On my Mac, I wrote this code in my Terminal:
xxx-MacBook-Pro:~ xxx$ cd
/Users/xxx/Documents/0_Software/adt20140702/sdk/platform-tools/
xxx-MacBook-Pro:platform-tools xxx$ ./adb kill-server
xxx-MacBook-Pro:platform-tools xxx$ ./adb start-server
- daemon not running. starting it now on port 5037 *
- daemon started successfully *
xxx-MacBook-Pro:platform-tools tuananh$
Hope this help.