Chill out: Welcome to Wednesday, dear readers, and a nippy one at that, as decidedly Fall-like temperatures give Long Island a truly Autumnal feel.
Regional economic development, however, is hotter than ever – as noted in this fiery hump-day innovation newsletter, where you’re certain to find heartwarming items of interest. Wrap yourself in the blanket of new knowledge and enjoy this socioeconomic sizzle real.
Lunch lady land: Public school cafeteria lunches have come a long way — or have they?
One-stop shopping: Today is Oct. 16 and we open with a retail pillar offering something for everyone – your local department store, which certainly loses some luster in the E-Commerce Age but is still the destination deluxe on National Department Store Day.
From retail to tails – and whiskers and claws – on Global Cat Day, which is not International Cat Day (celebrated Aug. 8) but shares a familiar feline focus.
Lunch, period: Leave your cat at home on National Take Your Parents to Lunch Day, a second-Wednesday-of-October observance that’s less about picking up the check than inviting Mom and Dad to your cafeteria for a firsthand update on school lunches.
Parents, you get to chase those chicken dogs, fruit cocktails and low-fat milk containers with National Liqueur Day, gently sipping alcoholic beverages (distilled with fruit, cream, herbs, spices, flowers or nuts) every Oct. 16 (but not at school, please).
Over and out: You have to drink a lot of Grand Marnier to get blotto – a quicker route would be surgical anesthesia, which was publicly demonstrated for the first time on this date in 1846 (to the relief of a Massachusetts General Hospital patient with a nasty neck tumor).
Finding religion: Raise a cordial today to Utah’s Brigham Young University, which was founded (as Brigham Young Academy) on Oct. 16, 1875, by the Mormon mainstay and second-ever president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Control group: While it wasn’t always the case, today’s Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints takes a fairly progressive stand on the use of birth control – bonus points for nurse, writer and sex educator Margaret Sanger, who opened the first U.S. birth-control clinic in Brooklyn on this date in 1916.
Prototype princess: The “Alice Comedies” — Walt’s Disney’s first attempts to blend animation and live action — launched an empire.
Disney’s world: Also taking control (of everything, it seems) is the Walt Disney Co., which officially launched when its “founding document” – a deal for New York City-based M.J. Winkler Productions to distribute 12 episodes of Disney’s live action-meets-animation “Alice Comedies” – was signed 101 years ago today.
Hunger force: And it was Oct. 16, 1945, when the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations was officially inaugurated.
Forty-two nations came together in Quebec, Canada, to launch the organization, which aimed to tackle global food-insecurity issues exacerbated by World War II.
Man of letters: American lexicographer, textbook pioneer, English-language spelling reformer, political writer, editor and author Noah Webster Jr. (1758-1843) – known best for formalizing American English with 1783’s “American Spelling Book” and his seminal 1828 “American Dictionary of the English Language” – would be 266 years old today.
Eugene O’Neill: Keeping it real.
Also born on Oct. 16 were Italian geologist Giovanni Arduino (1714-1795), a mining specialist who became the “Father of Italian Geology”; Irish poet and playwright Oscar Wilde (1854-1900), an enduring master of comedy; Norwegian oceanographer Bjorn Helland-Hansen (1877-1957), who introduced physics and chemistry to the study of oceans; American playwright Eugene O’Neill (1888-1953), a Nobel Prize-winner who forced realism into U.S. dramas; and American theologian, philosopher, ethicist and educator Mary Daly (1928-2010), a pioneer of radical feminist theology.
Soaring Bird: And take a bow, Suzanne Brigit Bird! The American retired professional basketball player – one of the greatest to ever grace the WNBA, still the women’s professional league’s all-time leader in games played and career assists – turns 44 today.
Give the Syosset-born superstar your best at editor@innovateli.com, where you lead our all-time list in assists (thanks to all those news tips and calendar events).
About our sponsor: Northwell Health is New York’s largest healthcare provider and private employer, with 21 hospitals, 900 outpatient facilities and 85,000 employees. We’re making research breakthroughs at the Feinstein Institutes and training the next generation of medical professionals at the Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra/Northwell and the Hofstra Northwell School of Graduate Nursing and Physician Assistant Studies. Visit Northwell.edu.
BUT FIRST, THIS
Show some spine: There’s less screwing around with the Augmedics xvision Spine System.
Revision vision: Northwell Health neurosurgeons have performed Suffolk County’s first-ever augmented reality-assisted spinal surgery.
