No time to waste: Welcome to Wednesday, dear readers, and the busiest time of the business year (just take a look at our chunky Calendar of Events!).
Fortunately, we’re here with another snappy innovation review to keep you looped in and locked on. We know you’re busy, so let’s get to it.
If it ain’t broke: It’s the most cliché of pizza toppings for a reason, and king for a day every Sept. 20.
Kid stuff: We kick off your Sept. 20 with National Care For Kids Day, thanking parents, teachers and other caregivers for their efforts – and encouraging everyone to lend a supportive hand.
You’ve been chopped: Some fairly interesting combinations await in today’s culinary basket, which includes National Fried Rice Day (celebrating the all-in-one Asian accompaniment), National Queso Day (everything right about cheese), National String Cheese Day (everything wrong) and National Punch Day (the beverage, not the blow).
Too tired to cook? Good – it’s also National Pepperoni Pizza Day, oven-fresh every Sept. 20.
Roundabout: Lacking pizza and Chinese takeout, starvation quickly became an issue for the 270 men (aboard five ships) who set out under Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan on this date in 1519 to discover a western route to Indonesia. (Instead, 18 men and one ship would complete the first global circumnavigation.)
Scientific method: Also advancing human achievement and understanding around the globe is the American Association for the Advancement of Sciences, which became the first permanent U.S. organization to favor science over alternative facts when it formed 175 years ago today.
Heat something up: Advancing dinner was the electric stove, patented on Sept. 20, 1859, by District of Columbia-based inventor George Simpson.
Puree science: The Kitchen Blender Experiment remixed thinking on heredity and DNA.
DNA directory: Having nothing to do with dinner was the famous Kitchen Blender Experiment, which concluded that deoxyribonucleic acid contains all of life’s hereditary data, according to scientific findings published on this date in 1952.
Rust in peace (in spaaaaace): And it was Sept. 20, 2013, when NASA’s Deep Impact space probe was officially declared dead.
Earthbound engineers had lost contact with the super-successful robot – history’s most-traveled deep-space comet-hunter – in August of that year. Best guesses say it froze to death.
Welcome to “The Jungle”: American writer and political activist Upton Beall Sinclair Jr. (1878-1968) – a one-time candidate for governor of California, champion of socialism and world-class muckraker – would be 145 years old today.
Red flag: One-of-a-kind Auerbach might struggle with the modern NBA.
Also born on Sept. 20 were Irish civil engineer Sir Richard John Griffith (1784-1878), the “father of Irish geology”; British chemist and physicist Sir James Dewar (1842-1923), who had nothing to do with whisky flasks but did invent the vacuum flask; legendary American basketball coach Arnold “Red” Auerbach (1917-2006), inspirational on and off the court; Italian actress Sofia Costanza Brigida Villani Scicolone (born 1934), known forever as Sophia Loren; and American novelist, screenwriter and television producer George R.R. Martin (born 1948), who’s truly living a fantasy life.
Blankfein check: And take a bow, Lloyd Craig Blankfein! The powerful American investment banker – former CEO of Goldman Sachs, the multinational’s senior chairman since 2019 and still ranked in the top 3 percent of the world’s wealthiest people – turns 69 today.
Wish the billionaire well at editor@innovateli.com, where nothing is more valuable than your news tips – though we’re also highly invested in your calendar events.
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
The pressure’s on: And that’s a good thing at Stony Brook University, which has been selected for a refresher course on a basic healthcare tenet.
With hypertension (a.k.a. high blood pressure) affecting roughly 120 million Americans (fewer than 25 percent of whom have it under control), several Stony Brook Health Sciences programs will participate in a new American Medical Association initiative designed to standardize blood-pressure measurement training. Stony Brook is one of five nationwide institutions receiving an AMA grant to begin the new training during the 2023-24 academic year.
Faculty from the Renaissance School of Medicine, the SBU School of Nursing and the university’s School of Health Professions are expected to join the training effort, while students in these schools will provide blood-pressure screenings through community outreach programs. “This grant provides an exciting opportunity to enhance the teaching of critical skills involved in blood-pressure measurement,” noted School of Health Professions Clinical Associate Professor Lynn Timko-Swaim, principal investigator of the AMA grant. “And it is a vehicle for interprofessional collaboration.”
