Our oceans hold 250 million tonnes of plastic, killing wildlife and clogging up shipping pathways. 

Until recently, clearing Earth's oceans of plastic waste seemed an impossible mission for science.

But a new 'vanishing' material could tackle the problem by creating plastic products, such as toys, that dissolve on demand.

Joint replacements. Cardiac care. Chemotherapy.

What do those things have to do with the repeal of the Affordable Care Act?

Economists and policymakers think the U.S. may be overpaying for such services, which helps drive up healthcare expenses for everyone. And the health law has a program that includes testing new ways to pay for care — including in those three areas — that might result in better quality and lower costs.

Drones are among this year’s hottest holiday gifts. But there’s a big difference between the less expensive models — which are basically toys — and the more powerful and pricey units. So how do you pick the right model for your needs?

To get some insight into the drone-buying process, TIME tagged along with photographer Ben Lowy on a trip to Brooklyn Drones, a New York City shop that specializes in selling the tiny, camera-packing aircrafts. Brookyn Drones owner Roger Kapsalis, a former stock broker, helped Lowy understand the difference between some of the best drones on the market today. Then, Lowy and Kapsalis ventured to a drone-friendly park to take a few different models for a spin.

More than a third of Americans don’t get enough sleep. That may not seem like a big deal, but shirking on sleep—even by just an hour—can have serious consequences for your health, and the economy.

Every year, insufficient sleep costs the U.S. economy up to $411 billion, according to a new report from the not-for-profit research group RAND Europe.

Crowdfunding emerged at a critical moment in time when businesses and individuals started to seek out alternative funding sources and traditional options, such as banking or equity investment had dried up. It’s been less than a decade since crowdfunding was born, and yet, it’s difficult to imagine a world without it – center stage – in favor of business expansion and democratized access to funding.

So many companies have become healthcare players, from the likes of Apple and Google to Nokia and Samsung so why not Arianna Huffington, the cofounder of and, until August, the editor-in-chief of The Huffington Post? Her new business, Thrive Global, is taking on consumer wellness and in particular the never-ending challenge of combating stress plus enhancing well-being and performance, according to a news release.

Last week’s announcement by the UK chancellor Philip Hammond of an extra £2 billion a year for applied scientific research by 2020-21 is excellent, and is reassuring news given the uncertainty surrounding science funding post-Brexit.

The UK has never had a problem generating good ideas, but has generally been less good at exploiting them. Hence, investment in industrial innovation is crucial. So too is spending on infrastructure, so I also welcome the chancellor’s additional announcement of new road and rail links between Oxford and Cambridge, aimed at furthering what some have likened to a British version of Silicon Valley (although without the constant sunshine).

'Cyclotron' is an ambitious bicycle design, made out of super light carbon fiber and airless, spokeless wheels. 

The wheels also double up as utility slots. The bike changes gears electronically and has an app to monitor trips. 

 Image: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1989795590/the-cyclotron-bike-revolutionary-spokeless-smart-c

The effects of climate change are already visible in communities across the world.

Prolonged droughts are zapping fields dry from Texas to Tanzania. Powerful storms are flooding homes from North Carolina to Nepal. At the farthest ends of the planet, glaciers are melting and habitats are vanishing.

America’s entrepreneurial economy is the envy of the world.  Young companies account for almost 30 percent of new jobs, and as we’ve fought back from the worst economic crisis of our lifetimes, startups have helped our private sector create 15.5 million jobs since early 2010—the longest streak of private-sector job creation on record.  

 Image: President Barack Obama hosts White House Demo Day, which celebrates the role entrepreneurship plays in America's economy, in the State Dining Room of the White House, Aug. 4, 2015. The President discusses the Partpic replacement part exhibit with Jewel Burks and Jason Crain from Atlanta, Ga. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

As we grow into adulthood, we have to learn a multitude of lessons in order to be successful, well-adjusted human beings. Don’t hit your big brother or he’ll probably slug you back harder. Check. Don’t eat an entire cake for dinner or you’ll probably have a stomachache. Check. Look before you cross the street or you’ll probably get hit by a car. Check. Our lessons obviously mature as we mature, but if we’re smart, we never stop learning. We probably learn thousands of lessons in our lifetime -- and if you’re an entrepreneur, you can go ahead and double that number.

