Note: Carl Nelson Consulting, Inc is not an investment adviser and may hold a financial interest or client relationship in companies discussed.

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American Science and Engineering reports it has won $55 million from a customs agency in the United Arab Emirates for its X-ray detection systems, including its OmniView, Z Portal and Z Backscatter Van detection systems.  [Mass High Tech, Jul 2, 08]

Under an exclusive agreement, Cubist Pharmaceuticals will provide sales and promotion of AstraZeneca's broad spectrum antibiotic Merrem I.V. in the U.S. for a guaranteed $20 million annually.  [Mass High Tech, Jul 2, 08]

Maxygen up 28% ...it is selling its hemophilia treatment program to Bayer's health care division for $90 million, plus up to $30 million in future milestone payments.  [AP, Jul 2, 08]

SCI Engineered Materials  up 10% [Jul 2, 08]

Molecular Insight Pharmaceuticals up 10% [Jul 2, 08]

In late June, officials from Strategic Response Initiatives (Watervliet, NY (inside the Army's  Watervliet Arsenal); no SBIR) went to a conference on chemical warfare protection in Missouri [where] they saw a lot of interest in their product -- a French-made hazardous materials suit that is half the weight of conventional suits.   A few days later, the company signed a tentative deal with a New Jersey distributor to start marketing the product.  And on Wednesday, the owner of a Canadian distributor flew from Toronto to Albany in a private jet to discuss a similar agreement.    Not bad, considering Strategic Response only started marketing last week.   Chief executive Robert Domenici formed the company in 2005. The original idea was for him to train terrorism response and hazardous materials operations teams. But the company changed focus after a trip to Iraq in May 2007 to train an Iraqi team there. Word got out about Domenici, and a French company took notice. [Alan Wechsler, Albany Times-Union, Jul 3]

The first quarter in 30 years without an IPO prompted the NVCA and its fellow travelers on Wall Street to launch a lobbying campaign to reform post-Enron reforms that raised the financial hurdles for start-ups to go public. ... Todd Dagres of Spark Capital, in a press release, seemed dismissive of the NVCA's talk that the entrepreneurial world faced a "crisis": "The data is artificial. Facebook and several other privates could have gone public but chose not to. The issue is overall liquidity. If a private company sells to a public company - it's similar to going public with less risk." [San Jose Mercury News, Jul 2]  But then, if you want something from Congress , you need to talk "crisis" since they are so busy dialing for dollars.

WHEN Bill Gates helped to found Microsoft 33 years ago there was a company rule that no employees should work for a boss who wrote worse computer code than they did. ... To let it all go is to acknowledge that his best work at Microsoft is behind him. It is to accept that the innovator’s curse is to be transitory. ... Gates’s vision has come to seem so obvious - that computing could be a high-volume, low-margin business, that making hardware and writing software could be stronger as separate businesses.  .... Some great industrialists, like Henry Ford, stick around even as the world moves on and their powers fail. Mr Gates, pragmatic to the end, is leaving at the top.  [The Economist, Jun 26]

Congress also made progress on FY 2009 appropriations. Both the House and the Senate have drafted bills endorsing the requested 14 percent increase for NSF, adding funding to the request for NASA with a special emphasis on climate change science programs, and saving two key Commerce Department technology programs from proposed elimination. [AAAS Policy Alert, Jul 2] The good news is that Congress is willing to borrow unlimited amounts for energy research; the bad news is that they expect immediate results. A library of technical reports doesn't qualify.

Adjusting for population and focusing on seed- and early-stage capital revealed that several states, including Washington, the District of Columbia, Colorado, Maryland and Connecticut, are seeing impressive increases in capital opportunities for early-stage entrepreneurs, even though their achievements are often overshadowed by the sheer volume of dollars invested in California and Massachusetts. [SSTI, Jul 2]

Grappling with a record death toll in an overshadowed war, President Bush promised to send more U.S. troops into Afghanistan by year's end. He conceded that June was a "tough month" in the nearly seven-year-old war. [AP, Jul 2] Great idea, if only he had any troops to spare, since he has worn out his Army and his welcome. Troops don't appear just because he wishes it so.

Most [1776] Americans believed passionately in liberty and freedom, but they understood those ideas in very different ways. Town-born New Englanders had an idea of ordered freedom and the rights of belonging. Virginia’s cavaliers thought of hierarchical liberty as a form of rank. Gentleman freeholders had much of it, servants little, and slaves nearly none.  Quakers in Pennsylvania, Delaware and New Jersey believed in a reciprocal liberty of conscience in the spirit of the golden rule. African slaves thought of liberty as emancipation. Settlers in the Southern backcountry understood it as a sovereign individual’s right to be free from taxes and government, and to settle things his own way: Don’t tread on me!  ... Jefferson’s job was to bring together these Americans who were united by their passion for liberty and freedom, but divided by their understanding of those ideas. [David Hackett Fischer, New York Times, Jul 3]

Appeal to the Baser Tribal Instincts. A Republican congressional candidate in a majority-white Mississippi district runs ads trying to tie his Democratic rival with Barack Obama's former pastor, seen by some as an anti-white firebrand. Democrats distribute fliers accusing the Republican of wanting a statue to honor the founder of the Ku Klux Klan. [Emily Pettus, AP, Jul 2]  We like see ourselves as an advanced society, except when it comes to power, where we grab for the rawest handle.

CoLucid Pharmaceuticals (Indianapolis, IN; no SBIR) raised another $25 M in venture funding to help it develop a new migraine drug it licensed two years ago from Eli Lilly ... Series B financing that included all of its original venture firms -- a move that shows its backers believe the company is on the right track.  [Indianapolis Star, Jul 1, 08]

Emcore down 11% [Jul 1, 08]

Myriad Genetics up 13% [Jul 1, 08]

Senomyx down 14% [Jul 1, 08]

In a move to raise cash without selling more of its battered stock, ZymoGenetics announced Monday a deal to borrow up to $100 million from investment fund Deerfield Management. [Seattle Times, Jul 1, 08]

Power Comes First.  Whatever expectations one has of the Russian government and civil institutions, they always disappoint. The abuse of tax and visa laws to eliminate BP’s hold on its Russian oil joint venture TNK-BP is the latest in a long line of doleful examples. It has been obvious for some time that the rule of law does not apply in Russia to the international investors and companies which venture into the market in the hope of profiting from its natural resources. [John Gapper, Financial Times, Jul 2]  As in many places in the world, political power comes before any niceties of law and rights. What a shame the Bush administration and the former Republican Congress looked to the rest of the world as if they had the same power-first instinct.

Introgen Therapeutics became the first to apply for FDA approval of a gene therapy drug to treat recurring head and neck cancers. But it could be early 2009, at best, before a decision on whether it can market the drug, Advexin, on which it has been working for 14 years. [Boston Globe, Jul 1]

Thirteen NC companies will split $1 M from a new state fund intended to help businesses create environmentally friendly technologies. In the Triangle area: Ecocurrent of Raleigh received $100,000 to convert hog manure into electric power; Kyma Technologies of Raleigh received $60,000 to work with N.C. State University on a more efficient, cheaper electric switch.; 3F LLC of Raleigh received $100,000 to develop a natural fiber-reinforced concrete formula.; Piedmont Biofuels of Pittsboro received $75,000 to work on a reactor that more efficiently creates biodiesel.; Nextreme Thermal Solutions of Durham received $57,319 to manufacture a generator that converts waste heat into electricity.; Rain Water Solutions of Raleigh received $18,000 to develop a new rain barrel manufacturing process. [Raleigh News & Observer, Jul 1]

Emcore down 13% [Jun 30, 08]

Luna Innovations rebounded 20% [Jun 30, 08]

Bioanalytical Systems   down 10% [Jun 30, 08]

Some of the most efficient [solar] panels in production, from Sunnyvale, Calif.-based SunPower Corp., can yield about 220 watts of power from one square meter when 1,000 watts of sunlight is shone on it, up from 140 watts to 150 watts for the average panel five years ago.  [Yulia Chernova, Wall Street Journal, Jun 30]

Mark Kroll, who is already the state's most prolific inventor wants to keep pumping out patents before the Grim Reaper. .... more than 270 patents, tops in Minnesota and second in the world for medical devices, especially ways to shrink implantable cardioverter defibrillators (ICDs)  ... former top executive at St. Jude Medical ... his father studied electrical engineering, spoke 10 languages, discovered a tribe in Brazil that had not been influenced by Western civilization, and mastered acoustic technology  [Thomas Lee, Minneapolis Star Tribune, Jun 30]

Euro-flation hit a record 4% in June.  If that continues the ECB will raise interest rates which will further de-value the dollar which will make American exports cheaper in Europe. You just won't be able to afford to go there to romance the buyers. But if you are an SBIR-mill who cares, since your only customer doesn't live there anyway.

the real worry for financial markets is neither recession nor inflation, but rather the policy paralysis caused by $140 oil. The oil shock has created a pincer movement of inflationary and deflationary pressures that is not only threatening the world economy but also disabling the policy tools of Western governments and central banks. ... in the unlikely event that oil is still trading above $140 by the year-end, all bets are off on world economic prosperity. [Anatole Kaletsky, The Times, Jun 30]  The US economic prosperity has already been exposed as riding on a bubble of housing credit even though it could adjust to expensive oil if that were the only problem. The policy paralysis will show itself in the election run-up as the candidates merely pretend they know what to do and disavow any policy that would actually address the problem(s).   One big barrier to solvency is the idea that government doesn't have to pay for what it buys, like big wars and their latest $162 billion supplement, and can afford to simply borrow money from foreign sources. But the more we so borrow, the lower the dollar, the higher the oil, etc.  The candidates so far are still into inventing new things to buy for the electorate without any credible scheme for paying for them. If we don't insist that the candidates talk seriously, we deserve the insoluble mess, and $170 oil, we will get after the election.

Expecting a State Handout? Squeezed by high inflation, dwindling tax revenues and a national economic downturn, states from coast to coast have struggled to close yawning budget gaps while bracing for another difficult fiscal year ... Many state legislatures have been embroiled in pitched budget battles, with education, social services and fees in the crosshairs. .... [Jennifer Steinhauer, New York Times, Jul 1] When they can't pay for the basics, they won't do innovation investment with questionable returns. Try a lottery ticket.

