For generations we have struggled to find an adequate measurement of national success. We have wrestled with the questions of global superiority and, on occasion, nations have stood face to face in an attempt to prove their supremacy—usually with disastrous consequences.

History is filled with evidence of national one-upmanship, not least when it comes to matters of economic performance. Just two months ago, China overtook Japan as the world's second largest economy. And today you can't open a financial newspaper without reading about the ongoing economic "battle" between the two most populous nations in the world, India and China, and whether either of them will one day overtake the U.S. as the leading global economy.

Whether we like it or not, human life is subject to the universal laws of physics.

My day, for example, starts with a demonstration of Newton’s First Law of Motion.

StartupsAcrossAmerica.com is the first entrepreneurial map of the United States, where startups can stand up and be counted. "As it grows it will detail the number of startups in each state and the funding they need to launch. By highlighting the numbers and listing the actual enterprises seeking funds, we intend to help level the playing field for access to capital," said Ruth Hedges, CEO of Unismart Capital Software Inc.

While spotlighting the innovation, imagination and self determination that abounds among this country's entrepreneurs, the Startups Across America map and its listings intend to give investors, community leaders, and other finance-related decision makers a keener understanding of the real dollars needed, state-by-state, for these new enterprises to succeed. "We encourage every startup to register and stake their claim on the map to bring attention to their efforts individually and collectively," says Hedges.

Once upon a time, we had many corporate venture units that invested in external projects as well as in internal projects from the corporate groups that they belonged to.

The number of units declined steadily during the last decade and it continues to do so in the aftermath of the financial crisis. One company that I have always admired is Danfoss Ventures, which is the corporate venture arm of Danfoss, a group with 26,000 employees working with refrigeration, air conditioning, compressors and more.

Unfortunately, Danfoss Ventures – my role model on corporate venture – is now dead. According to Executive Vice President at Danfoss, Nis Storgaard, this is about prioritizing resources where they make most impact.

In an earlier column, I discussed a paper written by the Chief Economist of the Office of Advocacy of the U.S. Small Business Administration, Chad Moutray, which showed that students who received “mostly A’s” as their college grades were two percent less likely than other students to be self-employed.

A lot of readers commented that college grades don’t necessarily reflect how smart a person is, so we shouldn’t interpret this paper’s results to mean that entrepreneurs are less intelligent than those who work for others.

I completely agree.

But that still leaves open the question of whether entrepreneurs are more or less intelligent than those who work for others.

SAN FRANCISCO - William Rosenzweig, co-founder and Managing Director of Physic Ventures, was honored yesterday with the Oslo Business for Peace Award, presented jointly by the Business for Peace Foundation and International Chamber of Commerce in Oslo, Norway. Rosenzweig, the only American among seven winners, was selected for his astute leadership and innovative approach to creating successful businesses focused on personal health and sustainable living.

The Oslo Business for Peace Award recognizes individuals who represent the ideals of social responsibility and ethics in business. Recipients are selected by a committee comprised of notable Nobel Laureates, including Professor Muhammad Yunus, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006 for his pioneering work in microfinance and his leadership of the Grameen Bank.  Past U.S. recipients include GE Chairman and CEO Jeffrey R. Immelt, who was selected in 2009. This year, Rosenzweig receives the award alongside six other global luminaries, including Ratan Tata, Chairman of India's USD $95B Tata Group business conglomerate.

Market Size
The angel investor market in Q1,2 2010 showed signs of stabilization since the 30% market correction in the second half of 2008 and the first half of 2009. Total investments in Q1,2 2010 were $8.5 billion, a decrease of 6.5% over Q1,2 2009, according to the Center for Venture Research at the University of New Hampshire. However, a total of 25,200 entrepreneurial ventures received angel funding in Q1,2 2010, a 3% increase from Q1,2 2009, and the number of active investors in Q1,2 2010 was 125,100 individuals, a drop of 11% from Q1,2 2009. The decline in total dollars, coupled with the small increase in investments resulted in a smaller deal size for Q1,2 2010 (a decline in deal size of 9% from Q1,2 2009). These data indicate that while angels remain committed to this investment class they do so with a cautious approach to investing. Angels are committing fewer dollars in more deals, a result of the lower valuations. While the market exhibited a stabilization from Q1,2 2009, when compared to the market correction that occurred in 2008, these data indicate that the angel market appears to have reached its nadir in 2009.

