The MAGNET (Manufacturing Advocacy & Growth Network) Product Acceleration & Technical Assistance Grant program (MPAcT) is currently accepting applications for grants of up to $30,000. Launched in 2012, the specialized acceleration initiative is designed to help technology companies solve a design or engineering challenge, in order to nudge them closer to follow-on investment or commercial success.

Despite their greater life expectancy, the adults of today are less “metabolically” healthy than their counterparts of previous generations.

That’s the conclusion of a large cohort study from the Netherlands which compared generational shifts in a range of well established metabolic risk factors for cardiovascular disease. Assessing the trends, the investigators concluded that “the more recently born generations are doing worse”, and warn “that the prevalence of metabolic risk factors and the lifelong exposure to them have increased and probably will continue to increase”.

In my short time as a program manager, promotion has been one of the most talked about subjects among our kind, and I’m excited to write about it. Before we get going, though, I’ve got good news and bad news.

The good news is that I worked in marketing for a long time before I jumped into the startup world, so I’m perfectly positioned to share all the juicy secrets I learned on the job. The bad news? There aren’t any secrets.

One year ago, President Obama signed the JOBS Act into law, legalizing equity-based crowdfunding in the United States. And while the Securities and Exchange Commission has been slow to implement rules governing equity crowdfunding, the industry has been anything but stagnant over the past year.

A compelling video is a critical part of any crowdfunding campain, Goren says. Scroll down to see his tips for writing and shooting the perfect pitch. (STEVE CONLEY - STEVE CONLEY ) Despite the regulatory delays, the JOBS Act has effectively brought the issue of social enterprise to the fore. A number of organizations, businesses and individualshave already leveraged their social and professional networks to launch new initiatives and shine a spotlight on the potential of these new funding portals.

I launched a literary magazine in college. I actually thought that was a good idea. After a few too many 16-hour days of hustling ads and desperately scrounging for content, my grades tanked and my blood pressure skyrocketed. I learned that special kind of panic that comes from trying to execute on the inflated ambitions of a 20-year-old. The process consumed everything. (For the record, I regret nothing.)

Spring is a time of new beginnings, and after a competitive review, select Utah companies may enjoy this new beginning in the form of a $40,000 grant. The Governor’s Office of Economic Development (GOED) is pleased to announce the acceptance of applications for the Technology Commercialization and Innovation Program (TCIP) grant competition.

Previously funded technologies include a breathalyzer wall mount for alcohol serving venues, winglet technology that can increases the operational efficiency and speed of a plane by up to 12 percent without increased use of the engine, and topical medication that fights glaucoma. Other technologies have included catheters that eliminate urinary tract infections and a technology that uses hair protein to identify individuals.

Unless you’ve been frozen in carbonite for the last half year, you have surely heard the big news.  Three—count ‘em, three—new Star Wars movies are coming.  Kathleen Kennedy, the superstar producer, now runs Lucasfilm.  J.J. Abrams, who directed Lost and the last Star Trek film, is overseeing Episode 7.  Michael Arndt, who won an Oscar for writing Little Miss Sunshine, is penning the script.  These talented people seriously rock.

The Kentucky SBIR-STTR Matching Funds Program for innovative start-up businesses developing new technologies will accept applications for Round 19 between April 1 and April 30, 2013. Companies from Kentucky and those willing to move to Kentucky can apply for and receive Kentucky matching funds for their federal SBIR-STTR grants.

The deadline to submit an application is 4 p.m. (Eastern Time zone) April 30. The awards process will be competitive and include an external review.

Researchers at AT&T have devised a way to increase the distance that large amounts of data can travel through a fiber-optic connection. The technique should allow 400-gigabit-per-second signals to travel for a distance of 12,000 kilometers—four times the previous distance possible—and it promises faster ocean-crossing transmission without adding more equipment. The feat is like sending 170 HD movies 12,000 kilometers—half-again as far as the distance from San Francisco to Tokyo.

Raising venture capital is often an important rite of passage for young companies. Many entrepreneurs see venture backing as the way to get on the map, and show the world their ideas are legitimate.

But bringing investors into your company is a double-edged sword, and can lead to a loss of control that can steer the company to unforeseen or unwanted outcomes.

Fewer venture capital firms raised money from their financial backers during the first quarter of the year than during any quarter in nearly a decade, according to a recent report, a sign that the industry continues to shrink years after the economic downturn.