Luna Innovations down 21% [Jun 27, 08]

Bioanalytical Systems up 13% [Jun 27, 08]

IBC Advanced Technologies (American Fork, UT; $0.5M SBIR) a company that develops and sells molecular-recognition technology, received an honorable mention in the chemicals-materials science category at the sixth annual Utah Innovation Awards Program. IBC was lauded for a process that removes bismuth impurity from copper. [Salt Lake Tribune, Jun 28, 08]

On "Star Trek," teleported objects materialized from thin air in seconds. At Stratasys (Eden Prairie, MN; no SBIR) it takes longer -- two hours for a monkey wrench or 10 hours for a coffeepot.  Stratasys does it ... with a machine that creates product prototypes out of nothing more than a fine plastic spray and the digital output from a computer-aided design workstation. .... many analysts -- and even one noteworthy institutional investor that recently purchased a large stake in the company -- are bullish on Stratasys' long-term prospects. The 19-year-old company is a leader in the growing $1.14 billion rapid prototyping industry. ... has 400 employees, has 10% of the world market based on revenue, but 44% of the installed systems, largely as a result of volume sales of its lower-end machines  [Steve Alexander, Minneapolis Star Tribune, Jun 28, 08]

The [tech] industry is consumed by disputes similar to those that once roiled American politics. ... These contemporary disputes are united by a common thread. They involve situations in which one company controls a resource upon which other firms must rely to pursue their own businesses. ... Each dependent fears that the network or platform, given its druthers, will raise the price of access to a level that extracts almost all the value from the total enterprise and leaves the dependent with only crumbs. ... The battles of that time resulted in an armistice: the creation of regulatory structures that met immediate crises, but which also failed in many ways. These failures caused significant problems of stasis, rent-seeking, political manipulation, and corruption. .... Besides, if society values innovation, a world of large integrated firms is a poor way to promote it. For many reasons, such as excess bureaucracy and fear of cannibalizing existing businesses, large entities tend to be stodgy. The railroads enabled the great catalog mail-order businesses that transformed rural America, but they did not invent them. A great concern of the contemporary tech world is that innovators need access to platforms on reasonable and predictable terms if the full creativity of society is to be tapped. [James deLong, The American, M/J08]

Necessary but Insufficient. Research conducted or sponsored by the NIH tends to be concentrated in the basic science of disease biology, biochemistry and disease processes. A major goal of that work is to identify biologic targets that might prove vulnerable to "attack" by drugs yet to be developed. Private-sector research is weighted heavily toward applied science: discovering ways to exploit the findings of basic science in pursuit of treatments and cures. [Benjamin Zycher, Wall Street Journal, Jun 28]  Research successes don't march into products by themselves. They need big money which only private capital supplies, and any government policy that discourages such investment will slow the emergence of new treatments.

An entrepreneur, a doctor, and a team of researchers at MIT are trying to make surgery less bloody. ...surgeons spend about half their time in the operating room trying to manage bleeding   ... An MIT researcher, Rutledge Ellis-Behnke, had a eureka moment in 2001. He was trying to develop a substance that would help foster the regeneration of damaged nerve tissue, using protein fragments known as peptides. But during one surgical procedure, Ellis-Behnke noticed that the animal stopped bleeding after he applied the substance. He and his colleagues assumed the animal died; they were wrong. They soon realized that the transparent peptide gel had an interesting side effect: It seemed to halt bleeding within a few seconds, and then break down safely once an incision had healed. ... Until Arch Therapeutics (originally Clear Nano Solutions, Cambridge, MA; no SBIR) can show that its gel works in larger animals - and eventually in humans - many investors will regard it skeptically; another nifty science fair project that requires more real-world proof.  [Scott Kirsner, Boston Globe, Jun 29]

Out, Out, Brief Candle.  Alternative Energy Systems, a Kansas City company that was building ethanol plants in Boone County, Iowa, and Kankakee, Ill., told the SEC today that it plans to go out of business. It is the latest of several biofuel firms damaged by high corn prices, high construction costs and tight financial markets. Last week, Tennessee-based Heartland Ethanol canceled plans for seven Illinois ethanol plants and said it would disband as a company. [David Nicklaus, St Louis Post Dispatch, Jun 28]

The second quarter of this year is to be the first in more than 30 years without a venture-capital-backed IPO in the U.S., according to a survey by the National Venture Capital Association, [Wall Street Journal, Jun 30]

Do You Look Like an SBIR Mill? Copyright© 2008 by Greenwood Consulting Group, Inc.
... The SBIR/STTR agencies don't like SBIR mills, and they are doing a pretty good job of ferreting them out and not giving them future SBIR/STTR awards. [SBIR Alerting Service, Jun 27]  An interesting observation although the big dog SBIR agencies - DOD and NASA - help create the mills. Greenwood's advice: conjure up a great story to excuse your past failure to commercialize or provide solid evidence that you are a new person. My advice: if you got a lot SBIR before, keep it up just to cover your salaries and air-conditioning expenses. If DOD and NASA like your technology, they will fund it regardless of your "commercialization failures" since their commercialization talk is just window-dressing.

Many of the new alternative energy companies will fail. But that’s when the fun will begin. Think about what happened after the dot-com bust. The commercial infrastructure laid down in the 1990s — fiber-optic cables, servers, payment systems — was put to use by new companies like Google, YouTube and Facebook. Bubbles also leave behind mental infrastructure. People didn’t stop buying books online or sending e-mail messages when pioneering Internet firms failed. Since concerns about global energy demand, emissions and climate change are likely to survive the oil bubble, the market for alternative energy won’t evaporate. ... It’s hard to say what we’ll be left with after this bubble. But a few years from now, as ethanol companies linger in bankruptcy and the stocks of alternative energy firms wallow in the single digits, I’ll pick you up in my plug-in hybrid, which I’ve just recharged using the wind turbine in my driveway, and we can discuss it. [Daniel Gross, New York Times, Jun 29]

They're Buying American.  nearly one in three American realty agents report working with customers from other countries, and almost half worked with three or more international clients, according to the National Association of Realtors. And that was before the housing bust. So it's probably a safe bet that with the dollar sinking, the trend has become stronger as foreigners try to take advantage of sagging prices, especially in Florida and California. Indeed, for many agents, foreign buyers "are the gift that keeps on giving," says David Michonski of Coldwell Banker Hunt Kennedy in New York. "Once you have one foreign client, you usually have many more."   [Lew Sichelman via Chicago Tribune, United Feature Syndicate, Jun 29]

Steven Hatfill finally has his life back. Thanks to FBI incompetence, he also has $5.8 million.  the Justice Department announced it had settled a lawsuit with Mr. Hatfill, a former military scientist whom then-Attorney General John Ashcroft publicly identified in 2002 as a "person of interest" in the investigation into the anthrax attacks in the aftermath of 9/11.... The Justice Department proclaimed, "The United States does not admit to any violation of the Privacy Act and continues to deny all liability in connection with Dr. Hatfill's claims."  [Wall Street Journal, Jun 30] The problem wasn't that Hatfill was a natural suspect with means and opportunity (but no obvious motivation) but that the government ruined his name and career by seeking a hit in the news cycle to show it was on the case. Can't we have adults at the Cabinet level? 

The Sovereigns Are Coming! Norway’s finance minister Kristin Halvorsen responded to gentle criticism of her country’s sovereign wealth fund by responding, “It seems you don’t like us, but you need our money.”  ... the biggest risk posed by SWFs to date has not been their actions, but the possibility of protectionist overreaction in Washington ... Over the long term, SWFs are merely a symptom. One deeper problem is that U.S. energy consumption is keeping energy prices high. [Daniel Drezner, The American, M/J08]

There's a 50-50 chance that the North Pole will be ice-free this summer, which would be a first in recorded history, a leading ice scientist says. ...  at the National Snow and Ice Data Center and the University of Colorado.  ...  It's home to Santa Claus, after all. Last August, the Northwest Passage was open to navigation for the first time in memory.   [Seth Borenstein, AP, Jun 27]

Don't look back; someone might be gaining on you. -Satchel Paige. While the innovation lead enjoyed by the United States over Europe has declined in  recent years, America retains an edge in most categories. According to the EIS, “There are 15 indicators with full data for the U.S. and EU, and of these the U.S. performs better than the EU in 11 indicators, while the EU scores above the U.S. in 4 indicators.”  [The American, May/Jun 08]

Dekortage writes "The US Bureau of Land Management, overwhelmed by applications for large-scale solar energy plants, has declared a two-year freeze on applications for new projects until it completes an extensive environmental impact study. The study will produce 'a single set of environmental criteria to weigh future solar proposals, which will ultimately speed the application process.' The freeze means that current applications will continue to be processed — plants producing enough electricity for 20 million average American homes — but no new applications will be accepted until the study is complete. Solar power companies are worried that this will harm the industry just as it is poised for explosive growth. Some note that gas and oil projects are booming in the southwestern states most favorable to solar development. Another threat looming over the solar industry is that federal tax credits must be renewed in Congress, else they will expire this year."  [slashdot.org, Jun 27]

No drug, nutritional supplement or medical regimen has been proven to extend human life spans. .. In ancient Rome, where the median age of death for men was 46, you basically worked until you keeled over.  [Peter Keating, Smart Money, Jul 08]

Electrical energy will remain cheaper than petrol energy in almost any foreseeable future, and tomorrow's electric cars will be as easy to fill with juice from a socket as today's are with petrol from a pump. Unlike cars powered by hydrogen fuel cells, of the sort launched by Honda this week, battery cars do not need new pipes to deliver their energy. ... Few believe in fusion now, though uranium-powered fission reactors may be coming back into fashion. And, despite Honda's launch, the idea of a hydrogen economy is also fading fast. Thirty-five years of improvements have, however, made wind, solar power and high-tech batteries attractive.  [The Economist, Jun 21]

Myths About the Death Of the American Factory 1) cheap wages. For most manufacturing sectors, labor costs are already less than 10%of the cost of making many products, including steel and semiconductors. 2) investing in innovation. "We're the best company in the world, but we can't compete with foreign governments." 3) trade agreements level the playing field help the service and agricultural sectors. Little is being done for basic manufacturing. 4) Good management Even the best management can't overcome some of the structural disadvantages we face. Take health-care costs. In Europe, these costs are absorbed by the government. 5) We make high-tech goods here very few high-tech companies are building new plants in the US  [Gilbert Kaplan, Washington Post, Jun 29]

mjasay writes "Remember 'the long tail?' That was the idea that there was gobs of money to be made in the more obscure tastes of any given market, enabled by the web. In recent research highlighted in the Harvard Business Review, however, the long tail theory comes under withering criticism. Not only is a hits-based business more profitable for vendors according to the new research, but the research suggests that consumers also derive more enjoyment from the hits, rather than the tail. In short, the researchers find that 'the tail is long and flat, and therefore that content providers will find it hard to profit much from it.'" Long Tail advocate Chris Anderson defends his theory, and it seems that most of the debate centers around how you define "head" and "tail." [slashdot.org, Jun 27]

In a remarkable shift, Afghanistan, where U.S. officials were once confident of victory, is now rivaling Iraq as the biggest cause of concern for American policymakers.  According to a new Pentagon report, Taliban militants have regrouped after their initial fall from power and "coalesced into a resilient insurgency." The report paints a grim picture of the conflict, concluding that Afghanistan's security conditions have deteriorated sharply while the fledgling national government in Kabul remains incapable of extending its reach throughout the country or taking effective counternarcotics measures. ... Senior Pentagon officials and military commanders have ordered a top-to-bottom review of U.S. strategy in Afghanistan.  [Yochi Dreazen, Wall Street Journal, Jun 28] Three key facts; 1) our Army is too busy and tired to help, 2) we'll soon have a new National Command, and 3) being the world's biggest dog guarantees nothing.

So much for that second-half rebound.  Truth be told, that was always more of a wish than a serious forecast, happy talk from the Fed and Wall Street desperate to get things back to normal. It ain't gonna happen. Not this summer. Not this fall. Not even next winter.  This thing's going down, fast and hard. Corporate bankruptcies, bond defaults, bank failures, hedge-fund meltdowns and 6 percent unemployment. We're caught in one of those vicious, downward spirals that, once it gets going, is very hard to pull out of.  Only this will be a different kind of recession — a recession with an overlay of inflation. That combo puts the Federal Reserve in a Catch-22 — whatever it does to solve one problem only makes the other worse.  [Steve Pearlstein, Washington Post, Jun 28]  What a great sixty years of prosperity, funded in part by government borrowing to pay for three big wars. Since we were rich, we had to keep up appearances, and our politicians were happy to keep the guns and butter charade going.

