Don’t sweat it: Welcome to Wednesday, dear readers, and the midpoint of another summery workweek, complete with pop-up storms and pea-soup air.
Yes, it’s sticky out there – but when it was snowing nonstop six months ago, this sounded like paradise, yes? So crank the AC and let’s innovate!
Orange you glad: The sweeter side of cognac.
Quatorze Juillet: It’s July 14 out there, and to our many readers across France, a joyous Bastille Day – La République Française’s national day, recalling the historical 1789 storming of the Bastille (kinda, sorta).
Mark the occasion with a few sips of Grand Marnier liqueur – there’s no better date than July 14, which here in the States is National Grand Marnier Day, celebrating the 19th Century French combination of cognac, sugar and distilled bitter-orange essence.
Potpourri: July 14 is actually all over the map – it’s also National Shark Awareness Day (saluting the oceanic oligarchs), National Nude Day (celebrating naturalists, yet swathed in public-decency laws), National Tape Measure Day (see why below) and National Mac and Cheese Day (yum!).
All’s fair: America’s first world’s fair – dubbed the Exhibition of the Industry of All Nations – opened on this date in 1853, filling the New York Crystal Palace with wonders from America, Great Britain, Ireland, Belgium, Mexico and elsewhere.
A song of ice and fire: Florida physician John Gorrie made the first public demonstration of manufactured ice 171 years ago today.
And it was 154 years ago today when future awards namesake Alfred Nobel demonstrated dynamite for the first time.
Put a cork in it: New York inventor John Smith’s “Process of Treating Cork” – essentially, the world’s first corkboard – was patented on this date in 1891.
Other patents issued on July 14 include one in 1868 for the spring-click tape measure, a modern spin on an ancient invention locked up by Connecticut innovator Alvin Fellows (though maybe he wasn’t precisely first).
Monumental: Also the first national monument not dedicated to a President.
Carver-ing his niche: The George Washington Carver National Monument, the first national monument honoring a Black American, was dedicated on this date in 1953 in Missouri.
Stop: And the world’s final telegram was sent on July 14, 2013, in India, the last nation to offer regulated telegram services.
For those keeping score, Western Union’s obsolete U.S. telegram service shut down in 2006, ending an American communications mainstay that began when Samuel Morse (in Washington) telegrammed business partner Alfred Vail (in Baltimore) on May 24, 1844.
Unmistakable “Persona”: Swedish filmmaker, author, theater manager and producer Ernst Ingmar Bergman (1918-2007), universally ranked among history’s greatest and most unabashed moviemakers and dramatists, would be 103 years old today.
Queen of the desert: The adventurous Gertrude Bell.
Also born on July 14 were American industrialist Frederick Maytag (1857-1937), who started with farm equipment but cleaned up with washing machines; American geologist Florence Bascom (1862-1945), the nation’s “first woman geologist”; British explorer, diplomat and archeologist Gertrude Bell (1868-1926), remembered as “the female Lawrence of Arabia”; pioneering American computer engineer Jay Wright Forrester (1918-2016), credited with inventing magnetic core memory; and American astrophysicist Joel Primack (born 1945), whose knowledge of outer space literally spans galaxies.
Give him a hand: And take a bow, Jose Hernandez-Rebollar! The Mexican electrical engineer – who invented the AcceleGlove, which translates American Sign Language into written and spoken words, immeasurably useful for the hearing impaired – turns 52 today.
Give the Puebla native (and Fullbright scholar) your best at editor@innovateli.com, where your news tips and calendar events are always a good sign.
About our sponsor: Nixon Peabody is an international law firm with an office in Jericho that works with clients building the technologies and industries of the future. We have the experience necessary to drive your business forward and help you negotiate risks and opportunities related to all areas of business and the law, including startup work, private placements, venture capital and private equity, IP and licensing, labor and immigration and mergers and acquisitions.
BUT FIRST, THIS
Following the science: Greenlighted by state and federal health officials, New York restaurants, theaters and amusement parks have rushed to reopen this summer – but one of Long Island’s great scientific bastions is taking no chances.
In years gone by, Brookhaven National Laboratory’s Summer Sundays program opened the U.S. Department of Energy facility to thousands of weekly visitors. But the event pivoted to virtual programming in 2020, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic – and this year, “to continue limiting the spread of COVID-19,” Upton-based BNL is once again presenting its Summer Sunday programs virtually, with three live, online-only tours on tap.
The guided tours and real-time Q&As – highlighting the National Synchrotron Light Source II, the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider and BNL’s Center for Functional Nanomaterials – are scheduled for July 25, Aug. 1 and Aug. 8, respectively, with a return to in-person visits tentatively scheduled for 2022. More information on this summer’s virtual programming available here.
