WASHINGTON (AP) — Antarctica is melting more than six times faster than it did in the 1980s, a new study shows.

Scientists used aerial photographs, satellite measurements and computer models to track how fast the southern-most continent has been melting since 1979 in 176 individual basins. They found the ice loss to be accelerating dramatically — a key indicator of human-caused climate change.

Image: This 2016 photo provided by NASA shows the Getz Ice Shelf from 2016’s Operation Icebridge in Antarctica. According to a new study published Monday, Jan. 14, 2019, in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Antarctica is melting more than six times faster than it did in the 1980s. (Jeremy Harbeck/NASA via AP) Jeremy Harbeck

As an entrepreneur and restaurant owner with over 15 years in business, I feel I can identify what the most important skills and qualities are in order to be successful.

I recently saw this question on a forum: “Is having a degree necessary for an aspiring entrepreneur?” There were instantly hundreds of comments on this post. Most people said no, it’s not necessary. Some people said it doesn’t hurt, or it is useful but not necessary at all. Information is easily available in this modern age. A college degree is great for certain aspects of a business.

As previously discussed, the Trump Administration’s Return on Investment (ROI) Initiative, which is geared toward increasing the American taxpayer’s benefits from federally-supported R&D, is potentially a big step forward. The draft recommendations were contained in a “Green Paper” open for public comment until January 9, 2019.

2018 was a record year for biopharma initial public offerings (IPOs), with an all-time high of $6.3 billion raised by 58 U.S. companies as of December 17, according to Renaissance Capital, compared with 36 companies garnering some $4 billion in 2017.

But with the broader stock market reeling in recent weeks from investor jitters over U.S. trade policy and the direction of China’s economy, it remains to be seen whether 2019’s IPO market will be as red-hot as this past year’s proved to be.

Billionaire Masayoshi Son–not Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, or Mark Zuckerberg–has the most audacious vision for an AI-powered utopia where machines control how we live. And he’s spending hundreds of billions of dollars to realize it. Are you ready to live in Masa World?

It’s a bright September morning in San Carlos, California, and Masayoshi Son, chairman of SoftBank, is throwing me off schedule. I’d come, as he had, to meet with the people he’s tapped to run the Vision Fund, his $100 billion bet on the future of, well, everything.

Compared to 2017, a meaningful number of Bangladeshi companies has raised considerable venture capital funding in 2018. The number of companies, as well as the amount of investment they raised, both jumped significantly.

Venture capital – the money provided by investors to early-stage startups and technology companies with significant long-term growth potential – has changed the world of business across the world. It helps accelerate innovation and technological advancement.

Any good wine snob knows that, despite the term’s intended negative connotation, the label should really be worn like a badge of honor. Sure, some beer lovers or, even worse, casual wine drinkers might find that snobbery worthy of derision, but they clearly don’t understand the difficulty, dexterity and dedication necessary to reach that level. Thankfully, however, a scientist has finally tossed us wine snobs a life preserver — a Yale neuroscientist nonetheless.

The World Wide Web looks nothing like Sir Tim Berners-Lee had envisioned, but almost 30 years after its inception, the renowned computer scientist has an idea that could fix it. He announced that he is taking a sabbatical from MIT to focus on Solid, a new open-source platform that aims to decentralize the web by letting users take control over their data.

On Monday, the City of Dallas named Laila Alequresh as its first-ever chief innovation officer. This is a critical step forward in the North Texas region's journey to be, and be known as, a hub for innovation.

More than 200 campaigns across North America to land Amazon's HQ2 made it clear that competition among cities to attract high-tech firms and talent is extremely fierce. Virtually every city is actively working at positioning itself as a technology and innovation leader.

(Techwire) — One day after proposing a major shift in California tech procurement, Gov. Gavin Newsom on Thursday announced plans to transform digital innovation in state government. 

In releasing his proposed $209 billion 2019-2020 budget, Newsom announced a plan for a new Office of Digital Innovation and an innovation academy. The office would reside under the Government Operations Agency (GovOps), with an initial startup budget of $36.2 million. The office would employ 50 people and have an annual budget of $14.6 million.