Buying Votes. He promises to exempt anybody age 65 and older, and making no more than $50,000 per household, from paying income taxes. ... "It's time to give America's seniors a break,"   [Wall Street Journal, Jun 28] Add another $7B per year to the debt to reward an interest group that vote in higher numbers than other populations. As long as the national debt is an abstraction to the citizen,  only the economists will worry.

Elect Adults This Time. We are a country in debt and in decline .... Our political system seems incapable of producing long-range answers to big problems or big opportunities. ...  digging out of this hole is what the next election has to be about and is going to be about — even if it is interrupted by a terrorist attack or an outbreak of war or peace in Iraq. We need nation-building at home, and we cannot wait another year to get started. Vote for the candidate who you think will do that best. Nothing else matters. [Tom Friedman, New York Times, Jun 29]

UltraCell (Livermore, CA; no SBIR) has developed a 25 watt fuel cell that can power the military's rugged laptops for up to eight hours on eight-and-a-half ounces of methanol. Intrigued, DARPA and the Army CERDEC have granted UltraCell a follow-on contract to refine their fuel cell tech for laptop-toting soldiers in the field. [Matt Safford, Extreme Tech, Jun 24, 08]  Note that it needs an ounce of methanol per hour which has to be transported from Kuwait to the forward bases and somehow mated with the power supply.

Luna Innovations down 18% [Jun 26, 08]

Nanophase Tech down 14% [Jun 26, 08]

SCI Engineered Materials  down 13% [Jun 26, 08]

The Wisconsin Department of Commerce has qualified two biotech companies to receive investor tax credits, the agency said Thursday. Perscitus Biosciences LLC, Madison, is developing a molecule that has shown an ability to protect healthy human cells against the harmful effects of chemotherapy and radiation. HTSS LLC, Milwaukee, is developing a technology that analyzes muscle activity to help reduce injuries during exercise regimens. Certain investors in both companies are now eligible to claim tax credits under legislation known as Act 255. [Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, Jun 27]  No SBIR.

Bill Gates ends his full-time role as Microsoft's boss.  the software company he built with a mix of visionary manifestos and extreme hands-on management must still wake up Monday to face hard problems even he could not solve. [Jessica Mintz, AP, Jun 26]

the fifth successful intercept in five attempts since 2005 for the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system [AP, Jun 26]  Which shows that sometimes under some circumstances with enough warning, a bullet can hit a bullet.

Congress passed another $258B supplemental for the Iraq war, new veterans' education benefits, and an extension of unemployment insurance. Who pays for it? Not a fair question in an election year.

[McCain activist] Carly Fiorina told about 500 building industry executives that tough times demand strong leadership. [Tom Abate, San Francisco Chronicle, Jun 26] True enough. But then, Bush-Cheney exercised excessively strong leadership - to do many of the wrong things for the wrong reasons. They tried to re-write the Constitution by executive fiat. The founders tried to prevent such "leadership" by distributing power to three branches of government, a scheme that Bush-Cheney tried to undermine with the "unitary executive" theory.

ProThera Biologics (East Providence, RI; $3M SBIR) received a $500,000 financing commitment from the Slater Technology Fund, according to Slater. Slater reports that the $500,000 commitment follows its initial $100,000 grant to ProThera in 2001. [Mass High Tech, Jun 25]

Aspen Aerogels (Northborough, MA; $13M SBIR over six years) got a $37M investment from Atlanta-based investor, Arcapita. [Boston Globe, Jun 26]

AeroVironment up 15% [Jun 25, 08] to an all-time high after it posted better-than-expected fiscal fourth-quarter earnings [also up 15%] and predicted next year's sales will rise more than Wall Street has anticipated  [AP, Jun 25]

Cynosure (Westford, MA; $3M SBIR), developer and manufacturer of light-based aesthetic treatment systems, announced the opening of its second sales office in the People's Republic of China.  [Chris Reidy, Boston Globe, Jun 26]

iRobot up 13% [Jun 25, 08]

Sequenom up 12% [Jun 25, 08] after announcing a new stock financing

OBS Medical (Carmel, IN) will receive $2M from the Indiana 21st Century Fund to speed the development of its BioQT technology, designed to improve pharmaceutical cardiac safety.  ... a subsidiary of Oxford BioSignals Ltd., based in the United Kingdom. [Indianapolis Star, Jun 25]

“Now is the time for European companies to invest in Wisconsin. It makes perfect sense, given the weak dollar — especially since it’s well-known that Wisconsin excels in medical imaging,” said Teresa Esser, managing director of Silicon Pastures angel investing group. ... MeVis Medical Solutions has completed the acquisition of a California company [the computed tomography division of R2 Technology (Santa Clara, CA, subsidiary of Hologic ], in April] and will soon begin shipping its first product ... based in Bremen, Germany, specializes in software for medical imaging technology. The company went public in 2007 in Frankfurt. [Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, Jun 25]

Anadys Pharmaceuticals down 12% [Jun 24, 08]

The Army is set to announce a significant reshaping of its biggest and perhaps most contentious acquisitions program [FCS] in an effort to speed the delivery of high-tech equipment to forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to senior military officials. .... work to get large numbers of robots and miniature aerial drones -- both of which are designed for use in crowded urban areas -- out to forces in Iraq and Afghanistan by late 2010 [Cole and Dreazen, Wall Street Journal, Jun 26]  Army SBIR contractors and hopefuls, be alert that if FCS suddenly changes, SBIR promises will also suddenly change. The Army doesn't care about SBIR, it cares about its budget and its missions.

Video downloads are sucking up bandwidth at an unprecedented rate. A short magazine article might take six minutes to read online. Watching "The Evolution of Dance" also takes six minutes--but it requires you to download 100 times as much data. "The Evolution of Dance" alone has sent the equivalent of 250,000 DVDs' worth of data across the Internet. [Larry Hardesty, MIT Tech Review, Jun 26]  All that excess fiber capacity of the 1990s is being filled with low value video and the TCP can't handle all the congestion. It's the same as Interstate Highway congestion where more capacity attracts more traffic. One answer is more roads and another is toll roads.

Worldwide spending on Internet advertising is projected to total $65.2 billion this year and account for nearly 10 percent of all ad spending, according to a new report... from IDC, a Framingham firm focused on providing global market intelligence. [Boston Globe, Jun 26]

They Pay to Play.  The pharmaceutical industry spent a record $168 M on lobbying the federal government in 2007, according to a report by the Center for Public Integrity. ...The center said the industry's 32 percent increase in lobbying expenditures may have been fueled by the Democratic takeover of Congress. Democrats have not been as friendly to drug companies as Republicans.   [Maureen Groppa, Indianapolis (home of Eli Lilly) Star, Jun 25]

Purdue University said Wednesday that 133 finalists have been selected out of 400 nominations for the inaugural Indiana Companies to Watch awards. The program seeks to recognize the state's 50 most promising second-stage companies. Purdue is collaborating with the Indiana Economic Development Corp. Finalists are being interviewed, with honors to be bestowed Aug. 27, Purdue said. [Indianapolis Star, Jun 26]

Go Home, and Take Your Brains With You. Two-thirds of doctoral candidates in science and engineering in U.S. universities are foreign-born. But only 140,000 employment-based green cards are available annually, and 1 million educated professionals are waiting -- often five or more years -- for cards. Congress could quickly add a zero to the number available, thereby boosting the U.S. economy and complicating matters for America's competitors. ... Instead, U.S. policy is: As soon as U.S. institutions of higher education have awarded you a PhD, equipping you to add vast value to the economy, get out. Go home. Or to Europe, which is responding to America's folly with "blue cards" to expedite acceptance of the immigrants America is spurning. [George Will, Washington Post, Jun 26]  Don't expect Congress to give anything to foreigners when the nativists are crying for more and bigger fences. Looking after long-term interests doesn't compute in election math.

Elect Common Sense. presidential campaigns can bog down in details of proposals that will never be implemented as proposed. Neither President McCain nor President Obama, no matter what he says, can do much that will make an immediate difference to higher energy prices, falling house prices, rising unemployment, sagging wages. And no matter how many briefings by learned advisers or position papers posted on Web sites, no candidate can honestly tell us exactly what he'd do in office. [David Wessel. Wall Street Journal, Jun 26]  Remember, too, that any president will play politics with policy to help the party gain a power edge, and that you cannot sue over failure to do what you thought was a firm promise that you wanted to hear.

Bryan writes "A recent headline at Entertainment Weekly suggests that the '100 Best Reads' of the last 25 years do not include a single science book (not even a popular science book). In response, cosmologist Sean Carroll at Cosmic Variance has given an interesting analysis of EW's disappointing list, and Soul Physics is calling for suggestions on the Greatest Physics Books of the Last 25 Years. For all the great literature that science has produced in the last 25 years, EW's list seems to represent a major shortcoming in the field: it still isn't diffusing into popular culture." I'm not sure what Entertainment Weekly's standing to complain would come from. That aside, have science books ever in modern times been a driving force greater than ones intended as (mere) entertainment, religious instruction, etc? I'd put anything by Richard Feynman on this list, though. [slashdot.org, Jun 25]

Beginning with the observation that "in three hundred years of warfare, the English-speaking powers keep winning", Mead contends that contemporary American influence is the continuation of a long trend of Anglo-American power. Lest any American or Brit become too smug from this observation (and assume that such power will eventually deliver a peaceful world), he then observes that "Anglo-Americans have more and more often been dead wrong about what their growing power and their military victories mean for the world". [Cheryl Schonhardt-Bailey, J American History, Jun 08] Beware the simplistic urge of politicians to extrapolate from mythical versions of their history to recall a Golden Age that never was.

