Each year, nearly a million snorkel-masked tourists flock to Stingray City, a sandbar in the Cayman Islands, for a chance to touch, feed and even kiss wild stingrays. But all this interaction with humans seems to have softened the rays' rugged lifestyle, a new study suggests.

"We saw some very clear and very prominent behavioral changes, and were surprised by how these large animals had essentially become homebodies in a tiny area," study researcher Mahmood Shivji, of Nova Southeastern University's Oceanographic Center in Florida, said in a statement.

Though they roam the deep sea around the globe, enigmatic giant squid are all part of the same species, new research finds.

The new study reveals that the genetic diversity of giant squid (Architeuthis) is remarkably low — far lower than that of other marine species examined, said study researcher Tom Gilbert of the University of Copenhagen. The findings suggest that the squid intermingle and mate across the globe.

It seems like every person I meet these days wants to be an entrepreneur. They hear all the amazing success stories about young kids who started their own companies and become millionaires. It sounds fascinating, doesn’t it?

But what they don’t hear about is the extremely difficult road it takes to get there –the fight to survive, the never-ending persistence and the many sleepless nights.

Last year, two inspectors from California’s hazardous waste agency were visiting an electronics recycling company near Fresno for a routine review of paperwork when they came across a warehouse the size of a football field, packed with tens of thousands of old computer monitors and televisions.

The crumbling cardboard boxes, stacked in teetering rows, 9 feet high and 14 feet deep, were so sprawling that the inspectors needed cellphones to keep track of each other. The layer of broken glass on the floor and the lead-laden dust in the air was so thick that the inspectors soon left over safety concerns. Weeks later, the owner of the recycling company disappeared, abandoning the waste, and leaving behind a toxic hazard and a costly cleanup for the state and the warehouse’s owner.

When a whale dies, the 30-100 ton body — or "whale fall" — slowly, silently sinks to the ocean bottom where it becomes the wellspring of a complex new microcosm of seabed flora and fauna that can thrive for well over half a century. These new ecosystems with their hundreds of species from flesh-eating sharks to sulphur-metabolizing worms also include "innovative start-ups" — previously undiscovered new sea animals that have naturally selected to flourish in the unique ecosystem.

There are many ways that live "corporate whales" can cultivate entrepreneurship ecosystems — as investors with capital for ventures to grow, as customers who buy innovative products, or as marketing partners to give the small dynamic firms global reach. I am a big believer of the symbiotic necessity of large companies and entrepreneurial ventures living side by side: You simply cannot have a flourishing entrepreneurship ecosystem without large companies to cultivate it, intentionally or otherwise.

Donna De Carolis, associate vice provost for entrepreneurship education at Drexel University and founding dean of the university's new Charles D. Close School of Entrepreneurship, discusses the mission of the new school and the kinds of courses it will be offering. De Carolis talks with Bloomberg's Kathleen Hays on Bloomberg Radio's "The Hays Advantage."

Tech startups are alluring. They provide a sense of belonging for doers that want to leave their mark on the world, a "lottery ticket" for good-life dreamers and a front-row ticket to the theater of innovation for thrill seekers.

But startups are also freighted with risk. Because 90% of startups fail (and of those who "succeed," few do so on the level of a Facebook or even Crashlytics), joining an early stage company is like placing a bet — your time (lots of it) versus the threats (lots of them) a young business faces.

Happiness--in your business life and your personal life--is often a matter of subtraction, not addition.

Consider, for example, what happens when you stop doing the following 10 things:

1. Blaming.

People make mistakes. Employees don't meet your expectations. Vendors don't deliver on time.

So you blame them for your problems.

But you're also to blame. Maybe you didn't provide enough training. Maybe you didn't build in enough of a buffer. Maybe you asked too much, too soon.

As easy as these mistakes are to make, they are also easy to catch. Luckily, they are also easy to fix!

When applying for a job, pitching an idea, communicating with a client, or selling a prospect, the smallest mistakes can kill the deal. Not only will you look unprofessional and careless, you could also look dumb!

I often get pitched ideas for a new business, but my perception of the person behind a potentially great idea might be completely thrown off if that person makes a dumb grammar mistake in an email. How can you expect me to think of you as a professional if you can’t take the time to double check your grammar? Or maybe you simply don’t know the write (got you!) rules.

Forget kaleidoscopes, forget people are like snowflakes, forget we're all individuals (bonus points if you got the last reference without following the link.)

There is only one real way to define success.

Just one.

Granted success in business and in life means different things to different people, and should mean different things to different people. Whether or not you feel successful depends on how you define success -- and on the tradeoffs you are willing to not just accept but embrace as you pursue your individual definition of success.

