Endings, beginnings: Welcome to the end of your latest busy workweek, dear readers, and the (almost) kickoff of another well-earned weekend.
First, a Friday finale – and this ingenious innovation newsletter to start it right (and help you finish strong). Let’s begin!
Clipped wings: No, no, no, not the old airline … a celebration of Western Hemisphere unity.
Air apparent: We take off this April 14 with Pan American Day, which sounds like an homage to an extinct airline but actually commemorates the International Union of the American Republics, which formed on this date in 1890 as precursor of today’s Organization of American States.
Make love, not war: That’s the whole point of National Ex-Spouse Day, a celebration (?) of the better qualities of our previous poor partners.
And try not to Flipper out … it’s also National Dolphin Day, surfacing every April 14 to praise the highly intelligent marine mammals. (How intelligent? How about … one set of opposable thumbs from conquering the world, according to both The Onion and actual scientific research.)
When aliens attack, or something: Speaking of aviation history, great battles and planetary conquerors, it was this date in 1561 when hundreds of witnesses in Nuremberg, Germany, witnessed an hour-long dogfight – advanced weaponry, explosions, crashes, the works – between flying discs, spheres and triangles, recorded as the infamous Nuremberg Celestial Phenomenon.
Telescopic vision: Also watching the skies – no battles detected – was Galileo Galilei, who first demonstrated his newfangled “telescope” to important Romans of the day on April 14, 1611.
Brand new: Also looking ahead was entrepreneur James Cash “J.C.” Penney, who’d later build a successful (if finite) department store brand – but was just a one-third partner in his first store, a Wyoming dry-goods franchise that opened on this date in 1902.
Dead ahead: The HMS Titanic, before … well, you know.
Didn’t see that coming: Also running into hard times was the RMS Titanic, then the world’s largest ocean liner, which hit an iceberg off Newfoundland 111 years ago tonight and made James Cameron insanely rich.
Book club: And going page-for-page with “Catcher in the Rye,” “Beloved,” “To Kill a Mockingbird” and other Great American Novel contenders, John Steinbeck’s “The Grapes of Wrath” – now 14 million copies sold and counting – hit shelves on this date in 1939.
The book was an immediate critical and commercial success, with 400,000 copies sold in its first year and a 1940 Pulitzer Prize for the former journalist.
Wave as you go by: Dutch mathematician, astronomer and physicist Christiaan Huygens (1629-1695) – who rode his unique wave theory of light to massive astronomical and dynamic-science discoveries – would be 394 years old today.
The hustler: Don’t bet on Rose, 82 today, making the Baseball Hall of Fame in his lifetime.
Also born on April 14 were Flemish cartographer Abraham Ortelius (1527-1598), credited as the creator of the first modern atlas; British physiologist Sir Victor Horsley (1857-1916), a groundbreaking neurosurgeon; English Army officer Augustus Pitt Rivers (1827-1900), the “father of British archaeology”; American country music star Loretta Lynn (1932-2022), a standout singer and songwriter; and American former baseball player and manager Pete Rose (born 1941), MLB’s unassailable career-hits leader, forever tarnished by his lesser natures.
Golly genome: And take a bow, Francis Collins! The former (and longest-serving) director of the National Institutes of Health – who led the international Human Genome Project to its groundbreaking 2003 completion of the human DNA sequence – turns 73 today.
Wish the geneticist well at editor@innovateli.com, where innovation is in our genes – and your news tips and calendar events are on our pages.
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BUT FIRST, THIS
Betting on vagus: Northwell Health will aim its cutting-edge bioelectronic nerve-stimulation technologies at nefarious nephrotic syndrome.
Northwell’s Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research and Cohen Children’s Medical Center will share two National Institutes of Health grants totaling $4.73 million on a crusade against nephrotic syndrome, a kidney disorder that pushes too much protein into urine, specifically in children. A $3.7 million grant will initiate a study of nocturnal hypertension in patients at 22 healthcare facilities; a separate $1.03 million grant will fund a vagus nerve-stimulation clinical trial for children with nephrotic syndrome led by Christine Sethna, pediatric nephrology division director at Cohen Children’s.