Abiomed reports it has agreed to convert a $5 million loan it received from World Heart Corp. into World Heart common stock -- part of World Heart’s plan to recapitalize itself for a total purchase price of at least $30 million. [Mass High Tech, Jun 24]

The U.S. government has awarded American Science and Engineering a $3.4 million service, support and maintenance order for AS&E’s Z Backscatter Vans, completing the multi-year contract totalling $46.2 million . [Mass High Tech, Jun 24]

CyberOptics  up 10% [Jun 24, 08]

Memry (Bethel, CT; $1.6M SBIR) up 65% reports it will be acquired by Italian firm SAES Getters SpA, Italian Group in a deal worth about $77.7 million. [Mass High Tech, Jun 24]

Austin's Silicon Laboratories will buy a small California company with chip technology that complements its own product lines. Silicon Labs agreed to pay $80 million for Integration Associates (Mountain View, CA; no SBIR), which employs more than 100 people and has quarterly revenue of about $8 million.  [Austin American-Statesman, Jun 25, 08]

 Marc Stanley, TIP Director, has more professional lives than a cat. His ATP and now the TIP program has been zeroed out 7 times by the President. TIP has been zeroed out for 09, but Congress has a soft spot for him and his programs usually get rescued (in one form or another). The SBIR Insider has heard that a series of TIP kickoff meetings will take place throughout the country. We'll keep you informed about the schedule. The TIP Critical National Needs (CNN) webcast has been rescheduled to July 8, 2008, from 1:30pm to 3:00pm. For more information please visit the TIP web site at www.nist.gov/tip  [SBIR Insider, Jun 12]

Tech workers in San Jose and San Francisco made the highest wages in the nation, while their counterparts in Oakland ranked fourth in pay, according to a survey of 60 metropolitan areas published today by the American Electronics Association.  [Tom Abate, San Francisco Chronicle, Jun 24]    High-tech companies are rapidly adding jobs and paying workers more than other industries in metropolitan areas stretching from New York to Seattle, according to a new study looking at the nation's top "cybercities."  In a report being released today, the American Electronics Association (AeA) found that 51 of the top 60 U.S. cybercities — those with the most technology workers — added high-tech jobs in 2006. The report also found that the average technology-industry wage was 87% higher than the average private-sector salary.  [Joelle Tessler, AP, Jun 24]

Dow Corning's Business & Technology Incubator started in 2001.   "the cornerstone" of its ability to introduce next-generation silicon-based products and technologies. It's here that Dow Corning determines its R&D focus by examining emerging "mega-trends" as well as novel branches of silicon science, and looks for new business opportunities. One project currently in the incubator's portfolio is a silicon-based product with the potential to remove selected targeted compounds from liquids, such as pesticides from drinking water.  [Jill Josko, Industry Week, Jun 24]

Consumers have environmentally friendlier plastics, patients in clinical trials have a new device to treat clogged arteries and we all might get disease-treating nanoparticles inside our bodies thanks in part to the work of one man, the winner of this year's Lemelson-MIT Prize.  The $500,000 prize to chemistry professor Joseph DeSimone was to be announced today at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The prize recognizes people who turn their ideas into inventions that help change the world. [Boston Globe, Jun 25]

no one has thought to publish The Washing Machine – Which Really Did Change the World. The washing machine transformed our workplaces and our families. It freed women from their most time-consuming household task, allowing them to get out and work. [Michael Skapinker, Financial Times, Jun 24]

Economics Nobel Laureate Robert Mundell says "Remember, the growth prospects for the United States are probably stronger than that of Europe, because you've got continued and substantial population growth in the United States, and zero population growth in Europe.  Quite apart from the fact that the U.S. economy is innovating more rapidly, and the population is younger and not getting old as rapidly, so they pick up new technology faster. So I look upon the United States still as the main sparkplug of economic growth in the world."  [Wall Street Journal, Jun 21]

Better on the Outside. Over the last decade, even as spending on new military projects has reached its highest level since the Reagan years, the Pentagon has increasingly been losing the people most skilled at managing them. That brain drain, military experts like Mr. Kaminski say, is a big factor in a breakdown in engineering management that has made huge cost overruns and long delays the maddening norm. [Philip Taubman, New York Times, Jun 25]  Three decades of Republican denigrating the federal government didn't help attract the best and brightest. But then, the best and brightest should be in the private sector creating wealth and not in government re-distributing it.

American schools are not producing a sufficient number of graduates capable of filling these [high-tech] positions. ... According to Mr. Hansen, the result is that large numbers of high-tech jobs are being lost to other countries. [New York Times, Jun 25]  The combination of fewer US grads and growing restrictions on immigration has led to more high-tech jobs being exported.

At stake in the presidential election is whether we will all need to consult lobbyists to have our medical issues heard by a remote, bureaucratic Medicare program. [Scott Gottleib, Wall Street Journal, Jun 24]  We will have to consult a lot of lobbyists before the national health system for seniors settles down to something affordable, which the present Medicare is not. 

Handout Refused. Skeptical states are shoving aside millions of federal dollars for abstinence education, walking away from the program the Bush administration touts for slowing teen sexual activity. Barely half the states are still in, and two more say they are leaving. ... many have doubts that the program does much, if any good ... In April 2007, a federally funded study of four abstinence-only programs by Mathematica Policy Research Inc., found that participants had just as many sexual partners as nonparticipants and had sex at the same median age as nonparticipants. [Kevin Freking, AP, Jun 24]  Imagine that, a federal program that spends money and makes no difference. For a while, it at least soothed the religious right which doesn't rely much on real data anyway.

Politicians take the credit and the federal agency takes the heat.  Ah well, that's what we got paid for.  tens of millions of Americans have been flooding the IRS with questions about the government's economic-stimulus payments. Some callers want to know why their payment hasn't arrived and when it will. Others want to know why they didn't get as much as they had expected. [Wall Street Journal, Jun 25]

Beautiful credit! The foundation of modern society. Who shall say that this is not the golden age of mutual trust, of unlimited reliance upon human promises? That is a peculiar condition of society which enables a whole nation to instantly recognize point and meaning in the familiar newspaper anecdote, which puts into the mouth of a distinguished speculator in lands and mines this remark: – "I wasn't worth a cent two years ago, and now I owe two millions of dollars."  From "The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today" (1873), by Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner  [Wall Street Journal, Jun 25]

Organic light-emitting diodes have surpassed fluorescent lights in energy efficiency, according to Universal Display [which] announced it has created an OLED panel that produces 102 lumens, a measure of light output, per watt of electrical power. ...There are plenty of problems still to straighten out with OLEDs before they're practical light sources. The panels dim with a few hundred or thousand hours of use and they're difficult to produce in large quantities. [AP, Jun 23,08]

Biomarin Pharma down 12% [Jun 23, 08]

Trubion Pharma down 10% [Jun 23, 08]

Trimerisdown 12% [Jun 23, 08]

CyberOptics (Golden Valley, MN; $0.3M SBIR) said that it expects to begin a "Dutch Auction" tender offer within the next two weeks to buy a number of common stock shares not to exceed a total price of $15 million. [Minneapolis Star Tribune, Jun 23,08]

ImmunoGen (Waltham, MA; $1.6M SBIR) has raised $24.7 million through a purchase of 7.8 million shares of common stock. [Mass High Tech, Jun 23,08]

GTC Biotherapeutics (Framingham, MA; $5M SBIR) and Ovation Pharmaceuticals (no SBIR) said that they have entered into a collaboration agreement to develop and market a drug treatment called ATryn in the United States. [Chris Reidy, Boston Globe, Jun 24]

The purchase of a New Jersey-based pharmaceutical company that currently outsources all of its manufacturing could be good news for the Stiefel Laboratories (Coral Gables, FL) plant here in Greene County.  Stiefel said Monday it is offering [$148 million] for Barrier Therapeutics (Princeton, NJ; no SBIR). [Eric Anderson, Albany Times-Union, Jun 24]

The peer review process employed by NIH to select winners in competitive solicitation cycles, lauded for its impartiality for years, has been indicted by many recently as adding to the problem. During the first weeks of June, NIH announced plans to address some of the criticism, including a commitment of  $1 billion over the next five years for investigator-initiated, high-risk/high-impact transformative research. [SSTI, Jun 18]

Austin has lost thousands of high-tech jobs since 2000, but the ones that remain pay well.  A Cybercitiessurvey of American tech communities completed by the AeA trade group shows that Austin's total tech-related wages remained relatively stable even as the number of tech jobs in the area dropped dramatically in 2002 and 2003. [Kirk Ladendorf, Austin American-Statesman, Jun 24]

Procedural justice may be the reason why venture capitalists favor the entrepreneurs who communicate with them most; a willingness to observe the dictates of process is taken as a proxy for quality. [David Shaywitz, reviewing Brafman & Brafman' Sway, Wall Street Journal, Jun 24]

[John Kao] was described as “an evangelist for a national innovation agenda,” the goal he advocates in a new book, “Innovation Nation” (Free Press, 2007). Reviewers have praised it as both insightful and “scary.” His ideas are further summed up in what he calls his “little orange book,” a pocket-size, 28-page manifesto he hands out freely to people who express an interest in his work. [Cornelia Dean, New York Times, Jun 24]

CVRx (Maple Grove, MN; no SBIR) is developing a device to treat high blood pressure or hypertension, said the first data from a European clinical trial look promising. [Minneapolis Star Tribune, Jun 18, 08]

As a top engineer at Honeywell in the 1990s, Mary Hibbs-Brenner helped pioneer the use of lasers in powering short-distance telecommunication systems, technology that later fueled the growth of the Internet. Today, as co-founder and chief executive of Vixar (Plymouth, MN, no SBIR), Hibbs-Brenner hopes to apply that same expertise to office printers and, eventually, to wireless body sensors. ,,,,start-up is developing a high-performance, energy-efficient [VCSEL] that experts say holds great promise for the medical device industry. [Minneapolis Star Tribune, Jun 20]

Biopure lays off 50, needs cash to stay open past fall  [Boston Globe, Jun 21]

Engineous Software (Cary, NC; 3 Phase 1 SBIRs) agreed to be acquired by French software maker Dassault Systemes for $40M. [Raleigh News & Observer, Jun 20]

CardioFocus (Marlborough, MA; one Phase 1 SBIR) raised $9 million in a Series C round, and appears to still be in development of a product to treat a common cardiac arrhythmia.  [Mass High Tech,Jun 20,08]

Subsidising Foreign Companies. OBS Medical (Carmel, IN) will receive $2M from the Indiana 21st Century Fund to speed the development of its BioQT technology, designed to improve pharmaceutical cardiac safety. ...a subsidiary of Oxford BioSignals Ltd., based in the United Kingdom.  [Indianapolis Star, Jun 21]

Thin Is In. from the Southwest to Silicon Valley to Germany. Everywhere you look, thin-film solar companies are opening new, more efficient factories. .... As First Solar scaled production up, it was able to bring its costs down. Solar producers measure their costs in terms of dollars per watt of energy produced, a formula that's a combination of the cost of producing a module and its power efficiency. Right now the best crystalline-silicon makers can sell modules at $3 to $4 a watt; First Solar can sell at around $2.40 a watt, a price the company expects to reduce steadily. ... Nanosolar announced it would begin profitably selling thin-film panels at $1 a watt. ... says he can achieve radical cost savings by directly applying photoactive chemicals with an ink composed of nanoparticles. ... [dubious] competitors pointing out that the cost of raw materials alone should make it impossible to produce $1-a-watt panels profitably.   [Bryan Walsh, Time, Jun 23, 08]

Battery Smackdown.  the Pentagon has set up a competition. In October, it will field test new power storage technologies in a contest offering three cash awards of $1 million, $500,000 and $250,000. The winning devices must deliver at least 96 hours worth of power in a package weighing less than 9 pounds. ... More than 100 corporate, academic and private teams already have cleared the preliminary hurdles [Tom Abate, SF Chronicle, Jun 22]

intellectual-property suits follow successful entertainment businesses the way seagulls trail fishing boats. [Michael Hirschorn, reviewing David Price's The Pixar Touch, New York Times, Jun 22]

No more SBIRs.  Those government guys convinced me to keep people on with their CPP junk. Kept my costs high, then called and said "sorry, no CPP". Now I'm scrambling.  I suppose it will be okay, we still have a good strong company, but if I never hear SBIR again, it will be just fine with me.  Says an entrepreneurial company that got a juicy DOD Phase 2 from an agency that expressed interest in pursuing a Commercialization Project and then stopped everything cold [presumably because the Iraq mess was running out of money again].   Lesson: the government's word, as Sam Goldwyn once about oral contracts, isn't worth the paper it's printed on. CPP was one of those DOD wishstorms to make lemonade from the SBIR lemons. If DOD wants strong drink, it should start with strong ingredients: companies with ideas that will commercialize on their own after some SBIR nursery help. 

