We proudly present: Well done, intrepid innovator … you’ve conquered another challenging workweek, and we couldn’t be prouder of you!
Before we get to a full Sunday of exciting football (and Saturday’s leaf-raking, pumpkin-picking, Halloween decorating, etc.), one more workday to go – let’s show some pride and finish strong.
Take a pill: Everything all right in there?
Pill pack: It’s Oct. 21 out there, and before we go any further, get thee to your medicine cabinet and make sure everything’s in order – it’s National Check Your Meds Day.
Depending on your specific phobias, you may need to take something while you’re in there to help you remain calm – it’s also National Reptile Awareness Day, when the slimy and the scaly hold sway.
Cheesy, but OK: Today is also National Pumpkin Cheesecake Day, and while we’re not sure that specific combination required its own day, we’re not about to send it back.
Third time’s the charm: There wasn’t a cheesecake in site when the USS Constitution – still an active “ship of state” in the U.S. Navy – finally put to sea on Oct. 21, 1797, after two unsuccessful launch attempts.
Paving the way: Back on dry land, English inventor Joseph Aspdin cemented his claim to one of mankind’s cornerstone construction materials on this date in 1824, when he patented Portland cement.
Worth the wait: Also offering concrete proof was master innovator Thomas Edison, who showed off his longer-lasting lightbulb in a landmark public demonstration 143 years ago tonight.
Guggle it: Wright’s circular logic.
Got that Wright: Speaking of bright lights, New York City’s Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum – a visual stunner designed by legendary architect Frank Lloyd Wright – opened on Oct. 21, 1959.
Fringe science: And out in the darkest reaches of space, icy dwarf planet Eris – orbiting around the outermost fringes of the Solar System – was discovered on this date in 2003.
Actually, it was “discovered” more than a year later, but the California Institute of Technology gathered the data making that discovery possible 19 years ago today. (Pardon the uncertainty, but Eris is kinda hard to spot – it’s about the same size as Pluto but three times farther from the Sun.)
Rime time: English poet, philosopher, literary critic and theologian Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834) – a good buddy of William Wordsworth who penned “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” “Kubla Khan” and other masterworks while co-founding England’s Romantic Movement – would be 250 years old today.
Come blow your horn: Dizzy, getting cheeky.
Also born on Oct. 21 were Swedish chemist, engineer, inventor and philanthropist Alfred Nobel (1833-1896), history’s most-recognized prize progenitor; American food scientist William Mitchell (1911-2004), who invented Pop Rocks, Cool Whip and other junk foods you know; American physicist Samuel Alderson (1914-2005), who earned a National Inventors Hall of Fame induction for concocting the takes-a-licking crash-test dummy; puff-cheeked American musician John “Dizzy” Gillespie (1917-1993), a bona fide trumpet virtuoso; and American actress Joyce Randolph (born 1924), eternally gracing television’s Golden Age as “The Honeymooners” sidekick Trixie Norton.
Her honor: And take a bow, Judy Sheindlin! Still swinging the gavel on streaming TV, the American jurist and television personality – a former New York City prosecutor and Family Court justice known best as the Emmy-winning “Judge Judy” – turns 80 today.
Give the hardest-working TV judge since Wapner your best at editor@innovateli.com, where your news tips always make a strong case and we have no objection to your calendar events. Sustained!
About our sponsor: Presberg Law P.C. is Long Island’s premier “IDA” and business-law firm for businesses locating, relocating and expanding on Long Island. Founded in 1984, this multigenerational practice focuses on the purchase, sale, leasing and financing of commercial and industrial real estate, SBA and other loan transactions, construction projects and business sales and acquisitions.
BUT FIRST, THIS
One crisis at a time: Bad news for environmentalists (and everyone else) – people care less about global warming because of COVID.
That’s the word from the Stony Brook University political scientists behind “COVID-19, Climate Change and the Finite Pool of Worry in 2019 to 2021 Twitter Discussions,” a research article published this week in the peer-reviewed journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The study of roughly 19 million publicly available tweets showed that as COVID cases, deaths and tweets increased, climate change-related tweets decreased – and the climate-change tweets that were posted were “characterized by less fear, anger and negative sentiment.”