Wheel deal: Environmental activists and Nassau County officials announce the NICE Bike & Ride program.
NICE try: The Nassau Inter-County Express – the local bus system serving Nassau County, eastern sections of Queens and a smidge of western Suffolk – gets an A for effort in the environmentally friendly and enhanced-ridership columns, though its new “Bike & Ride” program is a little flat.
The program places front-end bicycle racks on 60-foot buses cruising Hempstead Turnpike on weekdays, and weekend buses connecting Jones Beach to the Rosa Parks Hempstead Transit Center and the Long Island Rail Road’s Freeport station (“strategically selected routes,” according to NICE). There’s no charge to use the racks, but each holds only two adult-sized bikes – 16-inch wheels or larger, with children’s bicycles and motorized bicycles on the no-drive list – and riders must load and unload their own cycles (detailed instructions provided).
Bicycles remain forbidden inside the buses (unless they fold). But even with all the limitations, the rollout (ahem) is an important step – it’s billed as Bike & Ride’s “initial phase,” so more routes may gear up soon, and any move in this direction is a positive, according to NICE CEO Jack Khzouz. “Building a robust, responsive and interconnected public transit system in Nassau County involves continual adaptation,” Khzouz noted Tuesday. “We are now able to offer bike riders the ability to connect to a NICE bus while storing their bike safely and securely.”
POD PEOPLE
Labor intensive: Rosalie Drago, trailblazing podcast guest.
Suffolk County Labor Commissioner Rosalie Drago is the first woman to fill the office and the second-ever guest of our shiny podcast series – both pretty impressive, if you ask us. Catch up with the commish and all of our amazing guests … Season 1 of Spark: The Innovate Long Island Podcast, now streaming!
TOP OF THE SITE
Yes, they Emmy: “Full STEM Ahead Long Island,” a video series produced by Long Beach-based HJMT Public Relations, has earned two New York Emmy Award nominations.
Home run: Despite huge challenges, Northwell Health House Calls was a big hit with the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services for the sixth straight year.
Free advice: Stunning startups, creative corporations, expert entrepreneurs, enlightened executives … so much innovation in our thrice-weekly newsletters, so easy to subscribe.
VOICES
With gun violence raging, governments across America are taking a new approach, treating the epidemic as a public-health issue. Voices nonprofits anchor Jeffrey Reynolds, president and CEO of the Garden City-based Family and Children’s Association, believes their aim is true.
STUFF WE’RE READING
Don’t know why: Signs may suggest a post-pandemic “Great Resignation,” but employers aren’t buying it. CNBC just won’t quit.
There’s no sun up in the sky: Another scientific paper links solar power to toxic pollution. The Edmonton Journal looks for the bright side.
Stormy weather: An emergency checklist for employers, who should help remote workers prepare for the worst of hurricane season. Inc. checks the boxes.
RECENT FUNDINGS
+ Osso VR, a California-based virtual reality surgical training and assessment platform, secured $27 million in Series B funding led by GSR Ventures, with participation from Signalfire, Kaiser Permanente Ventures, OCA Ventures, Scrum Ventures, Leslie Ventures and Anorak Ventures.
+ Cloverly, a Georgia-based climate-tech company providing software platforms for carbon-offsetting efforts, raised $2.1 million in seed funding led by Tech Square Ventures, with participation from SB Opportunity Fund, Circadian Ventures, Knoll Ventures, Panoramic Ventures and SaaS Ventures.
+ Unibuddy, a New York City-based university-recruitment platform connecting prospects and applicants to student ambassadors and school staff, raised $20 million in Series B funding led by Highland Europe, with participation from Stride.VC.
+ GearFlow, an Illinois-based virtual parts marketplace for the construction industry, raised $3 million in seed funding led by Watchfire Ventures, with participation from Newark Venture Partners, Liquid2 Ventures, Path Ventures and Harvard Business School Angels.
+ GathR Virtual Studios, a Florida-based startup enabling 3D, digitally visualized hybrid workspaces, raised $2.7 million in pre-seed funding led by Ken Moelis, Charles Fabrikant, Hope Taitz and Alberto Peisach.
+ CodeBoxx, a Florida- and NYC-based tech firm offering an accelerated coding and technology program for user of all technological backgrounds, secured $2 million in seed funding led by the investment arm of MadaLuxe Group.
BELOW THE FOLD
Star trek: The Virgin Galactic space plane rockets toward space.
It’s a bird…: Yes, quantum bird brains really might give us superpowers.
It’s a plane…: Exactly how do these fancy space planes work, anyway?
It’s Superman! Remembering Richard Donner, who forever changed comic book movies.
Crusaders (no capes): Please continue supporting the dynamic firms that support Innovate Long Island, including Nixon Peabody, which has the power to carry your technology enterprise up, up and away. Check them out.
