TORONTO, ONTARIO--(Marketwire - Feb. 24, 2011) - Representatives of more than 250 small-and-medium-sized enterprises, leaders from industry, government, international organizations and innovation networks from around the world are participating in the event. Conference participants are gathered in Toronto to discuss ways to advance innovation in an increasingly borderless world.

Innovation Across Borders is a two-day conference organized by the National Research Council of Canada Industrial Research Assistance Program, the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, and MaRS Discovery District, a Toronto-based innovation centre.

Ambitious high-speed rail plans aside, most of the U.S. is lacking in the public transportation arena. That's why the NRDC has chosen to highlight fifteen small, medium and large regions that are supposedly getting transportation right: Boston; Chicago; Philadelphia; Portland, Oregon; New York; San Francisco; Washington D.C; Boulder-Longmont, Colorado; Honolulu, Hawaii; Jersey City, New Jersey; New Haven, Connecticut; Champaign-Urbana, Illinois; Bremerton, Washington; Lincoln, Nebraska; and Yolo, California. That some of these cities lack anything more exciting than city bus routes begs the question: Is this really the best we can do?

The Natural Resources Defense Council, which wrote the study in collaboration with the Center for Neighborhood Technology (CNT), compared U.S. regions based on public transit availability, use, cost, household automobile ownership and use, and sustainable transportation programs.

As glaciers melt and island populations retreat from their coastlines to escape rising seas, many scientists remain baffled as to why the global research consensus on human-induced climate change remains contentious in the U.S.

The frustration revealed itself during a handful of sessions at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Washington, D.C., this past weekend, coming to a peak during a Friday session, "Science without Borders and Media Unbounded".

BALA CYNWYD, PA--(Marketwire - February 24, 2011) - Osage University Partners announces the final closing of Osage University Partners I, achieving its target fund size of $100 million. The novel venture capital fund has affiliated with leading universities to make direct investments in their most promising startup companies.

Osage University Partners has created a unique model through which it manages the coinvestment rights held by its affiliated universities. These coinvestment rights provide Osage with contractual access to invest in the future financings of some of the most promising startup companies that have licensed technology from these universities. Affiliate universities then share in Osage's profit and can use their proceeds to stimulate further educational, research and commercialization initiatives.

The quest to close the gender gap in the sciences faces a daunting catch-22: Potential female scientists need the support of existing female scientists. At every milestone on the educational path--early mathematics, college, research grants, and professional careers--the guiding hand of a fellow woman increases the likelihood of smashing the glass ceiling. Proactive measures are being taken, and preliminary research shows that motivational lectures and classroom restructuring might be effective.

The downward pressure exerted on female scientists is an ugly, methodical system that can be traced from adulthood as it trickles all the way down to impressionable young girls. Workplace sexism was actually codified into supreme court law in Bradwell v Illinois, when justices upheld the State’s ban on female lawyers, based on the scientifically rock-solid gut feeling that the law of "nature" declared "the domestic sphere as that which properly belongs to the domain and functions of womanhood."

After decades of riding icebreakers in Antarctica's icy waters hoping to better understand the fragile ecosystem on and around this frigid continent scientists have begun delegating data collection to satellite-guided robotic subs. The hope is that these sea gliders, which can dive hundreds of meters and stay in the water for months at a time, will help to unlock the secrets of phytoplankton blooms that nourish the organisms in Antarctica's Ross Sea for a few months each year before mysteriously disappearing.

There are neither green plants in Antarctica nor macro-algae in the surrounding waters, says Vernon Asper, a marine science professor at the University of Southern Mississippi's (U.S.M.) Department of Marine Science at the NASA Stennis Space Center. "Essentially, everything that eats, lives and breathes in Antarctica is fed from phytoplankton in the ocean."

To be an entrepreneur, you have to be navigate lots of unknowns, and the path is fraught with risk.

Once you are past a certain mental age, you know too many of the things that can go wrong, so you never start. Sort of like the old saying that if we didn’t have young men to fight our wars, we could achieve world peace in no time.

People who are young, or young at heart, don’t know all the negatives, or don’t worry about them. The result is that they achieve things that no one else ever thought possible. That’s the definition of a true entrepreneur. Many people, including Mike Michalowicz, in his highly irreverent book, “The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur,” have identified specific reasons for this:

1. Resilience. Youth brings an ability to rebound that many people lose with age, unless they remain young at heart. This resilience allows you to bounce back after defeat and try again, unscathed. The entrepreneurial path is littered with pitfalls and roadblocks; you need the capacity to come back again and again relentlessly.

Considering a change to your company’s logo? Tread carefully.

Earlier this year, Starbucks announced a dramatic change in its logo: No longer would the Starbucks name and the word “coffee” appear in the logo. Instead the mermaid image would increase in size.

The reaction from Starbucks fans was fierce and swift. As Reuters reported:

“Who’s the bonehead in your marketing department that removed the world-famous name of Starbucks Coffee from your new logo? This gold card user isn’t impressed!” wrote one customer who identified herself as MimiKatz.

I told my dad, “I’m a lucky guy.” He said, “But are you lucky in love?” I was six years old. Love was the most disgusting thing in the world to me. What the hell was he talking about?

Love was living in another neighborhood at that time. Or another planet. It would be years before Love stuck its ugly little nose into my house and said, “hello, anyone here?

Luck was all about rolling the dice. Or finding a quarter on the ground. Or seeing a double rainbow after a quick storm.

Full-time workers in most countries all received paid vacation days, but no one forces you to use that time.

Ipsos Global and Reuters surveyed 13,000 people in developed countries to see what people are least likely to use their vacation days.

