Shake your shamrocks: Welcome to Friday, lassies and lads, and not just any Friday but Friday, March 15, making Sunday St. Patrick’s Day – traditional death date of Ireland’s foremost patron saint and a green-hued, beer-soaked soiree here in the States.
On that note, please celebrate responsibly – and remember, it’s Amateur Night on the roads (basically all weekend), so be extra careful.
Third kind: Reach out and touch an intelligent extraterrestrial today. (Good luck with that!)
Great Caesar’s ghost! Today, of course, is the Ides of March, midpoint of the month (kinda) and the legendary date in 44 BC when Julius Caesar met his fate at the hands of Brutus, Cassius and other disgruntled Roman senators.
But cheer up! While history (and Shakespeare) paint a historical dark cloud over the date, it’s not actually doomy and gloomy.
In space, no one can here you … period: Speaking of good news/bad news, today is World Contact Day, filled with jolly notions of communicating with benevolent space aliens, which is better than contact with evil space aliens – though neither is very likely, according to science, which doesn’t dispute the existence of intelligent extraterrestrials but doubts we’ll ever find them.
Also balancing cheery and dreary is Everything You Think Is Wrong Day, an annual March 15 absolution of bad ideas and poor decision-making … and the perfect excuse for a guest appearance by the one and only “Weird” Al Yankovic! Put your hands together!
Maine event: Another round of applause, please, for the great State of Maine, which became the 23rd to join the Union on this date in 1820.
Pay to play: Let’s also root, root, root for professional baseball, which became a thing on March 15, 1869, when Cincinnati Red Stockings owner Aaron Champion hired a manager and began paying players.
Long story: Today is a red-letter date in the extended history of escalators.
Rising star: Baseball salaries have certainly escalated since then … much like the “moving stairs” that you know best as the “escalator,” patented 132 years ago today by New York City-based inventor Jesse Reno.
Surprise announcements: Less intentional innovations associated with this date include the first-ever presidential press conference, accidentally staged by Woodrow Wilson on March 15, 1913.
Critical leak: And it was this day in 1959 when the Brookhaven Medical Research Reactor – the first U.S. nuclear reactor built specifically for medical and scientific research – first achieved criticality at Long Island’s own Brookhaven National Laboratory.
The U.S. Department of Energy’s relatively small High Flux Beam Reactor continued producing neutrons until 1996, when tritium leaking from its spent fuel canal was detected in local groundwater.
Nothing left: The U.S. Supreme Court has lost its balance (and some would say its mind) without RBG.
Sorely missed: American lawyer and jurist Joan Ruth Bader Ginsburg (1933-2020) – an associate justice (and the liberal conscience) of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1993 until her death four long years ago – would be 91 years old today.
Also born on March 15 were seventh U.S. President Andrew Jackson (1767-1845), friend of the common man; American anthropologist Alice Fletcher (1838-1923), a (literal) pioneer of Native American studies; British physicist, inventor and writer Sir Charles Vernon Boys (1855-1944), credited with creating several sensitive scientific instruments; American botanist Liberty Bailey (1858-1954), who transformed horticulture from a hobby to an applied science; and Russian French bacteriologist Waldemar Mordechai Wolff Haffkine (1860-1930), an oft-forgotten champion of vaccinations.
Will he is: And take a bow, William Adams! The Grammy-winning American rapper, singer, songwriter and record producer – known professionally as will.i.am, frontman of the Black Eyed Peas – turns 49 today.
Give the popular performer (and busy social activist) your best at editor@innovateli.com, where we riff on your news tips and your calendar events are like peas in our pod.
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
FERC yeah: The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has approved a first-ever interconnection agreement between an offshore wind farm and the New York City electricity-transmission system, checking another box for Equinor’s Empire Wind 1 project.
The Norwegian energy firm is trumpeting the FERC’s approval of a Large Generator Interconnection Agreement linking Con Edison, New York Independent System Operator – a network of operators, analysts and other energy-industry stakeholders – and Empire Wind 1, an 810-megawatt farm set to rise 15 miles south of Jones Beach Island later this year. The authorization allows the farm to plug into the NYC grid at Con Ed’s Gowanus substation via the Sunset Park Onshore Substation, already under construction in South Brooklyn.