The big-picture goal is non-pharmaceutical nephrotic disorder treatments, according to Sethna, also an associate professor at the Donald and Barbara Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra/Northwell. “This funding will allow us to … better understand how the condition can best be treated without negative side effects that steroids and medications could potentially leave,” the doctor said. “These advancements can further the evidence that drugs are not always necessary to alleviate a problem, especially in young children.”
Raise a glass: Palladino family gifts keep on giving.
Runs in the family: The glass is half-full for a second-generation custom-gift business built around a charitable family tradition.
Introducing Rockville Centre-based The Giving Glass, benevolent brainchild of cofounders John and Mike Palladino – sons of local entrepreneur Jeannine Palladino, owner of Jeannine’s Gifts, a longtime purveyor of handmade jewelry, one-of-a-kind home furnishings and other custom-made collectables. Like their maternal model, the brothers have tied their commercialized craft intrinsically to charity: Continuing Jeannine’s Gifts long history of charitable donations (including support for the victims of the recent Nashville school shooting), the spinoff business is donating 10 percent of each Giving Glass sale to the Boomer Esiason Foundation, the Tunnel to Towers Foundation, Life’s WORC and other nonprofits.
The wine glasses – adorned with American flags, daisies, snowflakes and other seasonal and folksy designs – were the perfect vessel to convey their mom’s kindness and generosity, according to John Palladino. “We wanted to create a way to directly give back to the causes that Jeannine’s Gifts customers and community care about,” the co-founder added.
TOP OF THE SITE
All-star art: A sports-loving solopreneur in the ultra-competitive graphic-design industry has made it to the majors … and to the NBA, the NHL and the PGA Tour, too.
School of hard knocks: New research out of New York Tech says even the best modern helmets can’t prevent concussions among athletes or soldiers.
Listen up: And smarten up and, most importantly, catch up! Season 4 is on the way … hear everything you’ve missed on Spark: The Innovate Long Island Podcast, featuring intimate interviews with the leaders of the regional innovation economy. Up and away!
ICYMI
A long-awaited first in BNL’s new director; a long wait for a promising hydrogen hub.
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 Kentucky: Louisville-based premium booze baron Hemingway Rye Whiskey expands availability of its smooth First Edition.
From Ohio: Cincinnati-based business-development firm RSW/US flips the switch on a smarter, more strategic B2B lead generator.
From California: San Mateo-based automation advancer Notable launches Patient AI, combining large language models and GPT to personalize healthcare.
ON THE MOVE
Carla Simpson
+ Carla Simpson has joined Urban Air Lake Grove as director of sales and community events. She was formerly vice president at Capital One in Melville.
+ Harold Paz has been appointed to the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine’s Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis Committee. He is CEO of Stony Brook University Medicine and executive vice president for health sciences at Stony Brook University.
+ Michelle Zettergren has been appointed to Deer Park-based United Way of Long Island’s Board of Directors She is the president of MagnaCare in New York City.
+ Harold Fernandez has joined the Huntington Station-based Health & Welfare Council of Long Island’s Board of Directors. He is a professor of cardiothoracic surgery for the Northwell-Hofstra School of Medicine and Northwell Health’s system director of surgical heart failure.
+ Ryan Stanton has been named to Deer Park-based United Way of Long Island’s Board of Directors. He is the executive director of the LI Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO, and the Labor Education & Community Service Agency.
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 SUNY Old Westbury). Marlene McDonnell can tell you more.
BELOW THE FOLD (Move It, Possibly Lose It Edition)
In formation: Migratory birds are updating their data.
Move over: Cracking down on moving company scams.
Tech exodus: Why tech workers are fleeing Silicon Valley.
What the flock: How migratory birds deal with climate change.
Right where we left them: Please continue supporting the amazing institutions that support Innovate Long Island, including SUNY Old Westbury, a bedrock of regional academics and professional development. Check them out.
