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Newsletters June 5, 2019

No. 411: In which Voder speaks, the Apple II arrives, iTunes departs – and the Avengers assemble!

  Half full: Welcome to Wednesday, dear readers, as we reach the midpoint of another exciting week of socioeconomic innovation. Before we dive in, a warm welcome to new newsletter subscribers Michael, Kathleen, Josh, Frank, Tim, Wayne, Elizabeth, Warren, Eddie, Cliff, Noel, Micaela, Paige and Gary. Let us be the first to wish you a healthy and safe World Day Against Speciesism. Ecologically logical: That must mean it’s June 5 out there, and most of…

Clean Energy May 29, 2019

Ambitious agenda, new partnership gas up the IGIT

By GREGORY ZELLER // A new cross-continental collaboration is just one of the innovative energy efforts revving things up inside the Institute for Gas Innovation and Technology. Stony Brook University’s 15-month-old IGIT is firing on all cylinders on its mission to address current and future power needs through increasingly low-carbon means – including a new memorandum of understanding inked this month with the San Diego-based Center for Sustainable Energy, seen as a major play toward…

News May 28, 2019

See you in September (not): Stanley stuns SBU, SUNY

By GREGORY ZELLER // From the Didn’t See That Coming file comes the sudden departure of Stony Brook University President Samuel Stanley Jr., who has resigned his position and will step down July 31. Stanley, who become SBU’s fifth president in July 2009, will become the 21st president of Michigan State University, according to several news reports. His decision – which follows a decade-long tenure ripe with physical expansion and award-winning faculty research – has…

Artificial Intelligence May 15, 2019

At new SBU hub, artificial intelligence is the real deal

By GREGORY ZELLER // A cornerstone of Long Island’s innovation economy has partnered with a New York City-based technology icon to launch a new hub for regional AI research. Stony Brook University this week officially flipped the switch on its new Institute for AI-Driven Discovery and Innovation, a research-and-development hub laser-focused on what the university calls “the AI-driven economy of the future.” At a May 9 launch event hosted in New York City by global…

Newsletters May 15, 2019

No. 405: On Farmingdale State’s new feeder, Stony Brook’s super switch and Adelphi’s major minor upgrade

  Cold open: Beware the Ides of March, dear reader – oh, wait, it’s the Ides of May. It only feels like March. But it’s actually May 15 out there, midpoint of the month, two-thirds of the way through spring and halfway home in this latest (chilly) week of socioeconomic innovation. For the record, as of Tuesday afternoon, the Weather Channel was forecasting that high temperatures on Long Island wouldn’t exceed 70 degrees until the…

Energy May 13, 2019

‘Switch’ set, superconductivity startup soars

By GREGORY ZELLER // Resistance, it turns out, is not futile – but in this power struggle, a Stony Brook startup may have the technological advantage. In the world of electricity transmission, resistance – opposition to an electric current’s flow, the opposite of electrical conductance – is the whole bowl of wax. Tip the scales from conductance to resistance, and it’s going to be a dark night on Main Street. The challenge is especially steep…

Education April 16, 2019

Stony Brook grad students soar in NSF nominations

By GREGORY ZELLER // Stony Brook University dominated the field Tuesday as 18 SUNY graduate students were named candidates for prestigious National Science Foundation fellowships. All told, five State University of New York campuses were represented in this year’s NSF Graduate Research Fellowship nominees. The University at Albany, Binghamton University and the University at Buffalo each posted two nominees, and the SUNY Polytechnic Institute in upstate Oneida County added one. But SBU ruled the SUNY…

Opinion March 12, 2019

Co-creator: U.S. must get back on the Maglev track

By JAMES POWELL // Our 20th century highways are failing us in the 21st century. The American Society of Civil Engineers grades U.S. highways as D-minus, with a cost of $2 trillion just to repair our crumbling bridges and roads, not including money to meet the ever-increasing truck and car traffic, which causes more congestion and delays. Our obsolete highway system doesn’t meet modern transport needs, and is killing us. Forty-thousand persons die annually in…

Newsletters December 14, 2018

No: 365: Electrons, hackathons, gadget gifts and yes, America, there is a climate change

  Golden mettle: Congratulations, dear reader – you’ve reached the 50th Friday of 2018 (go ahead and count, if you don’t believe us) and the end of another busy week of socioeconomic innovation. You are to be commended. It’s Dec. 14 out there, and we have plenty of interesting days to choose from – it’s international Monkey Day and, here in the USA, National Salesperson Day. Because it just sounds so badass: But we’re going…

Technology December 3, 2018

Microscopic imaging for any science? You better ThINC

By GREGORY ZELLER // Stony Brook University is living large at one of the smallest ideas it ever had. If you’re a multinational fragrance company based on Long Island, or a marine scientist studying trace elements in North Shore shellfish populations, or a civil engineer trying to mitigate South Shore coastal erosion in an era of climate change-charged superstorms, you’re likely familiar with SBU’s Thermonuclear & Imaging Nanoscale Characterization Laboratory. Others probably don’t give ThINC…

Awards and Events November 28, 2018

Ten LI scientists earn prestigious AAAS fellowships

By GREGORY ZELLER // Ten Long Island scientists have received a prestigious peer-selected distinction, selected as 2018 fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. The high honor, a members-only selection by other AAAS members, recognizes “scientifically or socially distinguished efforts to advance science or its applications,” according to Stony Brook University, which led the Long Island region with six fellows placed among this year’s 416 total honorees. Two Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory…

Newsletters July 18, 2018

No. 323: Energystics sets sail, the Brookhaven IDA bites down, SBU researchers cash in and Adelphi gets Shiggy with it

Half-full: Welcome to Wednesday, July 18, and the midpoint of another busy week for the Long Island innovation economy. To our readers in Uruguay, a very happy Constitution Day. Intelligent design: Today marks the 50th anniversary of the Intel Corp., founded July 18, 1968, in California. The wrong stuff: And it was July 18, 1938 when Douglas “Wrong Way” Corrigan landed in Ireland after a 28-hour flight from Brooklyn’s Floyd Bennett Field, though his filed…

Newsletters June 8, 2018

No. 313: Takeuchi triumphs, the CPC goes global, the domestic innovations of yesteryear and serenity now (also, Mars has gas)

Don’t know how you did it: But you did it, dear reader – it’s Friday, five more productive work days are in the books and the weekend is upon is. It’s June 8 all over the world (or will be, depending on what time this hits your inbox). And while it’s celebrated on different dates in different countries, it’s Engineer’s Day today in Peru. Please celebrate responsibly. A good day for domestic innovations: Engineers all…

Newsletters May 30, 2018

No. 310: Remaking the Nassau Expressway, recognizing Feinstein’s finest and why your laundry may soon be fungus-fresh

It’s still May? Strange but true, dear reader – Memorial Day is already two days gone and still the month of the emerald and the Crataegus monogyna has another day to go. Which must mean today is Wednesday, May 30 – Parliament Day in Croatia, Mother’s Day in Nicaragua, Indian Arrival Day in Trinidad and Tobago and, here in the States, a sort of midpoint of our shortened workweek. Burning devotion: The Maid of Orleans’…

Economic Development May 10, 2018

Heavy-hitting LI BioMentor Initiative makes it official

By GREGORY ZELLER // A high-octane effort to unite regional bioentrepreneurs with qualified business mentors has formally launched – though the Long Island BioMentor Initiative is already quite busy. The LIBMI officially accepted its first program applications in a “launch event” Thursday morning at the de Seversky Mansion on the New York Institute of Technology’s Old Westbury campus. But the BioMentor Initiative is already a year into a “pilot phase,” according to founding mentor Mark…