That consolidation could have implications for the broader economy. If there are fewer venture firms with fewer dollars in their coffers, that means less money to invest in the promising start-ups that are often touted as creating new jobs.

From Nature magazine.

Lean steak is low in fat and cholesterol and high in protein — qualities normally considered healthy. But eating a lot of it can still cause heart disease. Researchers have now laid the blame on bacteria in the human gut that convert a common nutrient found in beef into a compound that may speed up the build-up of plaques in the arteries.

The results are published in Nature Medicine today. Co-author Stanley Hazen, head of cardiovascular medicine at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio, says that the study could signal a new approach to diet and health. In some cases, an individual’s collection of intestinal microbes may be as important to their diet as anything on a nutrition label, he says. “Bacteria make a whole slew of molecules from food,” he says, “and those molecules can have a huge effect on our metabolic processes.”

Venerable retailer J.C. Penney opened its doors more than a century ago and boasts annual revenues of nearly $13 billion from its 1,100 stores. Yet a three-year-old website with an untested business model and little discernible revenue is closing in on the department store chain's $3 billion market cap: Pinterest.

The online scrapbooking site recently raised $200 million in venture capital funds to bring its implied valuation to $2.5 billion, according to a February 20 story in The Wall Street Journal. Founded by three young entrepreneurs in March 2010, the tech start-up has 48 million users as of December 2012, up from nine million in the prior year, the article noted.

The Council for Community and Economic Research has ranked the most expensive places to live in the U.S. after measuring prices of common purchases in 307 urban areas to find the cost of professional standard of living in each spot, CBS News reported. The fifth edition of the index covered prices for everything from grocery items to transportation to housing. See the top 10.

It's ugly out there for the traditional PC makers. IDC says PC sales fell 14 percent in the first quarter on a year-over-year basis. That's worse than its forecast of a 7.7 percent drop. This is the worst quarter for PC industry since 1994 when IDC started tracking sales. So, that pretty much makes it the worst quarter in history.

Today, U.S. Deputy Secretary of Commerce Rebecca Blank released the Department of Commerce’s fiscal year 2014 budget request, which supports President Obama’s plan for an economy built to last with crucial investments in advanced manufacturing, innovation, trade promotion and enforcement, and research and development. These investments are designed to help grow the economy, create jobs and strengthen the middle class. The $8.6 billion budget request is an increase of $1 billion over the fiscal year 2012 level. The Department also identified a total of $195 million in administrative savings.

The President’s FY 2014 budget also strengthens the Economic Development Administration's (EDA) capacity to invest in American manufacturing, infrastructure, and exports. The allocations support the agency's priorities and investment programs at the highest level of funding in more than ten years. EDA's flexible programs address a variety of economic development needs, particularly through its Economic Adjustment Assistance and Public Works programs, which invest in critical infrastructure needs, strategic planning, and provide access to capital.

Remember those childhood dreams of being driven around in an automated car? Or soaring through the sky with a jet pack? It’s science fiction, right? Those things won’t materialise in our lifetime. Wrong. Some of the gadgets you thought were pipe dreams are in fact either already reality, or very close to it

It happens all the time – for one reason or another, a company gives up on a product. It stops producing it. It stops supporting it. It diverts its resources to other pursuits in hopes of creating something bigger and better than before. And sometimes these companies are wrong.

Chatter about the promise of Africa is not new. Outside economists have been reminding us about relatively high GDP growth rates; China conspiracy theorists keep us informed about who is buying up the continent’s natural resources; and global aid agencies are constantly rewriting their strategies. What is new is the rise of a new generation of Africans that is actually making things happen.

Since my visit to Africa last October, I have had some recent touch points with its emerging startup ecosystem. First, through my involvement in the LIONS@FRICA (Liberalizing Innovation Opportunity Nations) Partnership launched to enhance and deepen the startup and innovation ecosystems of targeted fast-growing economies on the continent. With partners like Microsoft, Intel, Nokia, the African Development Bank, the U.S. Department of State, Global Entrepreneurship Week, DEMO and others, what we started last year is set to be all about action not just words.

Hypothesis. Theory. Law. These scientific words get bandied about regularly, yet the general public usually gets their meaning wrong.

Now, one scientist is arguing that people should do away with these misunderstood words altogether and replace them with the word "model." But those aren't the only science words that cause trouble, and simply replacing the words with others will just lead to new, widely misunderstood terms, several other scientists said.