Jerry Manock’s Burlington office is crammed with industrial-design jobs that never saw the light of day: a hockey skate with an adjustable blade; a “Cubic” furniture building block that IKEA almost bought; and a model for the “rumbler,” a bathroom-scale-like device designed to vibrate at a frequency to maintain elder bone density.

Any number of factors — timing, money, patent problems — can kill a great invention. ... Read more

Is Sen. Patrick Leahy losing his sense of political timing? For most of his 37 years in the U.S. Senate, Leahy, 71, has been a defender of civil liberties, earning praise from First Amendment advocates and right-to-privacy groups.

But lately, Leahy has ignited outrage across the nation — and among Vermonters — for supporting two bills that critics say give the government too much power.... Read more

Janie Cohen walks through the stacks on the top floor of the University of Vermont’s Fleming Museum of Art, running a finger along the shelves and pointing out favorites. Ancient Native American pottery shares a shelf with pre-Columbian artifacts, which perch next to small-scale European sculpture. Cohen, the museum’s executive director, stops to point out a tattered-looking collection of maps created by Napoleon and his troops, then continues down to the end where the paintings hang.... Read more

The Green Mountain State has long been fertile ground, not just for crops but for ideas. On July 31, 1790, the United States Patent Office issued its first-ever patent to a Vermonter, Samuel Hopkins, who invented a process for making potash.... Read more

On a recent rainy Thursday night, a couple hundred people gather after hours at the ECHO Lake Aquarium and Science Center to listen to a University of Vermont assistant professor of math and statistics talk about happiness — or, more specifically, using Twitter and other online communications as a barometer of happiness. ... Read more

10/23/11: Pirogi-making pilot David "Vid" Miller takes Eva on an evening flight in a 1978 Cessna 172N that flies out of the Burlington International Airport and over the Champlain Valley. As a special treat, they fly through a hole in the clouds and catch a brilliant sunset.... Read more

Two weeks before Halloween, IBM fellow John Cohn is out in the woods, perched on a generator with his laptop, banging out last-minute code. He’s attempting to program his animatronic pumpkin-headed monster, Project-x, to fold up its arms after a period of inactivity, so the limbs aren’t crushed when the beast is lowered pneumatically from its 18-foot height into a crouching position on the ground.... Read more

For a while now, I’ve dreamed of creating a wine app for smartphones. It would be full of intuitive search parameters, entertaining tasting notes and thousands of matching recipes. But once I began to comb through the hundreds of food and drink apps that already exist, I abandoned the idea. There’s an app for just about everything, from counting carbs to finding a restaurant in Riyadh to mastering Peruvian cuisine. Dozens of dining apps promise to locate the nearest eatery, gluten-free lunch or food truck. And the wine-pairing app? Done, and done again. ... Read more

Recruiters for Vermont tech companies wish they could find more job candidates like Anthony Urena. The computer information technology major at Champlain College says he hopes to find suitable work in either Vermont or his native New Hampshire.

“I’m tempered by the cold weather and love the ecological friendliness of the residents,” Urena says of the Burlington area. Plus, he’s more focused on his prospects for career advancement than on getting the biggest possible paycheck as soon as he can.... Read more

Many a lucrative industry is born from antiestablishment roots. Hip-hop music tapped the gritty lifestyle of inner-city gangs and turned it into solid gold. Surfers and skateboarders turned once-maligned and often-illegal recreational pastimes into family-friendly, multibillion-dollar industries.... Read more