It’s the latest in a long string of approvals for Empire Wind 1, which is advancing at flank speed, according to Equinor Renewables Americas Vice President Teddy Muhlfelder. “The execution of the LGIA is a key milestone for Empire Wind and for New York City,” Muhlfelder said Wednesday. “This federal approval … is another important step in allowing Equinor to advance a project that will connect offshore renewable power to Brooklyn and into hundreds of thousands of New York homes.”
Eyes in the dark: Stony Brook University’s Condor Array Telescope is actually located at the Dark Sky New Mexico observatory.
Dark matters: Four – count ’em, four – scientific papers published this month spotlight the impressive wingspan of Stony Brook University’s new Condor Array Telescope.
The array – a collaboration of the SBU Department of Physics and Astronomy and the American Museum of Natural History’s Department of Astrophysics combining off-the-shelf, consumer-grade components with state-of-the-art computing and information technologies – is front-and-center in four studies published back-to-back in the peer-reviewed Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. In the first paper, researchers discuss extremely faint “stellar streams” surrounding distant spiral galaxy NGC 5907, located some 50 million lightyears from Earth; in the second, Condor reassesses an image of a very-low-brightness “gas shell” surrounding dwarf nova Z Camelopardalis, obtained in 2007 by Arizona’s Kitt Peak National Observatory.
Two other papers (here and here) describe an extremely faint shell surrounding nova KT Eridani – another ideal job for the array, which combines light captured by several smaller telescopes to study astronomical features that are otherwise too dim to see. “These new images demonstrate just how sensitive Condor is,” noted SBU Department of Physics and Astronomy Professor Kenneth Lanzetta. “The new shells are simply too faint to be seen by conventional telescopes.”
TOP OF THE SITE
History at sea: In a landmark national moment, state and federal officials salute the opening of the South Fork Wind farm in Long Island waters.
Wisdom tree: Thank you in advance for sharing this engaging newsletter with your entire innovation team! Now share your wisdom by signing them up for their own subscriptions – always easy, always free.
ICYMI
The annual student Business Plan Competition hosted by Adelphi University’s Robert B. Willumstad School of Business championed creativity, sustainability and compassion.
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 California: Newport Beach-based organic coffee originator Chameleon expands ready-to-drink line with new cold-brew cans.
From Indiana: Indianapolis-based charitable chocolatier Endangered Species Chocolate energizes habitats (and tastebuds) with “interactive chocolate experience.”
From Virginia: The Mount Vernon-based George Washington Presidential Library explores the formation and gravity of the Oval Office with “Inventing the Presidency” podcast.
ON THE MOVE
Anwau Huffman
+ Anwau Huffman has been appointed associate executive director of human resources at Manhasset-based North Shore University Hospital. He was vice president of human resources at Huntington Hospital.
+ Donna Cice has been promoted to vice president and enterprise human resources officer at New Hyde Park-based Northwell Health. She previously served as a human resources leader at Manhasset-based North Shore University Hospital and for Northwell Health’s Central Region.
+ Martha Reichert has been elevated to partner and co-chairwoman of the Land Use and Zoning Group at Riverhead-based Twomey, Latham, Shea, Kelley, Dubin & Quartararo. She was an associate.
+ Anthony Figliola has been hired as deputy commissioner for the Suffolk County Department of Health Services in Great River. He was executive vice president of Empire Government Strategies in Uniondale.
+ Smita Daniel has been hired as executive director of the Child Care Council of Nassau in Uniondale. She was director of Harbor Child Care in Herricks.
+ Marin Brennan has been promoted to winemaker at Cutchogue-based Bedell Cellars. She previously served as assistant winemaker.
+ The Nassau County Industrial Development Agency has appointed two new members to its Board of Directors: Marissa Brown, regional coordinator for the New York State Senate, and Joseph Manzella, a retired New York City Police Department detective.
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 (Luck Of The Irish Edition)
Get your Irish up: An Irish airport, a winter storm … and the rest is history!
Standing Pat: How a British-born slave became Ireland’s Christian hero.
Gaza gripe: It’s going to be a tense St. Patrick’s Day at the White House.
Double shot: The innovative history of Irish coffee.
Pot of gold: Please continue supporting the amazing institutions that support Innovate Long Island, including the Town of Islip Office of Economic Development, where four-leaf clovers are nice, but your company’s good fortune is more about smart policy and hard work. Check them out.