Physics Losing Energy a troubled experimental reactor has proved too pricey for the DOE [which] terminated the National Compact Stellarator Experiment (NCSX) at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory. The not-yet-completed reactor would have been one of four large "magnetic confinement" reactors in the US after the estimated cost at least tripled and the time doubled.  Meanwhile, The US's last particle physics lab finds itself in turmoil, with its current experiments soon to wind down and nothing under construction to replace them.  ... In the past 3 months, U.S. researchers have shuttered colliders at Cornell University and the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center in Menlo Park. Only the 25-year-old Tevatron remains, and it will shut off in 2010. Fermilab's smaller experiments will end at about the same time. In this country, the cupboard is bare, and physicists have only unapproved plans with which to restock it  [Adrian Cho, Science, May 30]

McCain thinks the government should offer a $300 million prize to the person who can develop an automobile battery that leapfrogs existing technology ... $1 for every man, woman and child in the country. [Glen Johnson, AP, Jun 23]  The idea of prizes as a spur to innovation keeps gaining adherents.

The Army's march to overhaul its tarnished contracting system has been slowed by an unlikely foe: the White House. ... OMB shot down a service plan to add five active-duty generals who would oversee purchasing and monitor contractor performance.  Generals are severely rationed by law, jealously guarded by each service, and OMB says the Army has enough already to staff any new contracting outfit. [Richard Lardner, AP, Jun 23] 

A key problem, Orszag said, is that the nation does little to assess which policies actually work and which don't. Innovative, evidence-based policy could help shape effective initiatives on health care, education, and climate change, .... White House Science Adviser John H. Marburger III defended federal S&T funding, saying in a keynote address that "there cannot be any question that this country has significantly boosted spending on research during this administration."   [notes from AAAS Forum on Science & Technology Policy, Science, May 30]Which is all interesting and true, but the federal government is stuck with a bigger problem - demand way outrunning the supply of money - and until Russia launches another Sputnik, science will continue to lose in the budget politics. Unfortunately, SBIR which has effectively squandered its 3% offers no brightened corner in pleas for science and innovation money.

He has cried wolf many times, but this time George Soros says the beast is really upon us. .... he argues that markets don't simply reflect fundamental determinants but can change those determinants in a way that causes asset prices to go to extremes. In his latest book, "The New Paradigm for Financial Markets," he argues a "superbubble" has developed in the past 25 years and it is now collapsing.  [Greg Ip, Wall Street Journal, Jun 21]

The sovereign wealth funds set up by producers have more cash than they can reasonably invest in skyscrapers in their own cities. Their investments in America’s financial institutions have proved a costly adventure so far, but these are long-term investors, the best kind from the point of view of the managers of our banks - so long as they remain passive - and so will remain key players in American financial markets.  ...My own guess is that the emergence of richer Chinese and Indians as competitors for the world’s resources will mean a gradual decline in American and western living standards as more food, oil, iron, coal and other resources head for Asia and the Middle East.  ... [western industrialised countries] will have to produce more every hour, which means that their governments will have to provide some substitute for today’s failed state-run education systems ... They will have to change their tax systems to encourage investment and discourage consumption. Unfortunately, the number of Solomons serving in our Congress is quite limited. So the outlook is less than bright.  [Irwin Stelzer, The Sunday Times, Jun 22]  No, handing SBIR money to uncompetitive life-style companies is not the answer to American productivity and competitiveness.

The U.S. has long depended on the kindness of strangers to finance its import bill. These days, those strangers are likely to be in China, Brazil, Mexico or some other emerging nation.  The U.S. has to import, on net, almost $2 billion in capital a day to cover its enormous trade gap. Of the $920 billion that foreigners pumped into U.S. stocks, bonds and government securities last year, $361 billion -- a stunning 39% -- came from emerging-market nations, according to calculations by Bank of America, using Treasury Department data.   China alone accounted for 21 percentage points of the total, with Brazil at 8.4 points, Russia at 2.8 points, and Mexico, Singapore, Malaysia, South Korea and others in the mix.  That's probably just the tip of the iceberg. Capital from the oil-soaked Persian Gulf states often flows through London on its way to New York, so billions of dollars in investment flows that look British in the government reports are actually Arab.  Why? [Kristin Forbes, a former Bush adviser] concludes that it's not the profits that attract foreign money to the U.S., it's the sophistication of U.S. capital markets. [Michael Phillips, Wall Street Journal, Jun 23]  Treat them well, for if they ever change their attitudes, US capital market chaos. Walter Wriston had the idea: Capital goes where it is welcome and stays where it is well treated. Remember that nativist xenophobia could spoil the whole deal with isolationist ideas like the Department of Homeland Security begins electronic prescreening for travelers from countries with favored travel status ... Travelers rejected by the new screening process would need to apply for a visa, which could double the number of visa applicants from Great Britain, Japan and much of Western Europe. [Brad Haynes, Wall Street Journal, Jun 23] Obsession with physical security could conceivably damage economic security.  That's one of the dangers of inventing a government department with a vested interest in "seeing a Red under every bed.".

 I suppose it’s better than nothing. Because it’s really close to being nothing. The 2008 legislative session recently came to a close and once again supporters of an angel investor/venture capital tax credit were left empty-handed. Well, that’s not exactly true. Investors can now get a 45 percent tax credit up to $112,500….in Breckenridge, Dilworth, East Grand Forks, Moorhead and Ortonville. [Thomas Lee, Minneapolis Star Tribune, Jun 18, 08]   Such legislative inconstancy is just what would happen if SBIR were directly appropriated with regular need for justification since it has no quantitative return worth measuring after two decades.

[The candidate] announced a new program to offer matching grants that encourage businesses, government and university leaders to collaborate on regional economic clusters, such as the North Carolina Research Triangle Park and Nashville's entertainment cluster. The campaign said the proposal would cost $200 million a year and would be funded by improving government efficiency [Nedra Pickler, AP, Jun 21] Blah, blah, the standard dodge to avoid saying how a handout would be funded. Stand by for another four months of such drivel.

They Don't Want to Hear It. "I'd like to be a government activist. But if we don't have the resources, we're actually kidding ourselves about the direction we're taking." ... "We've borrowed until we're blue in the face," he added. "We've got to change. Change does not come easily." The Democrat's bleak message is not one that politicians normally like to deliver -- and his popularity has plummeted as a result. [Keith Richburg, Washington Post, Jun 22] The governor of New Jersey, a rich man who self-financed his getting elected Senator and then Governor.

Trubion Pharmaceuticals up 13% said that Wyeth has exercised its option under the terms of its collaboration agreement with Trubion to extend the research period for an additional one-year period. [press release, Jun 19, 08]

Evergreen Solar jumped 20% .... signed two long-term sales contracts valued at $600 million with solar-product makers GroSolar and Wagner & Co. Solartechnik  [Wall Street Journal, Jun 20, 08]

Alnylam Pharmaceuticals signed its second collaborative deal in as many months, sending shares higher. [Boston Globe, Jun 19, 08]

Sepracor said that late-stage studies of an epilepsy drug demonstrated a reduction in the frequency of seizure in patients given the drug, eslicarbazepine, along with standard anti-epileptic drugs. [Boston Globe, Jun 19, 08]

Despite Silicon Valley's best entrepreneurial efforts, California continues to lag Massachusetts as a technology incubator and has fallen behind (gasp!) Maryland and Colorado, according to a study released today by the Milken Institute. [San Jose Mercury News, Jun 19]

FLIR Systems landed a $25M Navy deal for handheld, thermal imaging binoculars. [Mass High Tech, Jun 18, 08]

Avant Immunotherapeutics down 11% [Jun 18, 08]

Rocket Ventures, a pre-seed, early-stage venture fund for technology-based [Ohio] companies, has awarded Ignite! grants to three Toledo firms - ADS Biotechnology, TechTol Imaging, and DoX Systems. These grants are given to help the companies develop and use technology to create new products or improve processes that have an impact on jobs and revenues in Northwest Ohio.   [Toledo Free Press, Jun 13, 08]  No SBIR.

Two Austin companies will share $3.7 million in grants from the Texas Emerging Technology Fund, which was created to spur commercialization of research in Texas. Receptor Logic Ltd. will receive $2 million to advance its work in the development of anti-bodies that can improve the understanding of the immune system and thus lead to better drugs and vaccines.  Terapio Inc. will receive $1.7 million to develop a cream to treat hand-foot syndrome, a painful swelling and numbness of the hands and feet that can occur as a side effect of several chemotherapy drugs.  Receptor was started in 2004 by Emergent Technologies Inc., an Austin-based life sciences venture capital firm, and Jon Weidanz, director of the Texas Tech University Center for Immunotherapeutic Research. The company, which has headquarters in Austin and a laboratory in Abilene, will use the investment to expand its commercialization efforts  [Lori Hawkins, Austin American-Statesman, Jun 19] Neither had SBIR.

Intel, the world's largest computer chipmaker and Oregon's largest private employer, announced that it would lead a $50 M investment in SpectraWatt (Hillsboro, OR; no SBIR), a startup that will make photovoltaic cells for solar modules. [The Oregonian, Jun 17]

Early-stage companies in Wisconsin pulled in $147 million of funding last year, 43% more than in 2006, according to a report released by the Wisconsin Technology Council. .... Wisconsin also showed gains in federal Small Business Innovation Research grants to $33.7 million and in initial public offerings. Four companies raised $343 million in IPOs in 2007, the report says.  [Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, Jun 19]

Intel's new integrated power management could dramatically reduce power consumption in your laptop by shutting down operations not being used. ...  forthcoming Atom, a microprocessor for mobile Internet devices, can be put to sleep at up to six different levels, depending on the types of tasks that it needs to do  [Kate Greene, MIT Tech Review, Jun 13]

Bioscience employment in the U.S. is led by strong growth in the research, testing and medical lab subsector, which experienced a 17.8 percent increase in employment and a 32.7 percent increase in establishments between 2001 and 2006, according to the report. And most states are working hard to ensure some of that economic development impact happens within their borders. [SSTI, Jun 17]

An initiative in Iowa to disperse tax credits worth 20% of equity investments into pre-qualified businesses or seed capital funds has reached its $10 M cap and will not be continued in the next fiscal year. The Iowa Venture Capital Credit – Qualified Business or Seed Capital Fund was started in 2002 with a cap of $10 million, and as monitored by the Iowa Department of Revenue, all credits have been issued.  Efforts in the most recent Iowa legislative session to increase the monetary cap of the program under House Bill 2484 by an additional $3 million did not succeed. The discontinuance of the initiative comes as the practice of utilizing tax credits in Iowa for various activities has grown dramatically over the last several years. However, the scrutiny of the tax credit programs has grown, as well.  [SSTI, Jun 17]

"They want what we've got," said Governor Patrick, who is leading a brigade of four dozen state and local officials at BIO in an attempt to persuade biotech executives to expand in Massachusetts. The scene at the convention - organizers call it the "Olympics" of the biotech industry - underscores the growing competition that Massachusetts faces to remain a leader in the industry.  ....But it is difficult for other states to compete with Cambridge's Kendall Square and San Francisco's Bay Area, especially if they are trying to build an industry from scratch. Both areas have deep roots in the industry. The commercial biotech revolution arguably began in 1976 with the founding of Genentech, a south San Francisco biotech giant. Cambridge-based Biogen (now Biogen Idec Inc.) launched just two years later. Today, the Bay Area has 77 publicly traded biotech companies, more than any other region, according to a recent study by Ernst & Young. Massachusetts is close behind with 62.   [Todd Wallack, Boston Globe, Jun 19]

Mason Box (North Attleboro, MA) is among several local companies that have been selected to participate in the "Next Generation Manufacturing Initiative, or NGMI, an effort to foster best-in-class manufacturing processes. Other participants in the initiative include Hoppe Tool (Chicopee, MA), Matouk Textiles (Fall River, MA),  Munksjo Paper (Fitchburg, MA), and Spectro Coating (Leominster, MA).  The initiative is a partnership of the Associated Industries of Massachusetts, a nonprofit group representing Bay State employers; MassDevelopment, the commonwealth's finance and development authority; and the Massachusetts Manufacturing Extension Partnership, a group dedicated to helping local manufacturers remain competitive in a global marketplace.  [Chris Reidy, Boston Globe, Jun 19]  No SBIR.

