Mariam Aburdeineh

What does it take to transform a cool idea into a business? Students at George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School are finding out, by helping real-life entrepreneurs in the school’s new Innovation Law Clinic.

American ginseng has been nicknamed “green gold” for good reason. The root that grows wild across the Appalachian Mountains can fetch more than $500 per pound and has been used medicinally for generations to support everything from brain function to the immune system.

Saving an endangered species is possible, but it takes a village. Conservationists, including three George Mason University alumni working at the Smithsonian and a current student, are part of the team at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute (SCBI) and the Smithsonian-Mason School of Conservation (SMSC) working to ensure red pandas move off the endangered list.