Stage
Angels have decreased their appetite for seed and start-up stage investing, with 26% of Q1,2 2010 angel investments in the seed and start-up stage, marking a steady decrease in the seed and start-up stage that began in 2008 (45%) and 2009 (35%), and it is the smallest percentage in seed and start-up investing for several years. This decline was reflected in an increase in post- seed/start-up investing with 56% of investments in this stage. Historically angels have been the major source of seed and start-up capital for entrepreneurs and this declining interest in seed and start-up capital represents a significant change in the angel market. Without a reversal of this trend in the near future, the dearth of seed and start-up capital may approach a critical stage, deepening the capital gap and impeding both new venture formation and job creation. This change in investment behavior is likely an indication of both a need to increase investments in existing portfolio companies in order for these portfolio companies to survive the recession and an extended exit horizon. Expansion stage investing (14%) remained unchanged. New, first sequence, investments represent 46% of Q1,2 2010 angel activity, a decline of 12% in the last year.

Download the Full Report: Q1Q2 2010 Angel Market Analysis Report

Nina Fedoroff is preparing to take up the reins of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in February next year. Having finished a three-year stint as science adviser to US secretaries of state Condoleezza Rice and Hillary Clinton this July, Federoff is getting back to her roots in plant genetics by heading up a new centre for desert agriculture in Saudi Arabia. Nature caught up with her at the Canadian Science Policy Conference in Montreal last week.

What did you achieve as the State Department's science adviser?

The biggest impact I made was in bringing more scientists to our embassies — through my own travels, the State Department Jefferson fellowships and the AAAS science fellowships, as well as the new Science Envoys [six senior scientists sent by the State Department around the world]. People were enormously appreciative. Especially in countries where there are scientists in top government positions — they appreciate dealing with a government representative who's a scientist. We sought funding for the State Department to place more scientists in embassies. Will they get funding? I think so. But these things don't happen overnight.

If you want exponential growth out of your company in the future, you probably won't be able to "boot strap" that growth. Without outside funding at some point, you will have to pass on great opportunities, such as the chance to buy a larger manufacturing facility or pursue a new product or market.

You shouldn't be going public until your annual earnings are greater than $1,000,000 and you are confident they will increase at least 20% for years to come.

Where should you go for money in the meantime?

If you have a track record of profitability, you might actually find the cash you need from your own banker, especially if you have a good relationship. If you are a young company, there are numerous other options for investor financing; but you will need to give up some equity to get it. That can be a good thing because you can get the investors' expertise as well as the money.

A NEW £200m scheme to create a network of elite Technology and Innovation Centres was unveiled by the Government yesterday.

The centres, announced by Prime Minister David Cameron in a speech to the CBI, will bridge the gap between universities and businesses, helping to commercialise the outputs of Britain’s world-class research base.

No decision has yet been taken as to where the centres could be based but a spokesman for the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills confirmed that locations in Wales had not been ruled out.

Business Secretary Vince Cable, who also addressed the CBI conference yesterday, said the centres would allow companies to access cutting-edge economies that would otherwise be beyond their reach.

She’s never attended business school, nor does she have a history of entrepreneurship. While it is easy to question her outlandish costumes, her repetitive child-like lyrics, and her over-the-top media stunts, it is hard to ignore her obvious musical talent and her ability to be at the right place at the right time with the right tune.

Whether you love Lady Gaga or hate her (and 99% of you are definitely in one camp or another), you can’t ignore the tremendous achievements of this branding genius.

Less than 18 months ago, she was virtually unknown – and today she has two platinum selling albums and is the envy of artists that have been in the business for decades.

On the 21st of October a one day conference entitled “Re-setting science and innovation (in NZ) for the next 20 years” was held in Wellington. The conference was organised by the New Zealand Association of Scientists in collaboration with Victoria University’s Institute of Policy Studies and featured presentations from many of the big players – the Minister for Research, Science and Technology, New Zealand’s Chief Science Advisor, the President of the Royal Society, high flying researchers, all providing their perspectives on science and innovation in New Zealand.

In this report, I will try and summarise the key themes emerging from the talks, describe some highlights, low points, and conclude with some of my own observations.

