Philippe Matthews Show Guru Advice, Author Reviews, Tech Reviews, Entertainment News

Thank-you notes are so rare in this digital age that a good one makes a huge impression. Here's how to write one.

New evidence this week supports a theory developed five years ago at Rice University to explain the electrical properties of several classes of materials -- including unconventional superconductors -- that have long vexed physicists.

The author of a new book argues that young entrepreneurs often misconceive risk, leading them to fret and dally when they should be boldly dabbling. "The future of business is pure chaos," declared Fast Company this week , elaborating with a quote from DJ Patil who, among other pursuits, researches weather patterns at the University of Maryland. "There are some times, when you can predict weather well for the next 15 days," says Patil.

How do you fight Hollywood?

Scientists at Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, Oxford University and the University of Michigan have joined efforts to develop new materials for thermonuclear fusion reactors.

Ford is hoping to jump-start a new race in automative mobile tech by way of an outpost in the heart of the nation's tech innovation district--a research lab in Silicon Valley that will help it make better cars and better friends. Gentlemen and gentlewomen: Start your algorithms

Entrepreneurship can fix many of our economic woes, explains the author of The Coming Prosperity. Here's his thought-provoking metaphor for our current economy. How should you think about the relationship between established, large businesses and scrappy upstarts like the one you’re trying to build?

By Eugenie Samuel Reich of Nature magazine An Irish mathematician has used a complex algorithm and millions of hours of supercomputing time to solve an important open problem in the mathematics of Sudoku , the game popularized in Japan that involves filling in a 9x9 grid of squares with the numbers 1-9 according to certain rules. Gary McGuire of University College Dublin shows in a proof posted online on January 1 that the minimum number of clues--or starting digits--needed to complete a puzzle is 17; puzzles with 16 or fewer clues do not have a unique solution. [More]

These hackers could wreak havoc on your business.

These hackers could wreak havoc on your business. We infiltrated their ranks and studied their tactics

Using powerful magnets to levitate fruit flies can provide vital clues to how biological organisms are affected by weightless conditions in space, researchers at The University of Nottingham say.

Some sales stars are master manipulators who can rack up big numbers--but at the cost of long-term growth. I recently read a blog post giving the following characteristics of “quota-crushing sales pros”: “They have no time for anything that is not their deal.” “Charming one minute, in-your-face the next, pros will use all emotional tools to win.” “They save the charm for the prospects and clients and the venom for your company.” “They’re never satisfied … ever.” This list was presented as if these were desirable characteristics, justified by the fact that such individuals could consistently “crush” their quotas, presumably making them more productive than their peers. Unfortunately, the presence of this kind of person on your sales team is generally a huge mistake

The results are in--and they arent pretty.

The results are in--and they arent pretty. Here are eight cautionary tales from some of the worlds biggest brands. Recently I gave a group of my MBA students at New York University’s Stern Graduate School of Business in New York this assignment: Identify the most questionable new products of the year and analyze what made them so ill conceived.

(PhysOrg.com) -- Researchers from the NIST Center for Nanoscale Science and Technology and the University of British Columbia have shown that the interaction between a light pulse and a light-absorbing object, including the momentum transfer and resulting movement of the object, can be calculated for any positive index of refraction using a few, well-established physical principles combined with a new model for mass transfer from light to matter.