If you’re looking to close out 2017 by watching the best reviewed movies released this year, Rotten Tomatoes has more than 100 options to choose from.

Additive manufacturing has been hyped for years. But in 2017 much of its promise materialized: 3-D printing took a series of big steps out of the realm of niche prototyping and into the world of mass manufacturing. Here’s a look at some of the most impressive things 3-D printers made this year, as well as what their creations portend for the future.

Technology has profoundly disrupted industries, markets and the society, in ways no other phenomenon has. From Captain Kirk’s communicator to the first home computer, technology has aided the fiction-to-invention transition with countless possibilities that have invariably caught the fantasy of the sci-fi inclined human mind. Today, technology is accelerating the pace of change like never before, and in 2018, we are on the cusp of a truly reimagined future.

Corporate venture capital (CVC) is a growing source of startup funding. 75 of the Fortune 100 are active in CVC, and 41 have a dedicated team. Top players in the space include Google Ventures, Cisco Investments, Dell Ventures and Intel Capital. 

From the deserts of Utah to the Black Box Theatre to the skies above Rolla, 2017 brought several firsts to Missouri S&T. Here’s a look back at those and other noteworthy moments from 2017 — 17 in all.

Since SpaceX launched (yes, pun intended, we’re not sorry) 15 years ago, Elon Musk’s ambitious brainchild has grown into the most recognizable name in the aerospace industry.

The New Year is coming, and you’re making a list of resolutions. And if you’ve got a few related to your career, you might want to consider ditching the typical to-dos and adopting these more unconventional resolutions instead.

When the virtual currency bitcoin was released, in January 2009, it appeared to be an interesting way for people to trade among themselves in a secure, low-cost, and private fashion. The Bitcoin network, designed by an unknown programmer with the handle “Satoshi Nakamoto,” used a decentralized peer-to-peer system to verify transactions, which meant that people could exchange goods and services electronically, and anonymously, without having to rely on third parties like banks. Its medium of exchange, the bitcoin, was an invented currency that people could earn—or, in Bitcoin’s jargon, “mine”—by lending their computers’ resources to service the needs of the Bitcoin network.

As routine and procedural work gets automated, human work will be increasingly complex, requiring permanent skills for continuous learning and adaptation. Creativity and empathy will be more important than compliance and intelligence. This requires a rethinking of jobs, employment, and organizational management.

Image: http://jarche.com

In my activities as an angel investor, and my work with new ventures seeking investment, I find the “due diligence” stage to be fraught with the most risk. Usually this stage only really starts after an investor has expressed serious interest, or already informally agreed to invest. Most founders consider the story already told and the deal pending, so they aren’t sure what more then can do.

Others schedule long and exhaustive practice and coaching sessions for everyone on the team, including showcase customers, to make sure that everyone tells the most positive and consistent story. Trying to stack the deck probably won’t work, but some effort makes sense, since I have personally seen more than one deal fall apart due to key team members being totally out of sync.

Eric Schmidt, who stepped down Thursday as Alphabet’s chairman, is one of the most influential tech executives in history–and among the wealthiest–but he’s also among the most awkward where public relations is concerned.

Google’s financial results since Schmidt was brought in in 2001 to help guide the youngish company’s business strategy are obvious—the stock is currently trading at over $1,070 a share.  This timeline marks out the big items in Schmidt’s bio, before and after Google, and sprinkles in some of the public missteps he’s made over the years.

Image: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Schmidt#/media/File:Eric_Schmidt_at_the_37th_G8_Summit_in_Deauville_037.jpg

For plants, light is great, until it’s not. They need the sun’s energy to carry out photosynthesis, but too much light damages the chloroplasts in plant cells where light, water, and carbon dioxide are converted into sugar and oxygen. One way plants protect themselves is to dissipate that excess light, a process that also occurs in the chloroplasts.

Image: After a cold and high light stress, thale-cress plants (wild-type and soq1) display less chlorophyll fluorescence, equivalent to more energy dissipation. Researchers found that mutant plants with deficient levels of the lipocalin protein (soq1 lcnp) display high chlorophyll fluorescence. This indicates that LCNP is required for energy dissipation. (Credit: Alizée Malnoë/Berkeley Lab)

Digitization is causing a radical reordering of traditional industry boundaries. What will it take to play offense and defense in tomorrow’s ecosystems?

Rakuten Ichiba is Japan’s single largest online retail marketplace. It also provides loyalty points and e-money usable at hundreds of thousands of stores, virtual and real. It issues credit cards to tens of millions of members. It offers financial products and services that range from mortgages to securities brokerage.

The role of the product manager is expanding due to the growing importance of data in decision making, an increased customer and design focus, and the evolution of software-development methodologies.

Product managers are the glue that bind the many functions that touch a product—engineering, design, customer success, sales, marketing, operations, finance, legal, and more. They not only own the decisions about what gets built but also influence every aspect of how it gets built and launched.

Since no one ever seems to invite me to a pig pull or a crab boil, I miss eating communally. I don’t mean sitting at a communal table in a restaurant, staring down strangers while we all nibble at our seasonal small plates. I mean everyone digging into the same dish at the same time. I mean the warm feeling I get sharing French fondue or Korean barbecue.

Image: https://www.nytimes.com

Rare is the business executive who doubts the importance of responsiveness: to be acutely alert to business opportunities and threats, and to be capable of grabbing the opportunity or fending off the threat fast and effectively. Hence, when (re-)designing the organization structure, they tend to decentralize decision-making, so that decision rights are as close as possible to the people who deal with customers, competitors, front-line employees, and other stakeholders. By doing so they avoid the delays associated with information and approvals traveling up and down the management hierarchy.

If you’re looking to live to 100, you may want to watch more than your diet. A study of people in remote Italian villages who lived past 90 found that they tended to have certain psychological traits in common, including stubbornness and resilience.

The study, published in International Psychogeriatrics, analyzed the mental and physical health of 29 elderly villagers, ages 90 to 101, from Italy’s Cilento region — an area known for the prevalence of people older than 90. The participants filled out standardized questionnaires and also participated in interviews on topics such as migration, traumatic events and beliefs. Younger family members were also asked their impressions of their older relatives’ personality traits.

Less than a month after Tesla Inc. unveiled a new backup power system in South Australia, the world's largest lithium-ion battery is already being put to the test.

It appears to be far exceeding expectations. In the last three weeks alone, the Hornsdale Power Reserve has smoothed out at least two major energy outages, responding even more quickly than the coal-fired backups that were supposed to provide emergency power.

Image: The world's largest lithium-ion battery is up and running at Hornsdale Power Reserve in South Australia. (Hornsdale Power Reserve) 

How many New Year’s resolutions have you kept … for more than a week? If you haven’t made it to a month milestone–let alone a year–maybe you’re skipping steps that help you create resolutions that last.

We talked to six people who have kept resolutions for two, three, and even 10 years. Here are their secrets for making resolutions with sticking power.

Every entrepreneur has blind spots which limit their effectiveness and success, but due to ego, over-confidence, or deferential subordinates, many live totally in the dark. Some are smart and humble enough to assume that they don’t know what they don’t know, but lack an effective process for shining a light on their blind spots. Both are equally surprised by their every setback.

I recently found some real insight on this subject in a classic book by Robert Bruce Shaw, aptly named “Leadership Blindspots.” Shaw specializes in organizational performance and has helped a wealth of business leaders identify and overcome their weaknesses. He provides a detailed analysis of the blind spots of many well-known business powerhouses.