The low point had to be rousing myself at 4.30 am, prying myself into a suit and tie, and taking the red eye flight from Christchurch to Wellington. From there on everything improved, surprisingly for a conference focused on policy. I found the conference to be extremely beneficial in gaining an understanding about where many of the big players seem to want to head with science and innovation, and seeing that, surprisingly, there are significant areas of agreement. Talks by the Minister for Research, Science and Technology, Hon. Dr Wayne Mapp, Struan Little, Deputy Secretary, Dynamic Economy from the Treasury, Professor Sir Peter Gluckman, Chief Science Advisor and Dr Garth Carnaby, President of the Royal Society, shared some similar themes. These included:

1) A focus on applied research, technology transfer and innovation

A reader asks: My co-founder and I recently launched a new web venture, and we’re running out of money. We are trying to raise about $250K, but we don’t have any friends or family who can afford to invest – and we don’t know any angel investors. Can you give us some advice as to what we can do to raise money?

Answer: You’re hardly alone in this predicament. While it’s tough convincing investors of the value of your venture, sometimes it’s nearly as hard to find potential investors in the first place. Here are three different approaches to help out.

Network. Network. Network. – The best advice I can give you is to hustle and build relationships in order to get “warm” introductions to investors. These can be anything from an introductory phone call to an email from a middleman the investor trusts and respects. The ideal middleman (or woman) is a successful entrepreneur whom that investor has backed.

A leading innovation expert has warned that Europe could struggle to implement the new 'Innovation Union' and 'Europe 2020' strategies. Bengt-Åke Lundvall, professor of economics at the University of Aalborg, said lessons could be learned from China's approach to policymaking, where specific tasks are allocated to individual civil servants to ensure they are carried out.

Lundvall, who led a group of EU Ambassadors for Creativity and Innovation last year which presented an innovation 'manifesto' to the European Commission, said Europe's new strategy is not as focused as the 15-year plan laid out by Beijing four years ago.

The Chinese innovation blueprint, which runs until 2020, was developed over a three-year period under the leadership of Premier Wen Jiabao.

Some of the most innovative products were developed far from corporate headquarters. The first graphical user interface, for example, emerged from a Xerox research centre in Palo Alto, Calif.—a bit more than a stone's throw away from the company's main office in Rochester, N.Y.

A study put out by Nielson this summer suggests there's good reason to keep suits away from creatives. Of the 30 largest U.S. packaged–goods companies, those with offsite innovation teams reported 5.7% of revenue coming from new products, more than twice the rate of companies with onsite teams. In fact, the 2.7% the latter group recorded was less than was produced by respondents with no innovation teams at all.

This fall, Paul Meier, a theatre professor at the University of Kansas, is working with students to stage the first-ever American rendition of a Shakespeare play – A Midsummer Night’s Dream – in its original pronunciation. As The History Blog writes, there have only been “three other productions of original pronunciation (OP) Shakespeare before this one, 2 at The Globe theater in London, and 1 at Cambridge in the 1950s.” But this difficult project became possible when Meier and his students started working with David Crystal, a linguistics scholar who wrote Pronouncing Shakespeare (Cambridge University Press) in 2005. Prior to the KU production, Crystal consulted on a production of Romeo and Juliet at the Globe theatre on London’s South Bank (mentioned above), and you can listen to audio clips taken from that English performance right here.

TIME technology editor Peter Ha picks the 100 greatest and most influential gadgets from 1923 to the present

The failure in type 1 diabetes of a project called teplizumab has an important read-across that goes beyond its originator, venture-backed MacroGenics Inc., and licensee Eli Lilly & Co. The question several small biotechs will be asking themselves is whether it’s a one-off glitch or a drug-class effect.

On the one hand, the news means Tolerx Inc., another venture-backed biotech, now has the most advanced of only four competing projects in this indication. If positive, Phase III results would make Tolerx a clear takeover candidate for GlaxoSmithKline PLC, that project’s licensee.

After all, why should GSK pay Tolerx milestones (estimated at $525 million in total) and continuing royalties on the project in question, otelixizumab, when a clean buyout is a logical endgame for both companies? A takeover would, in turn, likely spell a nice windfall for the U.K.’s BTG PLC, which licensed otelixizumab to Tolerx and is due 50% of the milestone revenue from GSK.