MANY advances in 21st-century health care will emerge from small organizations. Digital technologies will enable individual innovators to conquer pain, disease and despair. Insights will arc from other industries. Patients will manage their own health and care as never before.

Health-care innovation is beginning to resemble the information technology revolution that transformed life over the last 25 years—how we work, play, shop, communicate, relax, learn and travel.

Pfizer (NYSE:PFE) and Astellas (NASDAQOTH:ALPMY) share profit on the blockbuster prostate cancer drug Xtandi, and AbbVie (NYSE:ABBV) and Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ) split profit on the blockbuster lymphoma and leukemia drug Imbruvica. However, these companies took very different paths to adding these drugs to their portfolios. 

Pfizer and AbbVie waited until these medicines were already top sellers before they bought their way in, while Astellas and Johnson & Johnson took the risk of licensing them while they were still in clinical trials.

Though other people may think you are.

It’s a crazy thing for most people, this whole “I want to start my own company” business. There’s no steady paycheck, no set framework for how to build it, and a huge risk that all of it will come crashing down. But for those of us bitten by the entrepreneur bug, all of that is worth it.

While hopefully you will never find yourself in a life-or-death situation, if you ever do, just know that an entrepreneurial background can definitely help increase your chances of survival.

At least it did for Richard Branson.

Richard faces a number of perilous moments in the excellent documentary Don't Look Down, the story of his transoceanic hot air balloon voyages that is now playing in theaters and available on VOD. (Here's my review of the movie.)

Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Richard_Branson_March_2015_(cropped).jpg 

A supermoon, which appears up to 30 percent brighter and 15 percent larger than other full moons. That's because the full moon — in which the sun, moon and Earth are approximately aligned and the sunlit face of the moon is facing Earth — occurs at the spot in the moon's orbit when our satellite is closest to our planet. Because of that closeness, the full moon appears brighter and bigger than normal. Sometimes an extra-special occurrence makes this bulging supermoon even more spectacular. That occurrence is the total lunar eclipse, when the moon moves behind Earth's shadow. Check out these spectacular images of supermoons and eclipsed supermoons.

At the World Economic Forum in China last year, a panelist was asked for his best advice on innovation and his answer was “fail fast, fail often.” It’s surprising that a so called expert of this caliber believed this to actually be true. 

“Fail fast, fail often” is a popular myth promoted by mainstream Silicon Valley and the Lean Startup movement. In fact, this myth is even beginning to mistakenly be associated with Thomas Edison whose statements clearly show otherwise.

A new patent search tool developed by engineers at Michigan Technological University makes it easier to discover and track inactive patents. 

Many innovators and inventors feel they have squandered hours fruitlessly rifling through old patents on the US Patent and Trademark Office website, trying to figure out which are still active and how they may relate to developing technologies.

Global carbon emissions from burning fossil fuels stayed flat in 2015 for the third straight year despite economic growth, a new assessment has found. However, this pause in the growth of emissions is likely to be short-lived unless new emissions policies are accelerated, scientists say. 

The report, from researchers at the University of East Anglia and the Global Carbon Project, found that the world has slowed its annual growth rate of emissions from about 2.3 percent per year prior to 2013 down to a projected 0.2 percent in 2016. 

It is almost second nature to create stereotypes of people based on age. If someone is in their twenties then they must be technologically adept, obsessed with keeping fit, prepared to change jobs frequently whilst obviously searching for meaningful work. Those in their sixties and seventies must be less interested in work and are probably exhausted and anticipating the leisure time offered by a long retirement.

By sampling the molecules on cell phones, researchers were able to construct lifestyle sketches for each phone's owner, including diet, preferred hygiene products, health status and locations visited. This proof-of-concept study could have a number of applications, including criminal profiling, airport screening, medication adherence monitoring, clinical trial participant stratification and environmental exposure studies.