Serious minded: Cheer up, Alex! You’ve cracked the quantum realm AND won more than a million bucks!
Let’s get physical (theoretically): Stony Brook University has landed one of the most prestigious of all science awards – once again.
Celebrated theoretical physicist and SUNY Distinguished Professor Alexander Zamolodchikov is a co-recipient of the 2024 Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics. Awarded by the Breakthrough Prize Foundation across several disciplines, the “Oscars of Science” honor the world’s most impactful scientific discoveries and most brilliant minds – including Zamolodchikov and Fundamental Physics co-winner John Cardy of Oxford University, who’ve both made “profound contributions to statistical physics and quantum-field theory, with diverse and far-reaching applications in different branches of physics and mathematics,” according to the foundation.
Zamolodchikov’s major honor – reflecting deep dives into quantum-field theory, particle physics and superconductivity – marks the third Breakthrough Prize for SBU, following wins by physicist Peter van Nieuwenhuizen (2019) and astronomer Chang Kee Jung (2016). Zamolodchikov, the C.N. Yang/Wei Deng endowed chair in SBU’s Department of Physics and Astronomy, will share the $3 million prize with Cardy, with whom the renowned SBU researcher has never actually collaborated.
POD PEOPLE
Episode 43: Aleeia Abraham, buying into “BlaQue.”
Season 4 of Spark: The Innovate Long Island Podcast heads to Queens for an inspiring conversation with Aleeia Abraham, founder of the BlaQue Resource Network, a borough-based, 25,000-strong pro-business nonprofit network taking a community-oriented path toward economic and social justice.
Aleeia joins Spark host Gregory Zeller to discuss her influential group’s Long Island origin story and the importance of “buying Black” – and her big plans for a full-circle expansion into Nassau and Suffolk counties.
TOP OF THE SITE
Picture this: The New York Institute of Technology has begun construction of its new high-resolution imaging center, a future jewel of Long Island’s biotechnology crown.
Strength in numbers: The more subscribers we get, the easier it is to keep sending these fun and informative newsletters your way – so thank you in advance for signing up your entire innovation team (always easy, always free, by the way).
VOICES
Family and Children’s Association President/CEO and Voices Nonprofits/Social Services Anchor Jeffrey Reynolds takes the wheel for an unsettling exposé about skyrocketing pedestrian-related motor-vehicle accidents across Long Island – and the dire need for new safety measures.
STUFF WE’RE READING
Can-can: New York City is outlawing stinky piles of plastic garbage bags. Gothamist takes out the trash.
Bless this mess: Nobody’s really in charge of cleaning up humanity’s ever-increasing space junk. Salon trashes orbits.
X-pense: The nosediving social media platform formerly known as Twitter may soon charge its users. TechCrunch trashes Elon.
RECENT FUNDINGS
+ Dragos, a Washington-based cybertech-control innovator, raised an additional $74 million in Series D extension funding led by WestCap.
+ Heliene, a Minnesota-based solar PV manufacturer, closed a $170 million funding round led by Orion Infrastructure Capital, OIC and 2Shores Capital.
+ Actio Biosciences, a California-based biotech, closed a $55 million Series A financing led by Canaan, DROIA Ventures, Deerfield Management, EcoR1 and Euclidean Capital.
+ Deduce, a New York City-based, AI-based identify-theft defender, raised $9 million in funding led by Freestyle Capital, Foundry and True Ventures.
+ Science On Call, an Illinois-based, AI-powered help desk for restaurants, raised $2.6 million in seed funding led by York IE, Bread & Butter Ventures and Relish Works Capital Investments.
+ Spiritus, a California-based climate-tech innovator, raised $11 million in Series A funding led by Khosla Ventures.
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 (I, Robot Edition)
Open arms: Bipedal humanoid Digit plays a big role in Agility Robotics’ master plan.
Artificial assist: Remembering to lead in an AI-driven world.
Machine shop: Tens of thousands of “humanoid” robots will rise in Oregon.
Pet project: Sony unleashes a foster-parent program for abandoned robot dogs.
Human factor: Please continue supporting the amazing firms that support Innovate Long Island, including Presberg Law, where nothing outperforms decades of land-use experience (and some fine-tuned organic instincts). Check them out.
