Seasonal disorder: Welcome to Friday, dear readers, as we ride late February’s seasonal seesaw – 50 degrees one day, snowing the next – straight toward another well-earned weekend.
It’s Feb. 25 out there, and we’ve got one more day of socioeconomic innovation – a cold and wet one here on Long Island – before downtime. Let’s light the fires! (Maybe literally, brrrrr).
Fills you up right: Chow down on National Chowder Day.
Soup’s on: Whether you prefer yours with tomatoes (Manhattan style) or without (New England style), a raw winter day like this cries out for a big bowl of comfort – thank goodness it’s National Clam Chowder Day.
Follow that hearty lunch with a classic all-time snack – it’s also National Chocolate-Covered Nut Day, crunched this and every Feb. 25.
Don’t suck: This fourth Friday in February also delivers National Skip the Straw Day, an environmental-awareness effort focused on ecologically dreadful disposable plastics.
Eppur si muove: Speaking of hard science, Pope Urban VIII gave Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei a tough choice on Feb. 25, 1616 – renounce all that heliocentric nonsense about Earth moving around the sun, or go to prison.
No dummy, Galileo publicly relented – but secretly knew Copernicus was right.
Colt action: Hartford inventor Samuel Colt earned a U.S. patent for his revolving-chamber percussion pistol on this date in 1836, propelling America westward and turning Connecticut into a global arms dealer.
Power of the press: Other U.S. patents awarded on this date include one in 1837 for New York City inventor Thomas Davenport, who locked up America’s first electric motor.
Davenport used the motor to run a printing press and created the first newspaper printed using electricity, The Electro-Magnetic and Mechanics Intelligencer – technically, America’s first technical journal.
Dollar tree: The very first $1 legal tender note, circa 1862.
Cash in: Congress revolutionized the U.S. monetary system – and paid for the Civil War – with the Legal Tender Act, adopted Feb. 25, 1862.
Toll road: And President Theodore Roosevelt ceremoniously flipped the switch on the first train tunnel under the Hudson River – connecting New York City and Hoboken, NJ – 114 years ago today.
Dozens died during Hudson River Tunnel construction, for those keeping score.
Cloud nine: English musician, singer, songwriter, record producer and film producer George Harrison (1943-2001) – the Beatles’ lead guitarist and so much more – would be 79 years old today.
Dark sheep: Zeppo (centered between Chico, left, and Groucho) was a notorious troublemaker.
Also born on Feb. 25 were French painter and sculptor Pierre Renoir (1841-1919), a leading Impressionist master; Italian tenor Enrico Caruso (1873-1921), history’s first recording star; German chemist Ida Noddack (1896-1979), who co-discovered the element rhenium with her future husband; American actor Herbert Manfred “Zeppo” Marx (1901-1979), youngest of the famous brothers; and American author and dietician Adelle Davis (1904-1974), among the 20th Century’s leading nutritionists.
Nature lover: And take a bow, Richard Morgan Fliehr! The retired American grappler known best as Ric Flair – regarded by most peers and journalists as the best professional wrestler of all time – turns 73 today.
Give the Nature Boy your best at editor@innovateli.com, where we also welcome news tips and calendar events, baby … WOOOOOO!
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BUT FIRST, THIS
Gifted: “The Magical Library” helped Kimberly Shrestha earn a Quill Award for best photography/artwork in a Long Island high school newspaper.
Fit to print: Lynbrook High School earned top honors at Adelphi Press Day, the university’s annual fête of regional high school newspapers.
There were plenty of Quill Awards to go around at the Feb. 18 virtual event, with nine different schools earning titles in various categories, ranging from Most Outstanding Reporter (Chaminade High School’s Conor Burns) to Best Photograph/Artwork (Valley Stream North High School’s Kimberly Shrestha) to Best Layout (The Mount Academy’s Ibrahim Rasheed). The Lynbrook High School Horizon took the top trophy, named Best Newspaper (print or online).
The online event – which also included Adelphi faculty presentations and a virtual panel discussion among professional journalists and mental-health experts focused on the challenges of covering traumatic stories – streamed live to nearly 250 student journalists. “I believe if you can train students to be responsible journalists, you can really have a big ripple effect on making the world a better place,” noted Adelphi University Associate Journalism Professor Mark Grabowski. “Scholastic journalism is so important.”
