A new study from researchers at Duke University and Harvard University challenges the popular assumption that most technology entrepreneurs are twee college kids launching businesses from their dorm rooms. The research, sponsored by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, studied U.S. engineering and technology companies founded between 1995 and 2005. It found that the median and average age at which U.S.-born entrepreneurs founded their technology and engineering companies was 39. There were twice as many entrepreneurs older than fifty than those who were younger than twenty-five, and 1 percent of U.S.-born founders of tech companies were teenagers. The study also analyzed these entrepreneurs' educational backgrounds. The top ten schools awarding these entrepreneurs' most advanced degrees were Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Pennsylvania State University, Stanford University, the University of California at Berkeley, the University of Missouri, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Southern California, the University of Texas, and the University of Virginia. Graduates from Ivy League schools represented 8 percent of the founders whose companies had, on average, higher average sales and employment than their counterparts. --Catherine Rampell

The Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition this week announced the Second Annual Sparky Awards, a competition for students to create videos about "to promote the open exchange of information." This year's theme is "MindMashup: the Value of Information Sharing." Students are asked to create videos no longer than two minutes that "imaginatively portray the benefits of the open, legal exchange of information," according to a news release. The winning entry will receive $1,000. Last year's winners can be found here. Sparc is an international alliance of academic and research libraries that promotes open access to scholarship. It is co-sponsoring the Sparky Awards with the Association of College and Research Libraries, the Association of Research Libraries, Penn Libraries (at the University of Pennsylvania), Students for Free Culture, and the Student PIRGs. --Catherine Rampell

Feeling guilty about handing out so many syllabus updates in class, but still addicted to paper? Xerox recently announced a reusable, self-erasing paper that can help relieve your conscience. Text printed on this paper automatically deletes itself in 16 to 24 hours, according to a Xerox news release. The paper can then be reused.--Catherine Rampell

The University of Florida will begin combing through the e-mail messages of students and faculty members in search of someone who leaked to the press information about a controversial admissions decision, The Gainesville Sun reports today. The newspaper reported in April that the son of a Republican fund raiser was admitted to the university's College of Medicine even though the committee charged with making admissions decisions had rejected him. The dean of the medical college, Bruce C. Kone, overrode the committee's decision, the newspaper reported. It identified the admittee as Benjamin Mendelsohn. His father is a Hollywood, Fla., ophthalmologist who gave, and encouraged others to give, money to the 2006 campaign of Gov. Charlie Crist. E-mail messages from faculty members at state-run universities are considered public records in Florida. Student e-mail messages, on the other hand, are considered protected personal information under the federal Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act. But a spokeswoman for the university, Janine Sikes, is quoted saying the university is justified in searching through students' e-mail messages in this case. Only university e-mail accounts will be scanned, she said, not those that students establish via commercial providers. --Andrea L. Foster

In a feat of electronic "barn-raising," 200 people will install a new supercomputer Purdue University in a single day. The machine will be the size of a semi trailer when it is installed, on May 5, and it will be able to perform more than 60 trillion operations in one second. It would rank in the top 40 of the current Top 500 list of most powerful supercomputers in the world. To stoke campus involvement in the installation of the new machine (named "Steele" after a former faculty member), organizers created a movie trailer called “Installation Day,” a parody of “Independence Day.” Here it is: --Catherine Rampell

Researchers at the University of California at Berkeley have developed a way to transmit medical images such as X-rays and ultrasounds via cellphones. The technology involves reducing large, complicated medical images to six kilobytes ("A one sentence, text-only e-mail message is bigger than that," one of the researchers commented in a university news release.) A cellphone transmits raw data to an offsite location. There the data is processed into an image and sent back to the cellphone's screen. This technique is intended to bring sophisticated medical-imaging technology to developing countries, where expensive medical-imaging equipment is often out of reach. The research was published in the April 30 issue of Public Library of Science's PLoS ONE, a peer-reviewed, open-access journal. --Catherine Rampell