CREATING new jobs is a good way to get America's economy moving again. That's not the controversial part of President-elect Barack Obama's economic stimulus plans. As usual, the devil is in the details. And innovation advocates fear that if the devil runs amok, a short-sighted emphasis on jobs over long-term productivity may bog down the economic recovery.

BY its very nature, innovation is inefficient. While blockbusters do emerge, few of the new products or processes that evolve from innovative thinking ultimately survive the test of time. During periods of economic growth, such inefficiencies are chalked up as part of the price of forging into the future.

Dr. Carson also shared with the audience a newly released report, Tying the Knot: The Founding of Silicon Valley Community Foundation. This detailed case study, captured by award-winning journalist Janet Rae-Dupree outlines the candid details of a complicated merger between two, very different, community foundations (the Community Foundation of Silicon Valley serving Santa Clara County and the Peninsula Community Foundation serving San Mateo County). The union of these complementary, yet fundamentally different, foundations is told in this compelling case study that shares moments of inspiration as well as deeply rooted philosophical challenges in the creation of the largest community foundation in existence.

It's not exactly what you'd expect to find behind the scenes at a retailer so frugal that it sells everything for the same rock-bottom price of 99 cents. Expensive computer gear and cutting-edge automation would seem anathema to a company totally driven by the bottom line. Yet the combination of up-to-date technology and a keen eye on expenses has been part of the secret to success for 99 Cents Only Stores. And the company has been mighty successful.

IT managers may be called on to do any number of things over the course of a week, but there is one thing that they know they absolutely must do without fail: Measure, measure, and then measure one more time. Let just one number slide too far out of alignment with the others, and the dominoes start to fall. Keep everything in balance and systems hum along without interruption.

Tackling tobacco use, weight loss, nutrition and stress management on the job is good for everyone's bottom line. Struggling to work full time, care for her critically ill husband and contend with her own health issues, Valencia Reeves-McMillan doubted she could add one more thing to her already overloaded life.

Menlo Park, Calif. - Scientists have reached a crucial milestone that could lead to a new class of materials with useful electronic properties. In research reported in the Sept. 5 issue of Nature Physics , the team sandwiched two nonmagnetic insulators together and discovered a startling result: The layer where the two materials meet has both magnetic and superconducting regions - two properties that normally can't co-exist.

Although materials scientists have theorized for years that a form of super-dense aluminum exists under the extreme pressures found inside a planet's core, no one had ever actually seen it. Until now.

Using leftover high-speed electrons from SLAC’s Linac Coherent Light Source, researchers have successfully generated intense pulses of light in a largely untapped part of the electromagnetic spectrum – the so-called terahertz gap. Terahertz pulses – T-rays, for short – get their name from their frequency, which is 1 to 10 trillion cycles per second.

The Nokia Lumia 928 smartphone is a strange and, in many ways, wonderful beast. Leave it lying face down and for a moment you might mistake it for a point-and-shoot digital camera, proudly displaying its Carl Zeiss lens element. Flip it face up, and your first thought might be that Google compressed a Nexus tablet down to pocket size.

Shifting educational standards are no easy problem to solve. Learn how the Silicon Valley Common Core Initiative is helping the region’s schools prepare.

IT'S a pickle of a paradox: As our knowledge and expertise increase, our creativity and ability to innovate tend to taper off. Why? Because the walls of the proverbial box in which we think are thickening along with our experience. Andrew S.

A new algorithm enables a moment-by-moment analysis of brain activity each time a laboratory monkey reaches this way or that during an experiment. It's like reading the monkey's mind. Researchers studying how the brain makes decisions have, for the first time, recorded the moment-by-moment fluctuations in brain signals that occur when a monkey making free choices has a change of mind.

With blockbuster drugs coming off patent, rising research and development costs and profit margins growing ever slimmer, biotechnology and pharmaceu- tical companies are feeling the pressure to find every business advantage they can. One of the symptoms of that pressure has been a kaleidoscope of innovative business decisions.

Written by Janet Rae-Dupree on behalf of the listed author: A unique program draws on the lessons of history to promote tolerance and empathy. Empathy is a fragile thing. Every day, particularly during and after this year’s presidential election, new incidents of bigotry, discrimination and bullying seem poised to overwhelm our efforts on behalf of social justice.

Smart Start: Early childhood learning paves the path to academic success. SVCF programs inspire a love of learning — and give parents the tools to support children. Misplaced: Why are students who succeed in middle school algebra forced to repeat it in high school? The answer is important — especially to the students being derailed from the college track.