They haven't rechristened a ship the Irony, but federal [NOAA] researchers  are canceling and cutting back on voyages aimed at studying climate change and ocean ecosystems so they can save money on boat fuel. [Brian Skoloff, AP, Jun 18]

An employer has no right to read an employee's text messages without the worker's knowledge and consent, and federal law bars service providers from turning over the contents of the messages to the employer who pays for the service, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled. [Maura Dolan, LA Times, Jun 18]

It was reported last week that President Bush has signed an executive order requiring all federal contractors or subcontractors, including colleges and universities, to use DHS’s E-Verify system to establish the immigration status of newly hired employees and all workers on such contracts. ... Aug. 11 is the deadline for public comments on the proposed rule published in the June 12 Federal Register. [SSTI, Jun 17]

'S Wonderful.  $165 billion to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan into next year and more than $50 billion over 10 years in college funding for veterans of those wars. It also is expected to include more than $2 billion in aid for Midwestern states affected by flooding, plus a 13-week extension of jobless benefits in all states for the long-term unemployed. [Wall Street Journal, Jun 19] Paying for it? 'S wonderful, the magic of deficit finance: something for everybody and nobody has to pay. 

The Louisiana House of Representatives, by a vote of 94-3, last week passed an "academic freedom" bill that singles out evolution and other theories or fields of science and implies that they are controversial. [AAAS, Jun 18] So-called academics will now be free to opine that creationism is a credible alternative to evolution. I wonder how many academics in Louisiana will be able to safely argue that god is a mere human construct with no credible evidence as to its nature.  

Infinera down 26% after it cut its full-year revenue forecast and projected third-quarter sales well below analysts' expectations. [Wall Street Journal, Jun 18, 08]

Spire up 19% [Jun 17, 08] on a new BUY rating.

DARPA and the Army Research Office have given iRobot a $3.3 M, multi-year contract to create Chemical Robots for use in unmanned urban search and rescue and reconnaissance work [Mass High Tech, Jun 17,08] to "develop a soft, flexible, mobile robot that can identify and maneuver through openings smaller than its actual structural dimensions" to perform tasks "within complex and highly cluttered environments," iRobot said. [Boston Globe, Jun 18]

Kleiner Perkins is now laying a bet on a breakthrough technology surrounding stem cells derived from adult humans. ... backing a new Bay Area company, iZumi Bio Inc., which had its public premiere Monday with the announcement of a research collaboration with the J. David Gladstone Institutes, based in San Francisco. The nonprofit institute is a center of scientific work on novel methods of "reprogramming" adult cells to recover the versatile properties of embryonic stem cells, which can morph into any cell type in the body. [Bernadette Tansey, San Francisco Chronicle, Jun 17, 08]

Soaring Metal Imports. Traders said demand for minor metals such as rhenium, chromium, cobalt and titanium is booming as Rolls-Royce, General Electric and Pratt & Whitney buy them for new super-alloys that help cut aircraft fuel consumption. ... The rhenium [from Chile and Kazakhstan] price on Tuesday surged to a record of $11,250 a kilogram, more than double last year’s level and up from about $1,000 in early 2006, ...Chromium [from South Africa], cobalt [from the Democratic Republic of Congo] [Financial Times, Jun 17]

Solar energy will cost the same as power produced by coal, natural gas and nuclear plants in about a decade, a report released today suggests. And that price parity could propel solar adoption so it accounts for 10% of U.S. electricity generation by 2025  [San Jose Mercury News, Jun 17]

Food supplies are shrinking. Diseases are mutating. Global warming and high gas and oil prices are making alternative energy a must.  Critics still have plenty of problems with genetically engineered foods and bio-based medicines and fuels, but worldwide woes are giving the biotech business an unexpectedly big boost.  "It's a great time to be in this space," said Patrick Kelly, a vice president of the Biotechnology Industry Organization trade group.  Biotech-industry revenues hit an all-time high last year, according to consulting firm Ernst & Young, as did venture-capital investments in biotech companies.  The value of mergers and acquisitions in the business hit a new high too — nearly $60 billion in the United States — as big pharmaceutical companies faced with a record number of expiring patents on their medicines bought up lots of little biotech companies. [Bob Keefe, Cox News Service, Jun 14]

Let Loose the Drills of War.  The Republicans hear the populist call of high gasoline prices and the business prospect of new oil profits if they can just drill everywhere in America without regard to the inevitable environmental damage they will cause. Bush, McCain, even Florida's governor want to Drain America First, at least until the next election. But there is no compelling need to panic over supply; the world has plenty of supply at a competitive prices as world demand rises. The laws of economics have not been repealed.

Persevere with your best. You just keep pushing and pushing. And I did, all week. -- Tiger Woods, after winning the golf US Open with a nearly debilitating post-surgery knee and an extra 19 holes.

Alkermes will expand its common stock repurchase program by an additional $40 M. According to biotech firm Alkermes, the $40 million boost in the buyback plan comes after the company received a $40 million payment from Eli Lilly after the drug giant canceled its inhaled insulin program with Alkermes in March.

Achillion Pharmaceuticals is the type of biotech that Big Pharma looks for to find new drugs. Achillion develops small-molecule drugs to fight infectious diseases like Hepatitis C and HIV. Gilead Sciences has partnered with Achillion and signed a worldwide exclusive license for a compound aimed at stopping the Hepatitis C virus from replicating. The drug has an estimated $1 billion market, says Alfred Mansour, CEO of Biotech Watch  [Gene Marcial, Business Week, Jun 23, 08]

Acadia Pharmaceuticals were beaten down 43% after the company reported a complete failure of its Phase II-b trial of a schizophrenia drug. The study didn't meet any of its primary or secondary goals at two separate doses. [Wall Street Journal, Jun 17, 08]

Energy Conversion Devices up 15% [Jun 16, 08]

SatCon up 13% [Jun 16, 08]

Acadia Pharmaceuticals down 43% [Jun 16, 08]

SCI Engineered Materials up 19% [Jun 16, 08]

Two Minnesota startups are joining forces to debut what they claim is a faster and more effective way to test drug-coated stents at the nation's premier biotechnology conference this week.  Nanocopoeia (St. Paul, MN; $0.9M SBIR)  and the Integra Group (Brooklyn Park, MN; no SBIR)  will announce today a new company called NanoInterventions whose core technology is a mouse-based testing system for drug-coated stents. [Minneapolis Star Tribune, Jun 17, 08]

Cisco Systems is projecting a sixfold jump in Internet traffic between 2007 and 2012, with online video the biggest driver of global data communications. [San Jose Mercury News, Jun 16]

Maryland Gov. O'Malley outlined a strategy yesterday to invest $1.1 billion in the state's bioscience industry over the next decade or so, expanding tax credits, bolstering stem cell research and providing new support for start-ups. [Washington Post, Jun 17]

Lamenting the Route 128 brand has lost its luster, leaders of the information technology, communications, and defense industries today called on state government to invest more than $64 million in new efforts to make Massachusetts an "innovation gateway." [Robert Weisman, Boston Globe, Jun 17]

Distributed Energy Systems (Wallingford, CT; $2M SBIR) says that it has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. [Mass High Tech, Jun 13]

Cascade Microtech up 12% [Jun 13, 08]

Dexcom up 11% [Jun 13, 08]

Maxygen down 28% [Jun 13, 08] after the company said it may be open to patent infringement litigation from rival Amgen.

Achillion Pharmaceuticals up 13% [Jun 13, 08]

Beacon Power wants to build a unique array of 200 flywheel batteries over several acres to store spare power from New York's electrical grid and zap it back as needed.   ... to connect the 20-megawatt, short-term energy storage unit to New York's power grid in Stephentown, a rural community near the Massachusetts border. The company claims the matrix of batteries would make the grid more efficient and conserve energy, though they have some final hurdles to clear. [Boston Globe, Jun 14]

Bright View (Morrisville, NC; no SBIR) that has devoted five years to developing a line of components used in TV screens and computer monitors has raised $11 to launch its first products. ... co-founded in 2003 by Ed Fadel and David Reed, based on technology licensed from Duke University.  ...  To date the company has raised $30 million in financing.   [David Ranii, Raleigh News & Observer, Jun 15, 08]

The state of Minnesota's attempt to win passage for a bill to lure start-up investors with tax credits was stripped down. [Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Jun 16]

Cargo Jock. Gen Schwartz the new CSAF comes from an underprivileged background - a cargo pilot in a world of bomber and fighter pilots. Since 1982, for example, the fighter mafia has been in control, and before that the bombers. Now, since senior officers tend to favor the platforms they operated as junior officers, and  since one of the key advantages that small fighters used to enjoy — their ability to swoop low for greater accuracy while dodging enemy fire — has been rendered much less important by the development of “smart” bombs, big money fighter programs should look fearfully at prospects for continued free play in the Pentagon's budget game. [New York Times, Jun 16]

SCI Engineered Materials down 14% [Jun 12, 08]

Enzo Biochem up 10% [Jun 12, 08]

Invitrogen down 10% [Jun 12, 08]

Lobby, Lobby. Lobby. Defense contractors Boeing and SAIC, worried that key aspects of a $160 billion Army modernization contract known as Future Combat Systems may be in danger, are scrambling along with the Army to shore up support on Capitol Hill. [Wall Street Journal, Jun 13] There is no good substitute for stroking your politicians if you want federal programs to continue pouring out money. BTW: despie all the imaginary financial math, the only source of the money is you and your neighbors.

Spire up 11%% [Jun 11, 08]

Invitrogen, which makes kits that researchers use in gene cloning, will pay $6.4 B for Applied Biosystems (no SBIR) which makes systems that can analyze DNA, RNA, proteins and other molecules, which can be used in forensics, research, testing foods for contaminants, making and testing drugs, among other applications. [Boston Globe, Jun 12]

no objections have been raised on health and safety grounds, not even from the state, on a scheme by Energy Solutions (Salt Lake City, no SBIR)  to import nucear waste from Italy, reprocess it in Tennessee, and dump the residue in Utah. But the enviro watchdog groups have weighed in with cards and letters to the politicians who are now awake and posturing. [Salt Lake Tribune, Jun 11]

American Superconductor up 19% after it said it received a $450 million follow-on order to supply core electrical components for wind turbines from Beijing-based Sinovel Wind Corp, [Reuters, Jun 10]

Alexza Pharmaceuticals down 14% [Jun 10, 08] on news of disappointing clinical trials.

