Break, or make: Welcome to Friday, dear readers – the end of spring break for most regional schoolkids but just another busy socioeconomic sprint for us all-growed-up innovators.
It’s April 22 out there and our latest well-earned, springlike weekend awaits – but first, one more day of socioeconomic progress to muscle through. Let’s finish strong!
Are you paying attention? Today is Earth Day, which is less about climate action and more about climate literacy – educating those who don’t (or simply won’t) understand the effects of human industrialization, the imminent expiration of Earth’s fossil-fuel supply and the other critical imperatives pushing humanity toward a net-zero reality.
Color coded: Save us the purple ones.
Bank shot: Today is also National Teach Children to Save Day, an annual April 22 observance designed to impart the importance of savings accounts and rainy-day funds.
And with the Easter candy still hanging on for dear shelf-life, today is also National Jellybean Day, the perfect excuse to clean house.
By sea: More salty than sweet, the Baltic Exchange – now the world’s only independent source of maritime market information – formed in London on this date in 1823.
By land: On that same day (April 22, 1823), British fruit-seller Robert Tyers applied to patent “the Volito” – his fancy name for roller skates, designed “for the purpose of traveling or pleasure,” according the patent application – to speed up his fruit deliveries.
Shoot or get off the pot: Also speeding things up was the 24-second shot clock, introduced by the National Basketball Association on April 22, 1954.
The innovation came in response to ball-control strategies that saw teams take leads and then relentlessly kill time – for instance, a 19-18 win by the Fort Wayne Pistons over the Minneapolis Lakers, the lowest-scoring game in NBA history.
Return engagement: The 1964 New York World’s Fair was the second in 25 years for Flushing Meadow Park.
Queens jewels: The 1964 New York World’s Fair opened 58 years ago today in Flushing Meadows Park.
The Queens-based fair – which opened in April for six-month sessions in both 1964 and 1965 – was actually the second World’s Fair held in the easternmost borough (on westernmost Long Island), following the 1939 New York World’s Fair.
Never forget: And with U.S. President Bill Clinton, Israeli President Chaim Herzog, Nobel Prize-winning Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel and other dignitaries in attendance, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum opened with a somber dedication ceremony on April 22, 1993.
Manhattanite: American theoretical physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer (1904-1967) – wartime head of the Los Alamos National Laboratory, accused Communist sympathizer and undisputed “father of the atomic bomb” – would be 118 years old today.
Shining star: Here’s Jack.
Also born on this date were German philosopher, mathematician and physicist Immanuel Kant (1724-1804), among the Enlightenment’s central thinkers; French physicist Gaston Planté (1834-1889), who invented the first rechargeable electric-storage battery; Italian-American neurologist Rita Levi-Montalcini (1909-2012), who shared a Nobel Prize for discovering nerve growth factor; American film and television producer Aaron Spelling (1923-2006), whose long list of hits included “Charlie’s Angels,” “The Love Boat,” “Dynasty” and “Melrose Place,” among others; and American actor and filmmaker John Joseph “Jack” Nicholson (born 1937), whose versatile career has spanned five decades.
Make it quick: And take a bow, Ana María Shua! The award-winning Argentine writer and noted microfiction maestra – known best as Spanish literature’s “queen of the micro-story” – turns 71 today.
Wish the baroness of brevity well at editor@innovateli.com, where news tips and calendar events of any length are gratefully accepted (we’ll edit them down).
About our sponsor: Whether it’s helping in site selection, cutting through red tape or finding innovative ways to meet specific needs, businesses that settle in the Town of Islip soon learn that we take a proactive approach to seeing them succeed. If your business wants to locate or expand in a stable community with great quality of life, then it’s time you took a closer look at Islip.
BUT FIRST, THIS
Patch work: The PerQSeal patch does the trick (before its vanishing act), according to Stony Brook Medicine heart surgeon Robert Pyo.
Inside job: The Stony Brook Heart Institute is co-hosting the clinical trial of a state-of-the-art cardiac device that seals damaged arteries from the inside – and then vanishes.