One telling takeaway: With U.S. wildfires and North Atlantic hurricanes raging throughout 2021, the phrase “climate change” appeared only 5.3 million times, down from about 8 million in 2019. “[The data] imply that the pandemic redirects public attention from the important problem of climate-change mitigation,” noted SBU Associate Political Science Professor Oleg Smirnov, the paper’s lead author. “The numbers are striking especially in 2021, as the decrease in tweets occurred … along with more climate disasters and more climate-related events in the news.”
Smooth talker: Governor Kathy Hochul approves this message.
Fast lanes: One month ahead of schedule – just in time for the next round of winter brutality, and for Election 2022 – Albany has completed an $80 million Long Island Expressway repaving project.
The Governor Kathy Hochul “Announcing” Previously Announced Initiatives Reelection Tour rolled across Long Island Thursday, with the candidate-governor stopping in Melville to tout the completed LIE “pavement renewal project.” The comprehensive LIE resurfacing represents the lion’s share of the $121.6 million Albany has spent this year smoothing over Island roadbeds, including a Southern State Parkway resurfacing project – the third in two years – also completed this week.
The LIE project was also a masterwork of efficiency, according to the governor, who trumpeted work that began in April and was scheduled for completion in November. “Smoother roads are ahead with the ahead-of-schedule completion of this transformative repaving project for Long Islanders,” Hochul, clinging to a narrow lead over Republican challenger/unabashed Trump loyalist Lee Zeldin, said Thursday. “We are putting historic infrastructure investments to work to repair our roads, pave our potholes and deliver the quality, reliable infrastructure New Yorkers deserve.”
TOP OF THE SITE
Training day: A freshly inked land deal between New York State and Suffolk County has cleared the way for an ambitious National Offshore Wind Training Center.
Brilliant (literally): Leviton Manufacturing’s new UV-disinfection technology doesn’t interfere with visible light – a clear advantage for surgical suites.
He knows what scares you: And Christian Gonzalez was sure to pack it into “The Macabre Sessions,” his innovative homework assignment-turned-radio show and the subject of Spark: The Innovate Long Island Podcast’s annual Halloween episode.
ICYMI
Long Island’s mental-health problem; Albany’s workforce-development solution.
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: Monitoring and security platform Datadog tracks your company’s “cloud spend” with new digital cost-management protocol.
From California: San Francisco-based validation lifecycle management system leader ValGenesis streamlines digital authentication for smaller life-science firms.
From Washington State: Seattle-based benefits administrator Milliman enhances its members-only retirement-security projection tool.
ON THE MOVE
Christina Brennan
+ Christina Brennan has been promoted to senior vice president of clinical research at The Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research in Manhasset. She previously served as vice president of clinical research.
+ Lisa Santeramo has been elected to the Hauppauge-based Long Island Cares-The Harry Chapin Regional Food Bank’s Board of Directors. She is vice president of government and regulatory affairs at Catholic Health in Rockville Centre.
+ Chantae Sullivan-Pyke has joined Island Fertility at Stony Brook Medicine’s Advanced Specialty Care Center in Commack. She was the director of fertility preservation at Kofinas Fertility Group in New York City.
+ Edmond Hakimi has been hired as medical director of Wellbridge Addiction Treatment and Research in Calverton. He was an addiction-medicine fellow at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston.
+ Mohammed Imam has been appointed chairman of Mineola-based NYU Long Island School of Medicine’s Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery. He was chairman of cardiothoracic surgery and executive director of the Heart Institute for Northwell Staten Island University Hospital.
+ Bernadine Waller has been elected to the Garden City-based Long Island Children’s Museum’s Board of Trustees. She is a National Institute of Mental Health T32 research fellow in the Department of Psychiatry, Division of Translational Epidemiology and Mental Equity at Columbia University in Manhattan.
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 Presberg Law). Marlene McDonnell can tell you more.
BELOW THE FOLD
Mouthful: Beauden? Wrenley? Marigold? Sincere? Moss? The very non-traditional 2023 name game is off and crawling.
Burn: “Pandemic burnout” isn’t getting any better.
Baby: Adjectives and “grandpa names” for girls top 2023’s baby-name trends.
Burn: Fiery, uncontrolled, dangerous space-rocket re-entries are becoming a problem.
De facto inferno: Please continue supporting the amazing firms that support Innovate Long Island, including Presberg Law, where the commercial real estate knowledge and solutions are always en fuego. Check them out.