Bioanalytical Systems up 27% [Jun 10, 08]

 Cardica up 35% [Jun 10, 08]

First Solar stock has risen dramatically since its initial public offering in November 2006, but the threat of stiffer competition could take some of the shine off of its shares. ... trading at a price/earnings ratio of about 97.50 ... the company is vulnerable to new thin-film entrants and a potentially large drop in manufacturing costs for traditional solar makers," wrote Kaufman Bros. analyst Theodore O'Neill ...  module manufacturing costs were $1.14 per watt in the first quarter, while conventional solar cells cost about $3 per watt to produce, according to Raymond James analyst Pavel Molchanov. The company said it aims to get its costs down to 65 cents to 70 cents per watt by 2012 at the latest  [Riva Richmond, Wall Street Journal, Jun 11]

iRobot  said that it signed a licensing agreement with the University of Washington that "will help our robots conquer new underwater frontiers."  ... to commercialize Autonomous Underwater Vehicle, or AUV, Seaglider technology previously supported by [ONR and NSF].  [Chris Reidy, Boston Globe, Jun 10]  Because iRobot is now a public company, it cannot afford to play the pretend commercialization game to get SBIR money for endless R&D.

Watching the Watchdog, The criminal-investigations wing of the Food and Drug Administration is in hot water with [Congress] .... its arrests and convictions in fiscal 2006 were 20% lower than in fiscal 2000, according to numbers on the agency's Web site ... the Bush administration announced it would ask Congress for an extra $275 million to beef up FDA inspections... up from a present budget of $42M  [Alicia Mundy, Wall Street Journal, Jun 11]

Less Interest in Science. With attendance down and a budget deficit looming, the [Boston] Museum of Science yesterday laid off 10 percent of its 400-person staff.  [Boston Globe, Jun 11]  And in Manufacturing. Several Massachusetts manufacturers notified the state last month that they would be cutting jobs. In May, Alcatel-Lucent, Pliant Corp., Kronos Inc., and Jevic Transportation Inc. all notified the state Department of Labor that they would be laying off workers in the coming month  [Boston Globe, Jun 10]

in the Milwaukee area is the Executive Resource Group, a 16-member network of small-business owners who share expertise to enhance professional development and service to their clients. [Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Jun 11]

Wisconsin is one of the venture capital “have-nots,” said Susan P. Strommer, president and chief executive officer of the National Association of Seed and Venture Funds, a network of 8,000 early-stage investment professionals and organizations.   A whopping 60% of all venture capital dollars go to companies in California and Massachusetts, Strommer said. Wisconsin companies pull in just 0.3% of all the venture capital invested in the U.S., she said.  That statistic, plus the fact that venture capitalists now put just 4% of their money into start-up companies, compared with 17% in 1995, shows why it’s so important for the state to build its own infrastructure for investing in young companies, Strommer said.  [Kathleen Gallagher, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Jun 11]  The idea of "have-not" empowers representative politicians to correct an "unfair" imbalance. Their problem is that we cannot have "fair" balance and a nationally efficient market-based innovation machine. The same argument applies to SBIR promoters who argue "fair share" as the basis for redirecting government investment in innovation to politically favored companies. 

"The 'Blue Dogs' won't like it. But, frankly, this is just kabuki," Montana Democrat Max Baucus, chairman of the Finance Committee, told the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in a Tuesday speech. "We all know [the AMT provision] is not going to be paid for, so why not just get to it?"  [Wall Street Journal, Jun 11]  It's election year; use the overextended credit card to hand out the gifts.

Mountain Oil Patch. The soaring crude prices weighing down the rest of the U.S. economy are helping boost office-space demand in the Boulder region, [Wall Street Journal, Jun 11]  Offsetting that optimism is a report that Colorado experienced the nation’s largest rate of growth in impoverished children from 2000 to 2006, .... Colorado ranks 44th in per capita spending, according to the Colorado Fiscal Policy Institute, a research and advocacy group that focuses on tax and budget issues. [Dan Frosch, New York Times, Jun 11]

Drain America First, Among the many mythical "solutions" to energy costs is "Republicans by and large believe that the solution to this problem, in part, is to increase domestic production," McConnell said. Anything to avoid telling the people the economic laws of energy costs that the more everyone wants, the higher the price will be for all. The American production approach does have the great Republican advantage of raising measurable profits for American energy companies as long as the supply lasts.

Now he sees the problem. Having created the problem he sounds an alarm.  President Bush issued a call for a rise in the value of the US dollar on currency markets yesterday in a signal of mounting official alarm in Washington about the effect of the slumping greenback on the world’s largest economy. [The Times, Jun 10] After revenue draining tax cuts, and a long expensive war, and sitting on his free-market hands while the home mortgage finance system debauched itself, the US reliance on external financing has brought the dollar lower and lower.

Still buying on credit: The trade deficit increased to the highest level in 13 months in April as America’s bill for foreign crude oil soared to a record high. [AP, Jun 11]

 His basic message is that only those able to turn themselves into monomaniacal workaholics estranged from loved ones and reviled by rivals – or willing to unsheathe their inner monster – can hope to hit the mega jackpot. "Somewhere in the invisible heart of all self-made wealthy men and women," he says, "is a sliver of razored ice."  [Edward Kosner reviewing Felix Dennis's How to Get Rich,, Wall Street Journal, Jun 11] 

Hologic will pay $580 M to acquire Third Wave Technologies (Madison, WI; $9M SBIR) in a deal pairing two developers of medical diagnostics technology. [Boston Globe, Jun 9, 08]

Vertex Pharmaceuticals said today that patients who previously failed on a common hepatitis C drug regimen responded when the company's telaprevir was added.  [Boston Globe, Jun 9, 08]

President Bush has ordered federal contractors to participate in the DHS electronic system for verifying the immigration status of their workers, greatly expanding the reach of the administration’s crackdown on employers who hire illegal immigrants. An executive order, signed by the president on Friday and announced on Monday, requires federal contractors to use the system, known as E-Verify, to check immigration status when they hire new workers or start work under government contracts.  ....  But Mike Aitken, director of governmental affairs for the Society for Human Resource Management, a trade association, said the E-Verify system remained vulnerable to cheating by immigrants who used real identity documents belonging to other people. Without new money and more staff members, Mr. Aitken said, the Social Security Administration could be overwhelmed by inquiries from federal contractors.   [Julia Preston, New York Times, Jun 10]

A spinoff from RTI International that aims to make circuit boards obsolete has raised $5 million....  Beeco's challenge is convincing the market to adopt a game-changing technology.  .... A reconfigurable computer, [CEO John ]Goehrke said, is one "that changes its configuration to maximize performance based on the application it is addressing." They're used in applications where "intense computing power is needed," such as gene sequencing. Beeco's computer is expected to cost $70,000 to $75,000 and is planned to hit the market in the third quarter of 2009. ... Goehrke is the former chief operating officer of Luna Innovations, a publicly traded company based in Blacksburg, Va  [David Ranii, Raleigh News & Observer, Jun 10, 08]

NaturalNano (Pittsford, NY, no SBIR) announced a partnership with Philadelphia’s Rohm and Haas Co. to explore the development of polymers with enhanced properties.   ... another major milestone in NaturalNano’s drive toward sustained revenue and validating it investments and patents in halloysite natural tubes enabled materials   [Smriti Jacob, Rochester Business Journal, Jun 9, 08]  NaturalNano has used nanotechnology to develop a type of paint that stops cellphone signals. It's done by blending particles of copper that are inserted into nanotubes, and then mixing and suspending these tiny particles into a can of paint. [Gizmodo, Mar 06]

An American military supercomputer, assembled from components originally designed for video game machines, has reached a long-sought-after computing milestone by processing more than 1.026 quadrillion calculations per second. .... more than twice as fast as the previous fastest supercomputer. ... Programmers have to figure out how to keep all of the 116,640 processor cores in the machine occupied simultaneously in order for it to run effectively.  [John Markoff, New York Times, Jun 9]

After several years of languishing in the shadows of blockbuster Internet start-up companies, deals involving health-care and medical companies are making a comeback.  Last year, venture investors poured $9.1 billion into health-related deals, the most ever and up nearly 20% from 2006, according to the National Venture Capital Association and Thomson Reuters.  [Rebecca Buckman, Wall Street Journal, Jun 9]

Nanopaper. TaeKwonDood writes "All paper is made of cellulose, which at the nanoscale level is quite strong, but paper processing makes large, fragile fibers that break easily. Researchers in Sweden have have come up with a manufacturing process that keeps the fibers small, resulting in 'nanopaper' with over 1.6 times the tensile strength of cast iron (214 megapascals vs. 130 mPa). And since cellulose is the most abundant organic compound on the planet, it's cheap to use compared to other exotic, expensive-to-produce options — such as carbon nanotubes."   [slashdot.org, Jun 9]

The Supreme Court relaxed the grip that patent owners hold over third-party uses of their inventions, continuing a recent recalibration of intellectual-property law intended to foster competition and innovation. .... Citing a doctrine called patent exhaustion, the court said LG had no right to control the "downstream" use of a patent it had licensed to a manufacturer.   [Jess Braven, Wall Street Journal, Jun 10]

A “comprehensivist .  Buckminster Fuller may have spent his life inventing things, but he claimed that he was not particularly interested in inventions. He called himself a “comprehensive, anticipatory design scientist”—a “comprehensivist,” for short—and believed that his task was to innovate in such a way as to benefit the greatest number of people using the least amount of resources [Elizabeth Kolbert, The New Yorker, Jun 9]

Obama is an impressive speaker who has run a brilliant campaign — but if he wins in November, it will be because our country has already been transformed. [Paul Krugman, New York Times, Jun 9] We should remember that elections are a confirmation, not a cause, of a trend shift. Reagan did not turn the country to the right, he rode it. As Gandhi once said, "I must follow that crowd for I am their leader."  The voters ,having had a decade's trial with Republican solutions, sound like they want to go back to Democrat solutions, even though they are kidding themselves that either party has the answer. The basic problem is the the voters don't want to hear the real solutions that will cost them big money and dash their dreams, and neither party is about to tell them the truth.

Enjoy Now, Pay Later. [Ben] Franklin made it prestigious to embrace certain bourgeois virtues. Now it’s socially acceptable to undermine those virtues. It’s considered normal to play the debt game and imagine that decisions made today will have no consequences for the future. [David Brooks, New York Times, Jun 10]

Immunetics (Boston, MA;  24 workers; $5.5M SBIR) won two federal grants totaling $1.2M to develop a test for antibiotic resistance in bacteria. [Mass High Tech, Jun 6, 08] Company press release [Jun 4] announced [FDA] approval of its test for anthrax infection.

Sangamo BioSciences down 14% [Jun 6, 08] despite news that its drug for diabetes-associated nerve damage has yielded encouraging results.

