for one person to deliver a monologue. And with one person taking up the airspace in a meeting, team members no longer feels that they’re working together.

Arizona is the first state in the nation to adopt ta regulatory sandbox for testing out new financial technology.

Canada is known for many things – hockey, health care, Justin Bieber – but not for savvy when it comes to intellectual property. We have produced some of the world’s most promising innovations, yet we are a perennial laggard in filing for patents and capturing the value of new technologies through IP licensing and commercialization.

Under the old model which took around two to three years to implement, the company used to develop a product based on consumer insight and then testing it in some small town and then correcting it before going forward. The incubator model’s turnaround time is only 12 weeks. Beverage major Coca-Cola plans to launch 10 new products in India this year through its incubator which uses insights based on consumer feedback.

Besides, the company would also come out with new product range in the dairy segment, said a top company official.

Image: File photo: Christina Ruggiero, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Hindustan Coca-Cola Beverages (HCCB), during inauguration of Hindustan Coca-Cola - Bidadi Soft Drinks Plant near Bengaluru on September 20, 2017. | Photo Credit: K. Murali Kumar

Entrepreneurship- a journey towards big goals. It is true that to be an entrepreneur it requires lots of efforts. It includes huge risks and big steps. True dedication, passion, and motivation is something that a person needs to be a successful entrepreneur.

ATHENS/PATRAS, Greece (Reuters) - Greek student Stavros Tsompanidis was walking on a beach when he saw a business idea in the piles of dried-up seagrass.

He decided to recycle it to make iPhone cases, sunglasses and gift boxes.

Four years on, his startup, PHEE, sells its products across Greece and abroad. He represents a change in mindset among young Greeks who are turning to entrepreneurship as a result of the crisis.

“If we don’t act, in the next five years we’ll be saying the same things: that Greece isn’t going well, that there are no jobs ... that we have a new program by the International Monetary Fund and European Union to support us,” the 25-year-old said.

William Monzidelis, a 32-year-old resident from Westchester, New York, says his life was saved last month in part thanks to the Apple Watch he was wearing that day.

According to a report from NBC New York, Monzidelis was working at his family-run bowling alley in the Bronx on April 3 when he says he went to the bathroom and started bleeding. He was also feeling dizzy at the time. Soon, he says he got a notification from his Apple Watch telling him to seek medical attention immediately.

Some rich and famous entrepreneurs have some pretty weird hobbies. Hobbies are great for relieving stress. But did you know that hobbies can also boost your intelligence?

Hobbies that Make You Smarter If even the busiest entrepreneurs and billionaires can make time for hobbies, so can you. Here are five hobbies to consider.

1. Exercise Regularly Exercising regularly helps you stay healthy– but it can also make you smarter.

Steve Wozniak plays Segway polo. Marc Benioff does yoga. Sergey Brin does trapeze.

Running, weightlifting, cardio, yoga, and even just walking all have long-term brain benefits and help you be a better entrepreneur.

Money the federal government invests in the Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP) program is generating a substantial economic and financial return and powering an additional 219,000 jobs, according to a new study by the W.E. Upjohn Institute. The study of FY 2017 data showed a 14.5:1 financial return for the $128 million invested by the federal government.

By 2020, Fort Collins, Colorado, is aiming for one in every five trips in the city to happen on a bike. The city, which has around 185 miles of bike lanes–and uses tech-like traffic signals that cyclists can push to stop traffic–ranks among the best in the nation at making it safe and easy to run everyday errands by bicycle.

Image: Flickr user Gene Bisbee

The best analytics are worth nothing with bad data. The importance of understanding and working on all components of the insights value chain is mission critical.

An anticipated drop in the cost of Internet of Things (IoT) nodes (for example, microcontroller units and sensors) is fueling the rise in available data. Advances in machine learning, data science, and computing power can turn these vast amounts of data into value-creating insights. Our new report, Achieving business impact with data, looks into these issues deeply; this article highlights some of the report’s key points.