Science careers are a booming sector of the US economy. This is also the case around the globe, and the situation won't be changing any time soon. We live in a high tech world, and much of our progress has been made possible by the millions of people working in science careers. It wasn't that long ago that the phrase "science career" brought to mind an image of a stodgy, middle aged man spending most of his day peering into a miscrope in a dull laboratory somewhere. Those days are long gone, however. These days, science careers are, if not quite "glamorous", a whole lot more exciting than they used to be. It's scientists who make the breakthroughs that help America keep its competitive edge. It's scientists who devise the increasingly complex (and miraculous) blood tests which help police solve murders. These are just a few examples of the way in which nearly our entire world revolves around hard working people in science careers. In recognition of these facts, science careers now pay far more than they did just a few years ago. So if you're looking for a career in science, you've made a smart career decision.

Gordon S. Jones has been named the director of the Harvard innovation lab, an initiative set to launch later this year that aims to foster team-based and entrepreneurial activities, Harvard University said today.

Part of the lab's mandate is to also provide a forum, both physically and virtually, for interactions among students, faculty, alumni, and the surrounding community, Harvard said in a press release.

Along with the Harvard Business School, the lab will occupy space at 125 Western Ave. in Allston, a building that formerly housed the WGBH-TV offices and studios. The lab will "complement Mayor Thomas M. Menino's Innovation agenda and help revitalize Western Avenue," the release added.

While working in technology transfer and in the Brooklyn-based incubator at the Polytechnic Institute of New York University, Bruce Niswander says he saw a disconnect between the “high supply of talented, energetic students,” and hiring struggles at startup companies.

“One of biggest challenges for a small business is identifying talent that’s affordable and available,” says Niswander, who now runs the NYU-Poly Varick Street Incubator in SoHo.

It used to be that finding angel investors mostly involved figuring out who you personally knew who had money -- maybe a rich uncle or former boss -- and asking them to invest in your business. If you were lucky, maybe you scared up two or three different individuals who could back your idea.

In recent years, though, it's gotten easier to find angel investors outside your own network of connections. That's because angels increasingly travel in groups. The Angel Capital Education Foundation reports angel groups now number 340, up 13 percent in the past year.

The rise of angel groups is making life easier both for angel investors and for entrepreneurs trying to find them. Here's why:

01 / Groupon

For integrating web and the real-world shopping experience, changing consumer behavior, democratizing small businesses, and spawning an entire new category. The fastest-growing company in web history, Groupon's flash deal site marries cents-off coupons to a Friday-after-Thanksgiving shopping frenzy. The company broke into the black just seven months after inception; globally, more than 500 copycat sites have already sprung up.

02 / Trader Joe's

For becoming bigger than Whole Foods while retaining its down-home image. The grocery chain's limited-selection, high-turnover model allows it to buy large quantities, secure deep discounts, and stock its shelves with a winning combination of yuppie-friendly staples (cage-free eggs, organic blue agave sweetener) and affordable luxuries. Its 344 U.S. stores sell an estimated $1,750 in merchandise per square foot, more than double Whole Foods' tally.

Iowa Democrats are locked in a standoff with Republican Governor Terry Branstad that threatens to extend the legislative session past tomorrow’s scheduled adjournment. As in other states, they disagree over the best way to close a budget deficit. But there’s another sticking point in Iowa, one that might prove more difficult to resolve: The governor wants the budget to cover two years, while Democrats in the legislature are holding out for budgeting one year at a time.

It’s a rather esoteric fight to be having. But it’s dominating the session. Already, Branstad has vetoed a transportation budget because it covered only one year. “I want to make it clear by vetoing the very first appropriation bill,” he said, “that we are dead serious about doing a biennial budget.”

The furniture’s on order, the equipment hooked up, the network of labs and offices and support areas sheathed in a shimmering skin of stainless steel.

And now that the $13.9 million Kansas Bioscience Park Venture Accelerator in Olathe is nearing completion — with its first employees expected to move in next month — the Kansas Bioscience Authority’s drive to grow employment through emerging pharmaceuticals, animal science and other technical ventures is looking to add a few more passengers.

You’d think I’m a golfer with all of the golf related stories recently. This one came out of the University of Maine:

Golfers on the high seas can breathe a little easier — and so can the marine life around them — thanks to researchers at the University of Maine. In conjunction with The Lobster Institute, UMaine Biological and Chemical Engineering Professor David Neivandt and undergraduate student Alex Caddell of Winterport, Maine, have developed a biodegradable golf ball made from lobster shells. The ball is intended for use on cruise ships.

This week the Massachusetts Institute of Technology named a new director for its high-tech Media Lab, and its choice, Joi Ito, is someone who says he has learned more from World of Warcraft than from traditional academic institutions. Mr. Ito is chairman and former chief executive of Creative Commons, a nonprofit that advocates for new, more-open copyright licenses that make online sharing easier. He has also been a high-tech entrepreneur and a venture capitalist. Though he briefly attended Tufts University and the University of Chicago, he never completed a college degree. Mr. Ito talked to The Chronicle about his hopes for the new job and about how video games have prepared him to lead professors.

It was with particular interest that I took in a Board of Trade presentation on the state of British Columbia's green economy. After all, Vancouver is vying for the Greenest City In The World title. Green business is a big deal out here.