The complex operation, performed late this summer at Bay Shore’s South Shore University Hospital, involved the delicate implantation of “spinal instrumentation” using the xvision Spine System, an AR-powered navigation platform created by Illinois-based med-tech manufacturer Augmedics. The “revision surgery” – scheduled to address dislodged screws, a partial collapse of the 71-year-old patient’s spinal column and other complications resulting from a prior surgery – included a decompression thoracolumbar spinal fusion and lasted more than eight hours, according to Northwell.
Revision surgeries are “inherently more challenging because the anatomy is no longer normal after previous operations,” noted lead surgeon Yike Jin, but the xvision Spine System – including a headset that projects 2D and 3D navigation into the surgeon’s line of sight, providing real-time visualization of the patient’s internal anatomy based on preoperative scans – proved up to the task. “With Augmedics, the navigation and CT imaging is overlaid directly into our field of view,” noted Jin, SSUH’s director of Complex Spine Surgery. “This allows us to keep our eyes on the patient to place screws more accurately, making the surgery safer.”
Clean living: Bethpage State Park is looking pretty spiffy these days, thanks in large part to the employees of Canon USA.
The Melville-based subsidiary of the Japanese imaging giant (more specifically, Canon’s Corporate Social Responsibility Department) marked its 27th Clean Earth Day Initiative Sept. 28 by dispatching dozens of “Clean Earth Crew” volunteers to the 1,477-acre state park straddling the Nassau/Suffolk border, where they participated in various conservation efforts. Among other things, the 89 employees and family members power-washed and painted picnic tables, removed litter from hiking trails and added new rubber mulch to playground areas – tasks aligned with the Japanese mothership’s Kyosei philosophy, which emphasizes harmony among different races, religions and cultures.
More than just prettying up the park, the annual Clean Earth program is “a great opportunity for our dedicated employees … to give back to the community,” according to Canon USA President and CEO Isao Kobayashi. “Improving Long Island’s natural environment continues to be a priority for all of us,” Kobayashi added. “We look forward to continued efforts to work toward those goals.”
TOP OF THE SITE
Fire sale: Albany is funneling more than $5 million in fresh funding to Long Island volunteer firefighters, with new training enhancements and mental-health services – and a legacy-preserving museum – on the way.
How do they do it? Find out on Spark: The Innovate Long Island Podcast, which goes one-on-one with the smartest minds in regional innovation to retrace their profitable paths and map out their best ideas for the future. Secrets revealed!
VOICES
The Johnson Amendment, the federal statute designed to prevent churches and charities from engaging in political activities, is under attack – a big problem for America, according to Family and Children’s Association President/CEO and Voices Nonprofits Anchor Jeffrey Reynolds, who sees real dangers in politicizing the charitable sector.
STUFF WE’RE READING
Wart speed: Why seven newly discovered frog species were named for “Star Trek” captains. Popular Science seeks out new life.
Live long: Human life expectancy has more than doubled over the last 120 years – but has it peaked? Salon lives its best life.
And prosper: The Nobel Prize for Economics goes to three U.S. immigrants who understand societal justice. Forbes explores quality of life.
RECENT FUNDINGS
+ Fission Labs, an East Hampton-based developer of a decentralized-finance blockchain application, raised $1.6 million in pre-Seed funding led by SALT Fund, Kraynos Capital and Anthony Scaramucci.
+ Rivermark Medical, a Wisconsin-based med-tech developing minimally invasive solutions for benign prostatic hyperplasia, raised $30 million in Series C funding led by American Century Investments.
+ Form Energy, a West Virginia-based manufacturer developing a new class of multi-day energy-storage systems, raised $405 million in Series F funding led by T. Rowe Price.
+ Cytovale, a California-based commercial-stage medical diagnostics pioneer, raised $100 million in Series D funding led by Sands Capital.
+ Molg, a Virginia-based robotics microfactory, raised $5.5 million in Seed funding led by Closed Loop Partners’ Ventures Group.
+ Zap Energy, a Washington State-based liquid-metal-cooled fusion test platform, raised $130 million in Series D funding led by Soros Fund Management.
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 Northwell Health). Marlene McDonnell can tell you more.
BELOW THE FOLD (Nuclear Option Edition)
Powerful message: Godzilla warned us, but have we listened?
Atomic café: Google goes nuclear to power its data centers.
Peace time: Hiroshima, Nagasaki survivors’ antiwar efforts earn ultimate honors.
True kaiju: Seventy years later, the original “Godzilla’s” atomic alarms still ring true.
Nuclear medicine: Please continue supporting the innovative institutions that support Innovate Long Island, including Northwell Health, where specialized radiology is just the tip of the next-generation iceberg. Check them out.