America, where 57% of people use all of their vacation days, ranked as the fifth most workaholic. Japan ranked first with only 33%.

French citizens are the best at relaxing, with89% taking all of their allotted time.

I’ve been following an ongoing blogosphere debate about whether a college education is worth the often exorbitant cost these days; or if a degree is even necessary to start one’s career.

In some circles, the debate takes on another angle: as a recruiter at an innovative company or start-up… would you hire the candidate with a strong academic background? Or the candidate with more practical experience?

On one hand, we live in a pedigreed society where an entry-level resume listing a high GPA is more likely to be reviewed, especially by more traditionally-minded recruiters. Good grades may indicate that the candidate can set goals, apply themselves and perform consistently at a high academic level.

Next month, the Museum of Modern Art will showcase nearly two dozen digital typefaces freshly acquired for the permanent collection, signaling both the consecration of digital type and the canonization of typography as a design discipline. Someone break out the Comic Sans!

All joking aside, the import of the exhibit Standard Deviations: Types and Families in Contemporary Design can’t be overstated. MoMA is the Vatican of the design world; as goes MoMA, so goes the rest of design's devotees. Until this year, the permanent collection had infographics and magazines and art-show catalogs in spades but only one typeface to its name, and a vanilla one, to boot: Helvetica 36-point bold. The museum seemed to approach typography with a marked indifference.

In the old days, if you needed a comic representation of your face inked by a professional artist, it would cost you more than $15 (adjusted for inflation, of course!) and take longer than a couple hours. But that’s exactly what you can get today from FlipFace.me. They call them customized cartoon avatars.

Earlier today I sent over my photo and two hours later they sent me back my graphic.

Building on decades of successful efforts to nurture new businesses and bring ideas from classrooms and labs to the marketplace, Rensselaer has launched a distributed incubation program to help young businesses grow and succeed.

Members of the campus community, along with federal, state, and local government officials and business leaders, took part in the official launch of Rensselaer’s Emerging Ventures Ecosystem (EVE) on Feb. 7, at an event in the Blitman Commons in downtown Troy. Speakers included Rensselaer President Shirley Ann Jackson, U.S. Congressman Paul Tonko, Rensselaer County Executive Kathy Jimino, and Troy Mayor Harry Tutunjian.

Earlier this week, Miriam Posner, Stewart Varner, and Brian Croxall wrote “Creating Your Web Presence: A Primer for Academics.” They had some terrific recommendations about how to establish an online presence and how to keep that presence active and positive. Good stuff!

Here at ProfHacker, we’ve written before about the networking wonders and creative collaborations that can happen via online forums. We meet people from different disciplines in various parts of the world, and we connect because we share interests and goals. With all the good, though, there are some negative aspects to online presences. It’s important to recognize that whatever we write online is for public consumption, that we are not simply chatting with friends and family when we post.

Eight years in the making led to the groundbreaking Tuesday of the second Cleveland/Bradley Business Incubator building on the Cleveland State Community College campus.

“Every community college should have a business incubator,” said Dr. Carl Hite, Cleveland State president.

That’s why many members of the community and representatives from several involved organizations attended the event.

“It’s a big day for all of us,” said Hurley Buff, executive director of the Business Incubator.

When the rectors of European universities meet up these days the first thing they do is compare how many European Research Council (ERC) grant holders are based in their institutions. This is one sign of how the ERC as the first pan European funding body for basic research is transforming R&D, according to Helga Nowotny, President of the ERC. “For the first time European universities are starting to compete; before they couldn’t care less, they were stuck in their own countries,” Nowotny told the American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in Washington.

Nor is the impact limited to universities, there are also changes to national research systems, and consequences for the researchers themselves. By setting up a comprehensive peer review system and making excellence the only criterion in awarding grants, the ERC is raising standards for evaluating grant applications throughout the EU. “There are excellent systems already, in the UK, Germany and France, but also other (countries)have some way to go, and we see here we (the ERC) are setting new standards,” Nowotny said, noting newer EU members “are keen to revamp their systems.”

Collaboration between small and large firms has been a hot topic recently, especially with the launch of Startup America, which has several large firms like Intel, IBM and Facebook funding entrepreneurship programs.

But our neighbors to the north are a step ahead. The Canadian office supplies giant Grand & Toy (which, we’re told, does not actually sell toys) planned years ago to provide supportive services to small firms – beyond, of course, the paper-and-staples retail services it is known for. On Tuesday, the company officially launched five business centers which will serve as local business-to-business hubs.

Laura Bennett had an idea. An actuary, Laura was aware that in the United Kingdom, almost 30 percent of pets have insurance to cover unexpected healthcare costs. In North America, the percentage is less than 1 percent. It seemed to be an unexplored market with the potential, so armed with a newly-minted MBA from The Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania, Laura and her business partner, Alex Krooglik, were determined to figure it out.

Eight years later, their company, Embrace Pet Insurance, has insured over 15,000 pets and created more than 20 jobs. More importantly, the company is still early in its growth; Laura and her partner project to break even mid-2011 and then, with further capital, they expect 70 percent annualized growth over the next four years.

People tell me there are over 5,000 online dating sites, but I couldn’t find one that focused on matchmaking business-to-business (B2B) relationships. Yet, every business expert tells me that finding good business partners is just as tricky as a good marriage, without the sex.

Business partnerships come in all shapes and sizes, from finding a single partner to help you run your startup, to signing a strategic agreement with another large company for development, marketing, distribution, or sales. As with personal relationships, unbalanced deals don’t work, since the dominating entity finds it hard to adapt and appreciate the value of a partner.