New year, same Difference: A Bethpage Federal Credit Union youth-empowerment initiative is up and running again, following a COVID-induced pause.
Difference Makers – officially launched in January 2020 by Bethpage Cares, the credit union’s charitable giving arm – awards “mini grants” of $250 to $5,000 to individual students and student groups (fifth grade through undergraduate college) working on community-focused projects. Applications are once again being accepted by the Difference Makers Committee, “now that student activities have started to resume,” according to BFCU Senior Vice President Linda Armyn.
Although the pandemic slowed the works, the program has been able to award a few grants, supporting a new butterfly garden/sitting bench in Wawapek Preserve, an innovative Glen Cove High School recycling program and an improved community garden in Merrick, all masterminded by Long Island students. “We want to invest in our children, the future leaders of our communities,” Armyn said. “Difference Makers has the potential to make a big impact on many passionate young people.”
TOP OF THE SITE
Welcome back: An experienced cleantech entrepreneur has returned to Stony Brook University’s CEBIP with impressive friends and an ambitious solar-energy enterprise.
Grid locked: The United Way of Long Island is keeping regional families – especially seniors – safe and warm this winter, with a little help from a major multinational utility.
ThermoLifting spirits: Co-founder Paul Schwartz joins Spark: The Innovate Long Island Podcast to fill in the backstory of Spark’s Season 2 sponsor – and excitedly celebrate a carbon-neutral engineering masterwork about to change the world.
ICYMI
A Plum Island preservation push; a West Hempstead IDA intervention.
BEST OF THE WEST (AND SOMETIMES NORTH/SOUTH)
Innovate LI’s inbox overrunneth with inspirational innovations from all North American corners. This week’s brightest out-of-towners:
From Oregon: The Portland-based Oregon Dairy and Nutrition Council raises a glass of milk to the state’s sustainability and animal-welfare innovations.
From New York City: Groundbreaking TV investment show “Unicorn Hunters” introduces the next-generation Unicoin, a dividend-paying cryptocurrency.
From Texas: Austin-based artificial-intelligence defense specialist SparkCognition Government Systems deploys advanced AI in world’s largest unmanned naval exercise.
ON THE MOVE
Jenna Montalvano
+ Jenna Montalvo has been hired as a marketing coordinator at Uniondale-based Forchelli Deegan Terrana. She was previously a bookkeeper for TAP Auto Collision in Lindenhurst.
+ Joseph Sorbara has been appointed an associate board member of the Syosset-based Commercial and Industrial Brokers Society. He is a director at Mineola-based ACC Space Commercial Real Estate.
+ Ja’Nair Gresham-Spann has been hired as director of marketing and communications for Mineola-based Siler & Ingber. She was previously marketing manager for The Center for Musculoskeletal Disorders in Manhattan.
+ Steven Liantonio has been promoted to senior associate at Westbury-based DSJCPA. He was previously an accounting associate.
+ Peter Russo has been hired as assistant principal at Great Hollow Middle School in Smithtown. He previously served as coordinator of special education at the Long Beach High School and Middle School.
+ Anil Malhotra has been promoted to co-director of the Institute of Behavioral Science at the Manhasset-based Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research. He previously served as a professor.
+ Jason Tan has been appointed executive director of Long Island Jewish Valley Stream Hospital. He has served seven years at LIJ Valley Stream, including two years as deputy executive director.
+ Scott Fradenburg has joined Queens-based Cord Meyer Development as vice president of construction. The Floral Park resident most recently worked at AvalonBay Communities.
Like this newsletter? Innovate Long Island newsletter, website and podcast sponsorships are a prime opportunity to reach the inventors, investors, entrepreneurs and executives you need to know (just ask Sahn Ward). Marlene McDonnell can tell you more.
BELOW THE FOLD (Wake Up Call Edition)
Eyes aglow: Too much screen time, not enough shuteye.
Snooze button: It takes Americans 24 minutes to get out of bed – and that’s unhealthy.
Eyes wide shut: Teenagers aren’t sleeping enough – and that’s extremely dangerous.
Cookie sheets: A good night’s sleep can help you lose weight – and that’s no dream.
The law firm that never sleeps: Please continue supporting the amazing firms that support Innovate Long Island, including Sahn Ward, the king of the hill where your business is top of the heap. Check them out.