The Heart Institute is one of four sites – including three in New York State – selected for the Phase 1 trial of PerQSeal, billed as “the first suture-less, fully absorbable intravascular patch” and designed by Swedish biopharma EPS Vascular for use after heart-valve repair or replacement. Packing an “enhanced bioabsorbable patch,” the biodegradable artery-closing device was used in the United States for the first time on March 8, when Stony Brook University Hospital surgeons Henry Tannous and Robert Pyo employed it during a transcatheter aortic-valve procedure.
The multifaceted clinical trial – including testing at the University at Buffalo, the Bronx’s Montefiore Medical Center and The Valley Hospital in New Jersey – precedes EPS Vascular’s official submission for U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval. But “this amazing arterial-closure technique offers a hard-to-beat combination of safety, efficacy and ease-of-use,” according to Pyo, principal investigator for the trial’s SBU slate. “Not only does it offer less pain and faster recovery time, but … after about six months, there is no trace of the device.”
Stimulating discussion: The Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research is part of the research team behind a new study showing that ultrasound stimulation could treat – or even prevent – Type-2 diabetes.
The study, published in March by the open-access journal Nature Biomedical Engineering, combined the talents of investigators from GE Research, the Feinstein Institutes, UCLA’s Samueli School of Engineering, the Yale School of Medicine and Albany Medical College. It focused on the non-invasive ultrasound stimulation of specific neurometabolic pathways and ultimately showed that ultrasound was able to reverse or prevent Type-2 diabetes in three different laboratory-animal models.
That represents a potentially giant leap for alternative-care solutions – and welcome news for the more than 30 million Americans suffering from Type-2 diabetes, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, most of whom rely on invasive blood-sugar tests and insulin injections. “This exciting research is a major step forward to harness a novel approach … to alleviate and potentially reverse a disease that affects millions worldwide,” noted Feinstein Institutes Professor Sangeeta Chavan, one of the paper’s senior authors.
TOP OF THE SITE
Writer wrong: A new Stony Brook University study finds an enormous gender gap in research papers published over the last two decades in top scientific journals.
Electric organoid: Long Island researchers are growing simulated organs from human cells – a big step toward customized treatment plans for individual cancer patients.
Powering forward: Retired New York Knick and all-star humanitarian John Wallace dunks on social injustice – and piles up the community assists – in the Season 2 finale of Spark: The Innovate Long Island Podcast.
ICYMI
Adelphi innovation paves the way; Albany intervention paves the roads.
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 New York City: Blockchain-gaming developer Playground Labs launches Kapital DAO, a web3 gaming digital onramp for play-to-earn proprietors, investors and players.
From Florida: Miami-based multimedia financial-education company The Institute of Financial Wellness introduces a high-caliber, nationally renowned Advisory Board.
From Minnesota: Minneapolis-based plant-centered food brand Wicked Kitchen scoops out first-to-market creamy frozen desserts made from the lupin bean.
ON THE MOVE
Rebecca Stein
+ Rebecca Stein has joined Uniondale-based Forchelli Deegan Terrana as an associate in the Tax, Trusts & Estates Practice Group. She was previously an associate at Jericho-based Saundra M. Gumerove & Associates.
+ David Rosner has been hired as director of development for Tuesday’s Children in Manhasset. He previously held the same position at Surprise Lake Camp in Cold Spring.
+ Michael Mainiero has joined Rockville Centre-based Catholic Health Services as senior vice president and chief digital information officer. He was previously senior director of digital strategy and innovation at NYU Langone in Manhattan.
+ Roberto Hinojosa has been promoted to senior manager in the Audit and Assurance Practice at UHY in Melville. He previously served as an account manager.
+ Jeffrey Ciccone has joined HSS Long Island in Uniondale as a pain management specialist. He previously held the same position at Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhasset.
+ Jessica Yawney-Kohler has been hired as director of guidance in the Connetquot Central School District. She previously served as principal at West Babylon Junior High School.
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 the Town of Islip). Marlene McDonnell can tell you more.
BELOW THE FOLD (Cookie Clicker Edition)
Halfway: If you’re gonna do it, do it right.
How the cookies crumbled: The rise and fall of Famous Amos.
Reject pile: Burned by European fines, Google re-bakes its cookies.
Behold, the Oreometer: Finally, science has perfectly separated the Oreo.
Chipping in: Please continue supporting the amazing organizations that support Innovate Long Island, including the Town of Islip Office of Economic Development, which always has fresh business-building plans warming in the oven. Check them out.