With a fortune largely tied to his 79 million Amazon shares, the net worth of Jeff Bezos has continued to rise.

Most recently, the Amazon founder was even able to surpass Bill Gates on the global wealth leaderboard with $137 billion to his name – however, this ascent to the very top may be extremely short-lived.

On January 9th, 2019, Jeff Bezos announced on Twitter that he was divorcing MacKenzie Bezos, his wife of 25 years. While the precise ramifications of the news are not yet clear, it’s anticipated that MacKenzie Bezos could end up with a considerable portion of shares in Amazon as a result.

For months, it had been clear that 2018 would be a banner year for pharmaceutical innovation. The question was, by how much would it shatter the previous (1996) record of 50 approvals (excluding diagnostics and imaging agents)? We now know. It exceeded it by over 20 percent. Last year, U.S. regulators approved a total of 61 drugs – 59 by FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER), plus two recombinant therapies (Andexxa and Jivi) by its Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research (CBER). Yet, 2018 stands out not only for the sheer volume of new drug approvals, but also for their quality, and the affirmation of several important trends that make it a watershed. It is also another signal that the innovation crisis that caused so much pain in the first decade of this millennium is now solidly behind us. In 2015, I wrote about the dawn of a hyper-innovation age. It has become more tangible ever since, but perhaps in a different way than might have been expected back then.

Image: https://www.forbes.com

I’m sure we have all seen entrepreneurs with high levels of passion and confidence touting an idea that seems to make very little sense to us. Of course, we never see ourselves in this mode, yet we need to recognize that all humans see reality differently through a built-in set of “cognitive biases,” based on their own unique background of experiences, training, and mental state.

Image: https://blog.startupprofessionals.com

Your first waking minutes are about clearing the cobwebs of sleep from your mind and getting your brain focused and revved up for the day. How you prep your mind and body during those first minutes is key to putting yourself in the right mindset to take on the challenges and possibilities before you.

How does crowdfunding work for startup entrepreneurs?

Crowdfunding exploded onto the internet a few years ago. Since then early platforms like Kickstarter and Indiegogo have seen hundreds of new crowdfunding platforms emerge onto the scene, fueled and transformed by the new JOBS Act. How can this help entrepreneurs launch and grow their startups? How does this fundraising strategy compare to other options? What do you need to know before you try it?

(Bloomberg) — Environmentalists have identified another threat to the planet. It’s called a nurdle.

Nurdles are tiny pellets of plastic resin no bigger than a pencil eraser that manufacturers transform into packaging, plastic straws, water bottles and other typical targets of environmental action.

But the nurdles themselves are also a problem. Billions of them are lost from production and supply chains every year, spilling or washing into waterways. A U.K. environmental consultancy estimated last year that preproduction plastic pellets are the second-largest source of micro-plastic pollution in water, after micro-fragments from vehicle tires.

Image: http://time.com - From Video

Corvallis, Oregon, has one of the most educated populations in the country, pointing to the presence of innovative companies. It has the third highest proportion of adults with a bachelor’s degree or higher, at 53.8%, compared with the U.S. proportion of 32.0%. In Corvallis, 97.3% of its adult population graduated from high school, the highest such share in the nation.

Here are five pointers to help you build a company culture of innovation and to spark innovative insights throughout its ranks. These principles, which I use onsite with my consulting clients, expand on work I’ve shared here previously that now strikes me as timely as we head into a new year.

Digital health industry cheerleaders Rock Health has produced their year-end venture funding report for 2018 and while investment figures continue to break records, the organization is a bit more tempered in its expectations that the good times will continue indefinitely.

A few concerning factors identified by the organization have been the recent volatility in the public markets and potential macroeconomic and political forces injecting instability in the larger economy.

It’s tempting to give ultimatums in tense negotiations, but how you give them is what’s important, according to a former FBI kidnapping negotiator.

I love to negotiate, sometimes a bit too much.

A deep negotiation has to be one of life’s most exhilarating experiences. Few things will force you to dig deeper into your creativity, to become so fully aware of your strengths and weaknesses, and will test your mettle as fully as a negotiation on something you really want.