When historians look back at the presidential election of 2016 they will certainly have many questions, but perhaps the biggest one isn’t getting enough attention today. “What the (insert the popular profanity of the future)?” they will likely ask. “Why was there hardly any mention of climate change?” Or will the future inhabitants of Earth be so distracted by survival that they won’t even care what happened in 2016 when the greatest country on the planet at that time denied this problem existed?

Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Dan_Rather_Peabody.jpg 

The fog of war envelops every battlefield. When the plan breaks down amid the chaos and ambiguity, how do young Marines know what to do next? How can they take relevant action in the present when their carefully detailed plan has been rendered useless? Every leader communicates something called Commander’s Intent — effectively an end state or envisioned future of the battlefield when all is said and done. Understanding this vision, even the most green Marines can take decisive, relevant action right now. Managers should equip their people to achieve the same level of clarity in their careers, says Candor, Inc. co-founder and COO and former military leader Russ Laraway.

If you thought supersonic passenger travel died with the retirement of the Concorde fleet in 2003, get ready for what one company—and Richard Branson—thinks could be the launch of a new age in which people fly from New York to London in three and a quarter hours for business class prices.

Today, Boom Supersonic, a Denver-based startup and Y Combinator alumni, unveiled the design of the XB1, a one-third-size version of the 45-seat plane it expects to put in the skies by the early 2020s.

Image: Interior of a Boom Supersonic Airline Plane (Photos: Boom Supersonic)

Building a successful startup outside Silicon Valley has its challenges, but people do it all the time. One of the biggest hurdles is raising early-stage VC money. Since so many investors are clustered in and around the Bay Area, companies that aren't can find themselves struggling to draw their attention.

But the good news is that, once you do, you'll get more runway out of those dollars than your Silicon Valley counterparts will. According to one recent study, the Bay Area is home to the two most expensive cities in the country in which to start a new business.

America’s ‘rust belt’ states, which gave Barack Obama their votes in 2008 and 2012, have now sent Donald Trump to the White House. It’s a shocking reversal that testifies to dis affection on many fronts. But it’s also a long-term political consequence of bipartisan trade, economic and innovation policies that have focused on growth and competitiveness while largely neglecting the negative impacts of technological change and globalization on quality of life in the American heartland.

Australian business innovation has added almost $70 billion to the economy but is still falling short of its potential, according to research. A report by Commonwealth Bank suggests the 44 per cent of businesses to have implemented at least one change that, according to international standards, qualifies as an innovation have pumped $69 billion into the economy.

A great leader inspires and motivates people. A great leader leads with a passion and purpose that’s infectious, and that brings everyone together in working towards common goals and achieving a common vision. A great leader brings out the best in people, all people, no matter their background, experience, education, or position. A great leader ensures all opinions are heard, especially those that are critical. These are things I state often in these missives, but they were reinforced recently when I read about William Bowen.

Technology is advancing so rapidly that we will experience radical changes in society not only in our lifetimes but in the coming years. We have already begun to see ways in which computing, sensors, artificial intelligence and genomics are reshaping entire industries and our daily lives.

As we undergo this rapid change, many of the old assumptions that we have relied will no longer apply. Technology is creating a new set of rules that will change our very existence.

One global trend I don't think the elections will impact: the growing excitement about scale ups. (Sorry this post is longer than usual: I hope you will read it through- Dan)

A Scale Up Movement has taken off around the world which might, and in my view, should, supersede the world’s fascination with startups as economy-drivers. The essence of the Scale Up Movement is that what’s impactful about entrepreneurship is not how many companies start-- it is how many firms actually grow. It is growing companies, not starting them, that gives entrepreneurship its unique contribution to employment, taxes and wealth.

There’s plenty to learn every day. But trying to learn everything can be overwhelming.

If you want to dig deep into a particular topic in a short amount of time, there are some ways you can speed up your process.

From setting an agenda, testing yourself regularly and paying attention to your surroundings, there are a number of methods you can use to become a faster learner. Check out writemypapers.org’s 25 Ways to Learn Faster infographic below.