One of the toughest things about running a startup is the feeling of loneliness and isolation. You are on your own and nobody supports you because it’s hard for them to see what you see and feel the excitement that you feel at the critical stages. This is especially true if you run your startup from your garage.

The leadership position alone can cause loneliness and disconnectedness, and that sometimes results in self-defeating behaviors. If your personality already leans toward narcissism, being the boss will likely bring out the worst in you, leading to intimidation, deception, and the use of coercive power. Of course, that leads to further isolation.

Here’s a bit of bad news for entrepreneurs seeking to finance high potential startups. Venture capitalists are doing fewer deals and investing less money than they did before the financial crisis and the Great Recession. According to data from Price Waterhouse Coopers and the National Venture Capital Association, the number of venture capital deals shrank from 4,211 in 2007 to 3,698 in 2012.

The amount that venture capitalists put into companies is also down substantially. Measured in inflation-adjusted terms, in 2012 venture capitalists only invested 75 percent of the amount they did in 2007.

Entrepreneurs are a special breed. They bring innovative solutions to complex problems. While each and every entrepreneur is impressive just by virtue of being an entrepreneur, what is equally impressive is when they are extremely young entrepreneurs. Whoever said that age always needs to accompany wisdom or success?

In this young entrepreneurs infographic published by Masters in Marketing Degree Guide, meet ten impressive young entrepreneurs.  All are under 30 years old.  Each has a thriving business. All employ others.  For example, Spotify founder Daniel Ek is responsible for 500 employees worldwide. Jeremy Johnson, founder of 2tor, is responsible for 400 employees.

Yahoo’s Marissa Mayer unleashed a firestorm of commentary throughout the business world with her recent announcement that remote working was off the table for the tech company’s staffers, who will now be expected to show up in the office every day.

The move goes against the grain at a time when everybody from the federal government to tech startups is embracing the flexibility and cost savings of working remotely.

From making fuel out of garbage to predicting the city’s behavior based on 911 calls and the weather, the winners of the Bloomberg Mayor’s Challenge are striving to change urban life in America. 

With Washington gridlocked, cities are the place to look for innovation in government. And, if it’s innovation in cities you’re looking for, then the Mayors Challenge--a competition organized by Bloomberg Philanthropies--is a pretty good showcase for it.

Think about what we mean when we sayknowledge worker--people who stare into screens and whiteboards trying to torque ideas into something new. Not data or information work, but knowledge.

As Nate Silver describes in The Signal and the Noise, there's a difference between knowledge and information. Knowledge is a verifiable, articulated signal, while information is ambiguous, coarse noise. And if we're going to make wise decisions and awesome products, we need the signal, the knowledge.

Travis Pastrana was well known as an X Games champion and a hero to many. Recently, however, he made a move to NASCAR. The company was ecstatic, as they wanted to attract a younger fan base--the next generation--and they thought fans would follow Pastrana. To their surprise, though, the fans didn’t come.

Pastrana was surprised too. After communicating with his fans, he determined that many of them thought he’d sold out--that he’d gone to NASCAR for the money. He quickly let them know that it wasn’t about the money; for him, it was about the challenge. He wanted to learn new skills and broaden his involvement in sports. Once he sincerely communicated that, his fans reengaged.

The Madness has finally arrived! Upsets! Buzzer-beaters! Stats and predictions! As a data nerd and basketball junkie, this is one of my favorite times of the year, and finally, my two worlds have collided. Today, we’re announcing our pick to win the 2013 NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament by analyzing the data of 200M+ member profiles on LinkedIn.

College basketball fans are a dedicated bunch, so we came up with a “dedication score” based on their LinkedIn Profiles to select who we think will be the winner. Here’s the formula:

The Nike+ Accelerator, Nike Inc.'s startup booster aimed at nurturing upstart companies straddling the worlds of athletics and digital technology, named 10 companies to the program's inaugural class.

The 10 companies on Monday started a three-month immersion program in Portland run by renowned startup accelerator group TechStars. But unlike other popular startup programs, companies in the Nike+ Accelerator will spend their time working on products that can make use of Nike's own digital platform, Nike+, and use the NikeFuel points system the company devised last year with the release of its Nike+ FuelBand product.

Which U.S. cities have the lowest costs of living?

The Council for Community and Economic Research recently measured the after-tax prices of common purchases in 307 urban areas. The council crunched more than 50,000 prices for everything from grocery items to transportation to housing to come up with their Cost of Living Index. The national average is 100.

Following is a look at each of the 10 most affordable cities in the United States.