Most Recent Posts

NPR's Tell Me More is again using social media to reach out to a new community of leaders – this time, to recognize African-American innovators in technology who represent just 5% of America's scientists and engineers, according to a 2010 study by the National Science Foundation.

After receiving an overwhelming early response with #NPRBlacksinTech, Tell Me More is building on its engagement with these leaders by asking African-American entrepreneurs and techies to profile themselves for our upcoming "A Day in the Life" social media series.

Many of the questions they will answer are from young scholars at the Howard University Middle School of Mathematics and Science.

Crowdfunding is popular among musicians, filmmakers and artists looking for a way to finance their next project.

Now the Securities and Exchange Commission is considering rules that, for the first time, would allow small companies to solicit investments over the Internet and sell shares to the general public.

For some small firms, these new rules come as welcome news.

Shane Emmett, CEO of Health Warrior, which makes a line of nutrition bars made of chia seeds, says his company is looking to raise money and would consider doing so under the SEC rules.

Currently, private companies are only allowed to solicit funding from accredited investors — essentially wealthy people with a net worth of $1 million, excluding their homes. But the new rules would allow companies to raise as much as $1 million a year from lower net-worth people by selling shares. Regulations are needed because last year's Jumpstart Our Business Startups (JOBS) Act allows small investors to obtain equity stakes in startups and other small businesses.

"It's a really interesting opportunity, I think, not only for companies that are getting bigger, like Health Warrior, but for companies that are smaller and aren't fortunate enough to have ready access to capital from high net-worth individuals," Emmett says.

He says it's the smallest companies, like his, that take big risks and potentially return big rewards. But most startups fail. Emmett says he considers his business high risk.

And there's the rub: How do you disclose that risk to the general public?

All Tech Considered

When A Kickstarter Campaign Fails, Does Anyone Get The Money Back?

Steven Strogatz knows that for some people, the subject of math brings back dreaded grade school memories of challenging word problems and formulas. As Professor of Applied Mathematics at Cornell University, Strogatz strives to apply mathematics to the curiosities of everyday life. He's explained head-scratching phenomena as a frequent guest on WNYC's Radiolab, like why a Slinky seems to defy the laws of gravity. And in his "The Elements of Math" series for The New York Times' Opinionator blog, he applied group theory to explain the optimal system to flip a mattress. The series sparked the creation of his latest book, The Joy of X: A Guided Tour of Math, From One to Infinity.

More From This Episode

Ask Me Another

Solving For X: Live From The 2013 World Science Festival

"You know when you put something in the bin, and in your head, say to yourself 'that's a bad idea'? I really did have that," James Howells says. And boy, was his intuition right: Howells tossed a hard drive that held millions of dollars' worth of Bitcoins, the currency whose value has skyrocketed this year.

Howells' story is emerging on the same day Bitcoin rose above the $1,000 mark for the first time on the Mt. Gox exchange, as CNET reported. At that exchange rate, Howells' stash of 7,500 Bitcions would have been worth $7.5 million today. (Because there's no central exchange for Bitcoins, prices can vary.)

The Bitcoins were in a digital wallet in a hard drive that was sitting in a desk drawer in Newport, Wales. It contained the unique access key that would allow Howells to control the money. Howells, who reportedly works in IT, did not make a backup file.

As Howells tells The Guardian, it was months before he realized he had tossed the Bitcoins along with the drive, the survivor of a Dell laptop he had used to "mine" the currency in 2009.

"I don't have an exact date, the only time period I can give – and I've been racking my own brains – is between 20 June and 10 August," he tells the newspaper. "Probably mid-July."

His attempts to find the missing hard drive have been stymied by the epic size of the local landfill. Its operators told Howells that his hard drive was probably about four or five feet deep, in an area the size of a soccer field. And with no guarantee of finding the Bitcoins, he can't take on the expense of an excavation.

"I'm at the point where it's either laugh about it or cry about it," Howells says. "Why aren't I out there with a shovel now? I think I'm just resigned to never being able to find it."

At least Howells has company. As we reported this past spring, a man named Stefan Thomas told Der Spiegel that he lost 7,000 Bitcoins because of a hard-drive failure. Back then, the currency made headlines for hitting the $200 mark.