Personal Growth

Rather than handing out an annual cash bonus, companies are realizing that shorter-term incentive structures do more to motivate employees, as well as reward them for a job well done.

The founder and CEO of Facebook is hesitant over making his company public because he doesn’t want innovation to depend on the whims of stockholders’ interest in short term gains.

In our tough economic times, some are drawn to the stability purchasing a franchise can offer. But they are not immune to difficulties. Here’s how some franchises are getting on.

Research shows that too few or too many adverse experiences generally leave people with worse coping skills than those who have had ‘the optimum’ number of bad times.  

The fierce moralist and political writer has died of oesophageal cancer and the outpouring of remorse at his loss is as varied as the arguments he made during his life. A fond farewell, Hitch.

Mars’ Gale crater was chosen from over thirty potential landing sites for when Curiosity, NASA’s most ambitious Mars rover ever, touches down in 2012. What makes it so special?

Scientists have discovered two supermassive black holes each with a mass equivalent to 10 billion Suns. They are eating up everything across a space five times bigger than our solar system.

The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence is again combing space for radio signals broadcast by other intelligent life. To overcome its budget problems, it will share telescopes with the Air Force.

NASA has found a planet outside our solar system which could sustain life. But does it? As research continues, a deluge of new exoplanets may be discovered thanks to miniature satellites.

Starting a business is not just about making money. A growing class of individuals are helping communities prosper through market-based solutions and profiting in the mean time.

The venture capital firm Acumen Fund proposes market-based solutions to aid the world’s poor rather than giving out free money. Its businesses are successful but do they help communities?

Based on current discovery rates, we will have discovered thousands of exoplanets by 2020. But how can we concentrate on habitable ones? One astrobiologist proposes a unique solution.

Do holiday sales make your palms sweat with anticipation? That’s because they’re designed to. “There’s a very, very deep art and science to pricing,” says Lee Eisenberg, author of Shoptimism. Watch as he explains the tricks of the trade and how you can avoid them.

As much as we would like to think that, put on the spot, we would do the right thing—and perhaps even the heroic thing—research has shown that that usually isn’t true.

Among the counterintuitive facts that leadership expert Jim Collins has uncovered is that personal charisma is largely irrelevant in successful leadership. In fact, it can be dangerous.

If people don’t listen to you, it’s not that they don’t respect you—it could be how you’re phrasing your request, suggests a new study published in Psychological Science.

Child prodigy turned inventor turned futurist, Ray Kurzweil is aiming never to die. He predicts that by 2029, computer intelligence will cure all disease and prevent death.

N.A.S.A. has produced a material that absorbs over 99 percent of the ultraviolet, visible, infrared, and far-infrared light—a development that promises to open new frontiers in space technology.

A Russian space probe headed for Mars’ moon Phobos has stalled in Earth’s orbit. Meanwhile, N.A.S.A. plans to launch its biggest Mars rover yet in just over two weeks.

No, not outer space. The very space in which everything exists is still poorly understood by physicists. Since Einstein, we have known space has a structure but not how it functions.

Honda’s Asimo robot can now run faster, balance better on uneven surfaces, hop on one foot and even pour a drink. Some of those skills may allow it help clean up the Fukushima plant.

Today’s protesters are asking for little: a fairer economy and society. But, on another level, they are asking for a great deal: a democracy where people, not dollars, matter.

Silicon Valley venture capitalist and billionaire Jim Breyer says that, while the U.S. is still king, China is a great place for V.C.s who want a big return on technology investments.

American universities face tougher challenges than ever before but it is rare that a bold leader emerges from the academic ranks. How can higher-education overcome its crisis? 

The world’s most powerful particle accelerator, the Large Hadron Collider, will shortly begin to recreate conditions that existed just instants after the big bang. 

Obama has been quick to stress, “We lead from the front” but leading from behind is in fact the smart strategy in today’s world, argues Roger Cohen.

Particle physics. Human self-determination. Evolution. According to Renaissance scholar Stephen Greenblatt, we owe these modern ideas to an ancient Roman poem, rediscovered in 1417.

Studies show that people who believe that intelligence can improve with time and effort are more likely to bounce back from failure than those who view their abilities as fixed. Why?

Project Icarus is a five-year study into the possibility of sending a unmanned ship to another star. The project recently outlined expected scientific benefits, including the search for life. 

Entertainer turned entrepreneur, M.C. Hammer presented his newest Internet search technology at last week’s Web 2.0 summit in San Francisco. Hammer is a Bay Area native.