The word "laboratories" tends to conjure images of bespectacled scientists in white lab coats fiddling with beakers or observing lab mice. But there are plenty of other laboratories, many out in some of Earth's most extreme environments.

These five laboratories are in some of the most difficult conditions on and off the planet — at the poles, on mountaintops, under the water — where people venture to learn more about the world around us. Their work provides valuable information for weather forecasts, possible information on how aging affects the human body, and maps the impact climate change has on the land and the sea, among many other things.

Physical activity reorganizes the brain so that its response to stress is reduced and anxiety is less likely to interfere with normal brain function, according to a research team based at Princeton University.

The researchers report in the Journal of Neuroscience that when mice allowed to exercise regularly experienced a stressor — exposure to cold water — their brains exhibited a spike in the activity of neurons that shut off excitement in the ventral hippocampus, a brain region shown to regulate anxiety.

Good morning. Whether you're on the job or on vacation, here's what you need to know. Baltimore City Councilman Carl Stokes' proposal to curb fees charged by Ticketmaster and other ticket distributors hasn't exactly gone as planned. A city committee on Tuesday bludgeoned Stokes' proposed legislation to the point that it does just the opposite of his intent and allows potentially unlimited fees to be charged for tickets to events in the city.

That was the quote of the day when my friend Ken Banks and I decided to jump out of a plane last week. It all started about a year ago when he and I were talking about bucket lists. There were few on my list that had been accomplished. I had to do something about that, considering I’m not getting any younger. So last summer I started to check things off. First, I became a certified diver with my oldest son, Gage. Next, I started guitar lessons with my youngest son, Gavin (I’m still taking them, and I’m still not very good.)

A European Commission-backed network of 20 accelerator programmes – led by Seedcamp, TechStars, Seed-DB, Bethnal Green Ventures, Nesta and How to Web – launched today in a bid to find better ways of sharing knowledge and best practices among the organizations.

Startup Europe’s Accelerator Assembly, as it is properly known, will be focused on connecting disparate programmes, generating new research on startup and accelerator growth and strengthening the policy debate to improve the environment for startups in Europe.

People who know me know that I love being an entrepreneur. There is absolutely nothing like the thrill of taking something that you created out to market. It’s a ton of fun, it’s challenging and it’s so rewarding to know that your future is entirely in your own hands. I really don’t know that anything helps you develop your own sense of self in quite the same way as creating your vision and then working hard to ensure its success.

That said, if my nearly-grown son were to come to me and say he wanted to start his own business, I’d have to balance my passion for entrepreneurship with some harsh realities that I think every small business owner needs to know before getting started. I think that the challenges of starting and successfully growing a small business fall into three categories.

The jetpack, the flying car, free electricity for the world – all these ideas are way ahead of our time in the practical sense.

With time on our side, however, the idea of what's out of our technological reach is always changing. Circuits get smaller, engines get more efficient, bored scientists find new and interesting solutions to unusual problems.

You can invent on your own, but in an organization you can never innovate alone! You need an awful lot of colleagues and bosses to share your vision before a big change can truly take place.

My first innovation job was marketing dried soups for Honig, the leading Dutch brand and market leader in the Netherlands. We sold more than 50 million consumer packets in the Netherlands per year. Not a bad figure, considering the country’s population is only 16 million. Honig had a market share of more than 60 percent. There was just one problem; the dried soups market had stopped growing.

Just a few years ago, startups seemed like the purview of a niche circle of hipsters, probably living somewhere trendy like Shoreditch or Dalston.

But as I write this at a Starbucks in a leafy and residential suburb of West London, a group of lads sitting behind me are chatting animatedly about their startup’s “value proposition.”

Indeed, two things became apparent during my week in London. The startup vernacular (meaning overused buzzwords like “big data” and “minimum viable product”) is hitting the mainstream business culture, and tech companies are emerging at an unprecedented rate.

Five years ago I built a biotechnology innovation index and I have been using it since tracking global biotechnology innovation in Scientific American’s Worldview. It has been a very rewarding project, and I have enjoyed the opportunity to present my research data at international conferences, business schools, and even National Defense University.

