The 'snakebot', which is a type of mechanized, biologically inspired robot, itself has roots in Japanese laboratories of the 1970s. What the team at Pittsburgh-based Carnegie Mellon is doing today under professor Howie Choset is making the 'snakebots' stronger, smaller, and more maneuverable than ever.
Strong credit markets give companies borrowing options to boost their stock prices while making bearish investors scramble to close out trades before losing any more money, both of which then push the stock market even higher and continue the self-reinforcing bullish cycle.
There is surprisingly low penetration still of synthetic rubber gloves in the medical field. People are allergic to natural rubber, but the industry has been slow to switch to synthetic gloves.
Entire populations of market strategists, fund managers, and economists are employed to try and intuit for clients which securities to bet on for the best possible return each year - or quarter.
If Warren Buffett could change his mind about investing in airlines, Mohnish Pabrai could change his mind about investing in autos. Pabrai, who has modeled his investment career and fee structure after Buffett's original partnership, counts General Motors, Fiat Chrysler, and Ferrari in his highly concentrated portfolio.
The blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average has closed higher in 17 of the 21 sessions since Donald Trump was elected president, with about a dozen record closes so far as it continues marching higher.
A cheaper British currency could be a crisis if its swift move provoked a broader financial crisis, which it has not, or if it triggered massive inflation. For now, cheaper sterling will hurt some British households and enterprises while being a boon for others.
CEOs are also chief capital allocators. This is a point Warren Buffett has repeatedly made: that the role management plays in allocating capital across businesses and boosting returns on that capital is a critical yet poorly recognized one.
I had been one of the earliest social media adopters, driven by a mix of curiosity and enthusiasm for the way in which it levels borders and connects people who couldn't really have connected otherwise.
China has been on a historic commodities binge as it doubled the size of its economy in recent years to become one of the world's largest. Even so, those fundamentals begat - as they have so often throughout human history - a feeding frenzy.
I felt lost in endless spools of social media. All the while, emails by the thousands were piling up, phone calls were getting lost in the mix, and messages from the most important people in my life were getting drowned out in the din. I was more responsive to comments on Instagram than to my own closest friends and family.
Fans of the hit HGTV show 'Fixer Upper' are well aware that its stars, Chip and Joanna Gaines, live on a farm in Waco, Texas. Nearly every episode features some kind of montage of their four kids romping outside with various kinds of farm animals, from pigs to horses to goats.
The billionaire founder of investment firm Elliott Management was one of several investors who warned financial ministers in 2007 that a crack in the housing market could cause huge problems for the banking industry.