Leading Australian angel investor, UNSW lecturer and corporate consultant Jeffrey Tobias shares his insights for making your tech business a success. Jeffrey Tobias is among Australia’s leading minds when it comes to digital innovation and entrepreneurship, having been actively involved in the local startup scene for nearly a decade.

An active angel investor, since 2009 Tobias has backed seven startups including online design service DesignCrowd, charity fundraising tool GoFar and trade services marketplace OneFlare.

Image: Jeffrey Tobias

Amol Sarva does many things at once because he has to.

The cofounder of Virgin Mobile USA and Halo Neuroscience, Sarva currently runs three businesses, give or take. He's the founder of Knotable, a web-based dashboard for managing and coordinating work. Meanwhile, Sarva is growing Halo, a brain-stimulation company that claims to improve performance, and a coworking-space business, Knotel, which seems to double its headcount every time you blink.

NHLBI seeks to facilitate and accelerate the development of new clinical interventions by bridging the gaps between mechanistic, discovery, and early translational research. This includes providing appropriate mechanisms to support investigator-initiated research, addressing resource and knowledge gaps, and creating initiatives to support career development of translational scientists and biomedical entrepreneurs.

The NHLBI is considering providing support for the earliest phases of developing a target/compound/biologic for use as a therapy or diagnostic. It is envisioned that projects assisted by such a program would be investigator-initiated grants of relatively short duration, designed to answer one to two specific questions (which may or may not be hypothesis driven), and focused on whether the target in question is reasonable to pursue as a therapy or diagnostic.

University research and development expenditures reached $68.8 billion in FY 2015, an increase of 2.2 percent from FY 2014, according to recently released data from the Higher Education Research and Development (HERD) Survey by the National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics within the National Science Foundation.  While the bulk of the funding (55.2 percent of total R&D expenditures) comes from federal expenditures, in current dollars, federally funded R&D at universities dropped 0.2 percent from $37.96 billion to $37.88 billion in FY 2015.  Meanwhile, nonfederal R&D expenditures accounted for 44.8 percent of the total in FY 2015 compared to 43.5 percent in FY 2014 growing from $29.24 billion in FY 2014 to $30.79 billion in FY 2015.

The odds of getting venture capital for a seed stage start-up is about one in 4,000. So it’s unsurprising that every year many international executives come to me asking what is the best way to raise the capital they need to create and scale their companies. While in a previous post Prof. Hakan discussed how to present your proposal to investors, below I detail the most efficient and effective way to find professional investors.

"Look over here," vibrates your phone.

"Read me," implores your inbox.

"I’m so cute—take a look at me!" whimpers a puppy video.

When you’re building a company, growing a team, or just managing your own projects as a freelancer or "solopreneur," keeping productive is no easy task. You're the boss, so there's no one looking over your shoulder to make sure you're staying as on-track as you need to be. Instead, your time and energy are being stretched in a dozen different directions at once.

Last year, we launched State of Startups to capture what it means to be an entrepreneur. We asked the leaders of venture-backed companies about everything from the fundraising environment to their working relationships with their co-founders to their office’s price per square foot. Hundreds of founders responded and more than a million people read the results.

Snap Inc., the parent company of the popular photo-messaging and storytelling app Snapchat, is having a productive autumn.

A couple of weeks ago, Snap filed confidential documents for a coming stock offering that could value the firm at $30 billion, which would make it one of the largest initial public offerings in recent years. Around the same time, it began selling Spectacles, sunglasses that can record video clips, which have become one of the most sought-after gadgets of the season.

Astronomers are about to unfold a new map of cosmic reality. The Gaia spacecraft, launched in late 2013 by the European Space Agency, is on a five-year mission to chart the heavens in unprecedented detail—and the first set of coordinates has been released. By the end of Gaia's run, it will have pinpointed the positions of approximately one billion stars in the Milky Way and nearby galaxies with a resolution so high it can spot objects as small as five microarcseconds—roughly half the size of a dime sitting on the moon as seen from Earth.