The presentation, by Paul Shorthouse of the Globe Foundation, was a convincing and positive one. There was plenty of evidence we were moving in the right direction.

But my fellow Board members were less than resounding in their endorsement. Time after time, the presentation got bogged down in debate.

Social media has made it cheaper and easier for small business owners to market their companies. Now, social media companies might be making it easier for small businesses to raise capital, too.

Back in January, I posted on Small Business Trends about the rise of crowdfunding as a possible solution for small business owners seeking financing. Closely related to peer-to-peer lending sites, such as Prosper.com, crowdfunding goes one step further. While peer-to-peer lending focuses on individual transactions, crowdfunding uses the Internet to encourage many individual investors to contribute small amounts, adding up to substantial capital.

Thanks to social media, small business owners and big brands have become obsessed with a common goal – getting their content to go viral. We’ve all seen that funny cat video on YouTube with 2 million views and know we want to know how that can be us. How we can use content and viral marketing to run, grow and promote our business. Whether you realize it or not – you’re a content marketer now, using your blog and your brain to publish content that people simply can’t resist passing on to their friends. Or at least that’s the goal.

If you’ve ever hit the ‘publish’ button on a post to only be met by crickets, you know that getting your content to go viral isn’t as easy as we’d like it to be. However, there are some things you can do to increase your chances of viral success. What are they?

Gov. Rick Perry's call for Texas universities to develop a four-year baccalaureate degree that costs no more than $10,000 isn't as far-fetched as it seems, the state's commissioner of higher education said on Wednesday after a staff member of the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board presented preliminary strategies for developing a stripped-down degree.

Those strategies, which the commissioner said the coordinating board plans to pursue aggressively, could involve statewide online courses, more opportunities for students to spend their first two years in community colleges, and accelerated and self-paced course formats.

Last week, David E. Boundy, Vice President, Assistant General Counsel Intellectual Property at a well-known financial services firm, in Boston MA circulated a "dear fellow patent attorney" letter detailing the shortcomings of the "America Invents Act" (posted on the Patent Docs blog), particularly the unnecessary gutting of the grace period. This letter has been getting traction as of late, and even Hal Wegner commented recently that "if the anti-grace period provision of the bill as passed by the Senate and as passed by the full House Judiciary Committee is enacted into law, then, indeed, the bill should be killed." Strangely, while pro forma praise for the America Invents Act continues to flow throughout the press, very few reporters and commentators have addressed this serious flaw.

A new online video search tool launched this week makes it easier to search the content of video lectures by automatically transcribing words used in the lecturer's visual aids.

TalkMiner was created by researchers at Fuji Xerox Palo Alto Laboratory (FXPAL), in California, to help students and professionals search the ever-expanding online archives of video lectures and presentations. "It gives you a good shot at finding something that wasn't mentioned in the title or abstract but is buried deep inside the video," says Larry Rowe, president of FXPAL.

Blogging has come a long way in the past few years, from a social release for narcissists, to today’s required vehicle for promoting your consulting business and gaining valuable online exposure. Even with product businesses, it’s the ultimate way to build your brand credibility, bring in customer leads, and get feedback from your target market.

Let me be clear – a product or consulting startup today without a blog, even with a static website, risks not being competitive in cost and time to reach and hold that critical mass of online customers. If you can’t justify both a web site and a blog, skip the old-fashioned web site, and make your blog do double duty as described below.

I spent most of my life at war with time–and time usually won. I’d read every book and taken every course along the way, and with a few exceptions (like David Allen’s excellent Getting Things Done), most of it seemed to rehash common sense. The feeling of being overwhelmed and underproductive was relentless.

The big breakthrough came when I was first teaching at USC and a student with severe dyslexia asked for help. Not knowing what to do, I turned to an expert on learning disorders. She advised that I let the student take the exam in my office, giving him short breaks every 20 minutes. The student did very well, surprising us both, and I was intrigued. After years of working with 20-minute segments, the Multiple Put Down technique was born. I’ve used it to write four books, a dissertation and thousands of speeches.

As a kid growing up in the less-than-opulent lumber towns of central Oregon, I understood early I possessed a “start-up” mentality. I felt a desperate need not just to make money, but to carve my own path in the process.

I didn’t want to mow lawns – I was the kid who wanted to learn how to mow lawns faster and better, so I could mow more lawns (yes, a few lawns were inadvertently butchered in the process). I soon left the mower to someone with less entrepreneurial spirit, and sought out an opportunity where my income – and my results – were limited only by my level of effort.

In a speech last week to Facebook employees, President Obama discussed the role immigrant entrepreneurs play in U.S. economic competitiveness. "We want more Andy Groves here in the United States," he told the crowd, touching on the Hungarian-born entrepreneur's startup success. "We don't want them starting Intel in China or starting it in France."

Sadly, our President didn't back his words with action. He simply said he would support "comprehensive immigration reform," which is legislation that has no chance of passing. This is because it tries to fix all the problems with immigration at the same time. Most Americans will support legislation to admit more doctors, scientists, and entrepreneurs, but they are deeply divided on the issue of amnesty for illegal immigrants. So we're in a messy stalemate.