Now, Worldview’s editor Mike May has compared my innovation scores with the Venture Capital and Private Equity Country Attractiveness (VCPECA) index. I was quite pleased to see a relatively strong correlation between my innovation index and the VCPECA index.

Private equity and venture capital investment opportunities (I will refer to both as “PE”) in the headliner countries of economic growth captured the attention of the investment community as far back as the early 1990s. Although there was a cessation of interest for about seven years surrounding the turn of the millennium, by the early 2000s there was renewed interest and, despite the financial crisis, there has been steady growth of PE in the BRIC countries. The story of PE in emerging markets, however, does not end here. PE activity has blossomed in virtually every region and has reinvigorated entrepreneurship, companies and entire industrial sectors.

In all innovation ecosystems, connections drive the action. Connections are the currency of innovation, the means by which idea-exchange is mediated.  The more connections there are in a system, the more possibility is created. Diverse organizations without connections are simply . . . well, diverse.   Connections link ideas, people, departments, projects, teams . . . and once there is a link, there is meaningful exchange of ideas, of energy, and of motivation.

Take a minute to think about your roster of employees. Now mentally identify your top dogs. This shouldn’t take you long. If you are like me, you know exactly who those people are and you cringe at the thought of the day they may leave your company for a better opportunity.

Here’s the good news: they may never leave. Yes, even those people who receive a steady stream of LinkedIn messages from recruiters offering better salary and vacation packages than you do. It is possible to retain your rockstars if you abide by three simple rules.

The summer has already solsticed--so how do we sink our canines into the dog days yet to come? Inc. writer Les McKeown has a few ideas which we'll furnish with our own.

VACATION

As we noted throughout our unplugged week, there's a subtle art to learning how to actually vacate on your vacation: as the root word vacate suggests, a proper vacation means leavings things (like to-do lists and the Internet!) behind. If Baratunde can do it, so can you--and you'll hit your work harder on your return if you have a low-stimulation break.

"Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal."

It is not a natural thing for an 8th grade student in Bangladesh to memorize Lincoln's Gettysburg Address from top to bottom. But like many in my class, I did. Even though it didn't have much of an impact on me then, it is that single speech that continues to deepen my feelings about this country that I now proudly call my own.

Most business leaders are by now aware that the growing use of mobile phones is changing the competitive landscape for all companies, no matter what the industry. The extent of those changes is greater than most appreciate, however. They include entirely new methods of designing products and completely revamped methods for selling them. They also involve a fundamentally reinvented relationship with customers: To be precise, the customers are now the boss.

Sinful Revenue

Among tax levies, so-called sin taxes are among the most controversial. Critics argue that adding costs to alcohol, cigarettes, betting on ponies and the like unfairly hurts lower-income people. Proponents say the taxes promote health -- making cigarettes more expensive, for example, thus reducing smoking -- a consequence that seems true, according to many studies. States say they put the revenue to good use, for schools and health-care services.

You've put your hat in the ring for a new position at your company and you just got word that you've been selected for an interview. What could be easier than chatting with managers you already know? Piece of cake, right? Wrong. Internal interviews require the same rigor as interviews with an external company. They also pose a unique set of challenges.

How a Rocket Scientist Ended Up Designing Automated Factories On Earth

Every morning I sit down at my computer and work on an idea that could change the world: Automated factories that can grow, like an acorn can grow into an oak tree.

Like any factory, these factories would produce useful products, but they would also make parts and materials for their own expansion. From a starter kit, which I call a "Seed Factory," the factory takes design files and turns them into more equipment. It does this by copying existing parts (replication), making parts for new equipment not in the starter set (diversification), and making larger versions of what it already has (scaling).

You need to be strict with your inbox.

According to Dharmesh Mehta, Senior Director of Outlook.com, the average inbox-throttled person receives a staggering 15,000 emails per year--that's about 41 every day. Without the proper planning and rules, you'll be lucky to make it past your morning coffee.