Trubion Pharmaceuticals  down 14% [Jun 6, 08]

American Superconductor  licensed one of its proprietary wind turbine designs to TECO Electric & Machinery Co. Ltd. of Taiwan. [Boston Globe, Jun 6, 08]

Ben Franklin Technology Partners of Southeastern Pennsylvania invested $2.3 M in 10 companies in its latest round of funding. DermAvance Pharmaceuticals (Berwyn, PA; no SBIR). received the largest investment -- $500,000. ...acquires and commercializes anti-aging products. [Philadelphia Business Journal, Jun 6, 08]

MTI MicroFuel Cells, developer of Mobion portable power technology, announced today it will open an office in China. Parent  Mechanical Technology said it has regained compliance with the Nasdaq's listing requirements (after an one for eight reverse split).[The Business Review (Albany), Jun 5, 08]

GenVec (Gaithersburg, MD; $4M SBIR) down 13% agreed to sell $17 million worth of stock and warrants to new and current investors to raise money for operating costs and upcoming clinical trials. [ Baltimore Business Journal, Jun 6, 08]

Cephalon (Fraser, PA, $0.5M SBIR) and its wholly owned subsidiary Cima Labs Inc. filed a patent infringement lawsuit Tuesday against Watson Laboratories , which wants to make a generic version of Cephalon's Fentora drug for cancer pain.  [Philadelphia Business Journal, Jun 3, 08]

Novartis AG purchased Protez Pharmaceuticals (Malvern, PA; no SBIR) a.developer of antibiotics, this week for $400 M cash. [Pittsburgh Business Times, Jun 6]

Medical device company BioMedical Enterprises (San Antonio, TX, $0.5M SBIR). said that the company has launched a new implant on the market that is designed to approximate soft tissue that is anchored to bone. [San Antonio Business Journal, Jun 2]

Engineers at Hewlett-Packard's Corvallis campus have teamed up with colleagues at nearby Oregon State University to develop a new technology they hope will make solar panels twice as efficient as traditional models at half the cost.  HP plans to announce today that it has licensed the technology to a Bay Area startup called Xtreme Energetics, which aims to put the technology in large-scale, commercial solar panels within a year [Mike Rogoway, The Oregonian, Jun 4]

A Wisconsin company that has opened two new subsidiaries in China is hoping to play a big role in LED development. James Sun, company founder, worked on developing the technology for high-power LEDs while working at Lumileds, a Silicon Valley spinoff of HP ... Sun's company, Dew & Ken Group (Madison, WI), employs 20 people worldwide and has installed more than 260 LED streetlights in China, with orders for another 2,800.   [Thomas Content, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Jun 7, 08]

Hates Water, Loves Oil. A thin membranes made from a web of nanowires might become a promising tool for cleaning up oil spills and removing toxic contaminants from groundwater. When dipped into a mixture of water and oil, the 50-micrometer-thick membrane absorbs the oil, swelling to 20 times its weight.  [Pachi Patel-Predd, MIT Tech Review, Jun 2]

Researchers and innovators from disparate fields are coming together to work out a new approach to biofuels. This "innovation ecosystem" is replacing the traditional energy research organizations and companies, which have been unable to make sufficient progress. ... The companies working to deliver the necessary breakthroughs range from small, privately funded startups to behemoths such as BP.  [Vinod Khosla, MIT Tech Review, Mar/Apr 08]

Twenty Superconducting Years Later, many formulation ideas while groping for understanding.  A new class of high-temperature superconductors, discovered earlier this year, behaves very differently than previously known copper-oxygen superconductors do. Instead, the new materials seem to follow a superconductivity mechanism found previously only in materials that are superconducting at very low temperatures, Chia-Ling Chien and his colleagues at Johns Hopkins University report in an online Nature paper.  [Pachi Patel-Predd, MIT Tech Review, Jun 6]

Few investors are as bullish as Matthew Simmons, president of Houston investment bank Simmons & Co. International, who predicts oil will hit $200 to $500 a barrel over the next six months to five years.  [Business Week, Jun 5]

Price Matters. As Wal-Mart stock reaches new highs, the company told shareholders  that their renewed focus on price and better merchandise is winning over customers whom they expect to keep when the sluggish economy improves.  [Houston Chronicle, Jun 7]

By 2010, China will have more Ph.D. scientists and engineers than the United States. These professionals are not fundamentally a threat. To the contrary, they are creators, whose ideas are likely to improve the lives of ordinary Americans, not just the business elites. The more access the Chinese have to American and other markets, the more they can afford higher education and the greater their incentive to innovate....  If we look at trends of the last 20 years, we have every reason to believe that the modern era of free trade is just getting started.  [Tyler Cowen, New York Times, Jun 8]

Adjusting to Tech Revolution, nearly all conflicts since the end of the Cold War can be described in terms of swarming "hiders and finders." Combatants stay hidden, pop up to strike, and then disappear until they attack again.  .... technologies are wonders, but generally they have not been accompanied by shifts in military doctrine and organization. The result: a tidal wave of data is being created that can swamp systems still organized around large units (such as army divisions, naval strike groups, or air force wings) whose goal is to apply "overwhelming force" at some mythical "decisive point." [John Arquilla, MIT Tech Review, Mar/Apr 08] Since we have only a small Army and short memories, we have to choose only one fighting doctrine at a time, usually fighting the last war better.

A decade after opening the Center for Emerging Technologies biotech business incubator, Marcia Mellitz has learned not to take anything for granted. Markets pop and fade. Political and financial support comes and goes. Good ideas can fail.  But she and the CET — along with the local life-science industry they stand for — have weathered it all. [Rachel Melzer, St Louis Post-Dispatch, Jun 7]

Money from Where?  In Indiana, Gov. Daniels declared 41 counties disaster areas — the first step to gain federal aid — following severe storms and tornadoes. [AP, Jun 6] Bush demands a pile of military money for Iraq, hints of new stimuli plans and chants his permanent tax cut mantra; oil rockets near $140; severe storms rack the heartland all spring (but, of course, climate change is not worth any sacrifice); home equity drops below the mortgage; SBIR advocates want another percent or so. Every politician has a good cause for money from the federal government, but none can answer: money from where?  

Denial Before Consequences. The cap-and-trade scheme that America's Senate began debating this week would also allow firms to fulfil some of their obligations through green investments in other countries.  But the bill in Congress would allow only a small number of offsets, and only from factories that do not compete with American firms—a big hurdle in a globalised world. Worse, to make the bill more palatable to China-bashing politicians, its authors have strengthened provisions that would impose tariffs on energy-intensive imports from countries that are not taking “comparable action” against climate change, meaning all developing countries. That is a recipe for a trade war, which would only compound the economic pain of global warming. Just when a deal is possible, the stage is being set for a tragedy of Wagnerian dimensions.   Meanwhile, a new opera will open at La Scala in Milan, based on [Al Gore's]“An Inconvenient Truth”.  Opera's ending still unwritten. [The Economist, Jun 5]

the pressure on politicians to do something. Not for them Ronald Reagan’s famous plea to his officials: “Don’t just do something, stand there.” Some sensible new policies are badly needed but that is not on the cards, since the inclination of politicians is to do the opposite of what needs doing.  .... At some point, perhaps a decade hence, alternatives to oil will make their appearance on a scale that might matter - unless the oil-producing nations respond to the threat to their dominance of energy markets by lowering prices. [Irwin Stelzer, The Sunday Times, Jun 8]

Altus Pharmaceuticals up 11% after reporting top-line results from a Phase 1 clinical trial of ALTU-237 in healthy adult volunteers. [Jun 5, 08]

Acorda Therapeutics (Hawthorne, NY; $1.8M SBIR) rose 31% [Jun 2, 08]  ... company said a second late-stage trial showed that its multiple-sclerosis drug improved mobility in some patients with the debilitating disease. Acorda plans to file for licensing to market the drug, being developed with Elan, in the first quarter  [WSJ]

Acumentrics (Westwood, MA; one SBIR) got a 3 1/2-year, $15.6 M grant to continue the development of the company's tubular solid oxide fuel cell technology, courtesy of the DOE's Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy [Mass High Tech, Jun 5, 08]

Alnylam Pharmaceuticals says it has made a $5 million equity investment in Tekmira Pharmaceuticals Corp. as part of an expanded licensing deal [Mass High Tech, Jun 2, 08]

Immersion up 15%  [Jun 5, 08]

Metabolix  up 15%  [Jun 5, 08]

Vertex Pharma  up 13%  [Jun 5, 08]

Sequenom up another 20% [Jun 5, 08] after the company reported its noninvasive prenatal test to screen maternal blood for Down syndrome was effective in all samples, exceeding analysts' expectations. [San Diego Union-Tribune]

A Tiny Sensor Simply Made. Researchers at NASA Ames Research Center have developed a nanotechnology-based biosensor that can detect trace amounts of as many as 25 different microorganisms simultaneously and within minutes. The researchers make the biosensors by growing carbon nanofibers--a material with the same properties as carbon nanotubes but with a slightly larger diameter--using a process similar to the one employed to fabricate computer chips. [Brittany Sauser, MIT Tech Review, Jun 5]

Five Wisconsin companies each got one of 10 Upper Midwest region winners of the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year award: Merrill Iron & Steel (Schofield, WI)  Ariens (Brillion), Brady (Milwaukee), Harken (Pewaukee), Menasha (Neenah). one had SBIR. The other five were from Minnesota. [Kathleen Gallagher, Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, Jun 6]

Watt struggled long and hard to perfect his ideas, lamenting at one point that, "of all things in life, there is nothing more foolish than inventing."  .... Even by 1800, the major technologies of the world, with their crude physics and limited force, had not changed fundamentally since Roman times.  .... Mr. Klein hesitates to draw one, but more than a few seem obvious: Progress is a messy process by which true geniuses are not always rewarded; inventors never feel that they have enough money, but having a lot does not guarantee success; the market ruthlessly sorts out winners and losers; understanding science helps, but understanding the whims of consumers helps more. Above all, if you are seized with a great idea, be prepared for the possibility that you will want to slit your own throat one day, or throw your life's work into the fire  [William Tucker reviewing Maury Klein's The Power Makers, Wall Street Journal, Jun 4]

[Florida] will increase the state retirement fund's investment in high-tech industries. Under new legislation, the Florida State Retirement System will dedicate up to 1.5% of the system's trust fund to technology and growth investments. The Miami Herald estimates that this could provide nearly $2 billion for high-tech industries in the state.  [SSTI, Jun 4]

The Senate's Budget Resolution supports $101 million in additional funding for small business programs that will benefit America’s entrepreneurs., says the Senate SB Committee. Where will the extra money come from? Don't ask about political economics.

Great Work, Send Money. A decade after opening the Center for Emerging Technologies biotech business incubator, Marcia Mellitz has learned not to take anything for granted. ...  "This stuff isn't easy." ...  CET is fundraising for a $29.5 million, 60,000-square-foot expansion.  The extra space is needed because CET has filled its wet labs, specialized and expensive facilities needed for scientific research. Local universities recently stepped up their efforts to commercialize research by creating new companies — but soon there will be nowhere to put them, Mellitz said. CET in March received $5 million in state tax credits to sell in exchange for $10 million in contributions. But an earlier $5 million funding pledge by Gov. Matt Blunt's administration failed to pass in the Legislature.  [Rachel Melzer, St Louis Post-Dispatch, Jun 6]

Despite the Pilot Mafia. Early last year, the Air Force was able to keep no more than 11 of the remotely piloted, armed Predator surveillance aircraft flying over Iraq and Afghanistan at any one time