Leaps and bounds: Up and over we go, intrepid innovators – another Autumnal Hump Day on Long Island, another jumpy Wednesday for the global innovation economy.
We’re soaring right beside you, over tariff wars, a steadily rising Consumer Price Index, the epic U.S. federal government shutdown and other economic hurdles. Fortunately, innovation abounds – and we’ve got plenty in the hopper.
You’re smarter than that: In a world full of middling intellects, be like Albert.
Shop Loca(LI): Before we spring through those steps, a gentle reminder about Innovate Long Island’s special deal with LocaLI Bred, the classy gift-box curators and bestie of every company morale officer in charge of holiday gifting for corporate employees, customers and partners.
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Lock and load: Today is Oct. 22, known around the keyboard (and globe) as International Caps Lock Day, shouting out a typing-with-emphasis trait that’s written its own psychology.
If you rather believe that eloquence, good grammar and the occasional witticism make for more effective communication, you might be better off celebrating Smart is Cool Day, an annual homage to big brains.
Go nuts: Today’s menu covers all the bases with a wide-ranging and wondrous choice – at once a topping and a central ingredient, a taste and a texture, a star of breakfasts and dinners and dozens of desserts … ladies and gentlemen, give it up for your favorite dried fruits and seeds, those drupes and legumes we all know and love … it’s National Nut Day!
Ivy initiation: Known less for its nuts than its alpha-genius alumni (including two U.S. Presidents, one U.S. First Lady and 81 Nobel laureates), Princeton University – referenced originally as the College of New Jersey – was chartered on this date in 1746.
Relentless drive: It took Henry Ford a while to gain control of his eponymous automobile company.
In the driver’s seat: Speaking of alpha geniuses, Henry Ford was appointed president of the Ford Motor Co. on Oct. 22, 1906, after buying out the company’s minority investors. (Before the takeover, Ford was vice president and chief engineer – and not even the majority shareholder of his eponymous enterprise, for those keeping score.)
Copy that: Other famous companies associated with this date include the Xerox Corp., which wouldn’t arrive for decades – though its primarily technology, xerographic copies, became a thing on this date in 1938, when Queens-based physicist Chester Carlson pulled together a messy process combining sulfur, zinc plates and microscopic glass slides.
Propose a toast: We’ll raise a glass to Ford’s rise and Carlson’s ingenuity – and to Toastmasters International, the global nonprofit dedicated to improving communication skills, which was just the Toastmasters Club when it held its first meeting 101 years ago today in the basement of a California YMCA.
Sweet (and sour): And it was Oct. 22, 1981, when aspartame artificial sweetener – which had been approved for tabletop use by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration three months earlier – hit nationwide shelves.
With FDA approvals for use in candies, medical tablets, breakfast cereals, instant coffees, puddings, dairy products, chewing gum and more, the low-calorie, high-controversy sweetener quickly became famous under the stage name NutraSweet.
“The most dangerous man in America”: American psychologist and author Timothy Francis Leary (1920-1996) – a noted Harvard University lecturer, researcher and psychedelic-drug advocate who ran afoul of President Richard Nixon (and later branched into cybernetics and entertainment) – would be 105 years old today.
International hit: Nobody in Japan or the United States was better at putting bat on ball than Ichiro Suzuki.
Also born on Oct. 22 were Swedish physician Magnus Huss (1807-1890), who coined the word “alcoholism”; American agricultural chemist Stephen Babcock (1843-1941), who became the “Father of Scientific Dairying” by measuring butterfat in milk; French actress Sarah Bernhardt (1844-1923), the most famous performer of the late 19th Century stage; American physicist and radio engineer Karl Jansky (1905-1950), who discovered extraterrestrial radio waves and spearheaded the development of radio astronomy; and American actress and singer Annette Funicello (1942-2013), who rose steadily from child star to teen star to pop star.
The hitman: And take a bow, Ichiro Suzuki! The Japanese retired baseball star – who amassed more hits across all professional baseball leagues than any other player, and in July became the first Japanese-born player enshrined in the National Baseball Hall of Fame – turns 52 today.
Send well wishes to the hitting machine – who was voted into the American hall the same month he was voted into the Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame – at editor@innovateli.com, where the count is always in our favor when you pitch story tips and calendar events.
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BUT FIRST, THIS
Fats chance: The National Institutes of Health is all-in on a Stony Brook University research team’s efforts to decipher the role certain fat molecules play in cancer cases.
The NIH’s National Cancer Institute has awarded a five-year, $11 million grant to an interdisciplinary research team led by Yusuf Hannun, the Joel Strum Kenny Professor in Cancer Research at SBU’s Renaissance School of Medicine. Hannun and friends are investigating the functionality of sphingolipids – a class of lipids that regulates many important biological functions – in cellular differentiation, cell death, metastasis and other cellular functions key to the spread of cancer.
By determining how these lipids respond to cellular stresses – and better understanding how they interact with chemotherapeutic agents used to treat cancer – the researchers hope to advance previous investigations into the fat molecules’ functionality in breast and liver cancers, with new studies of lung cancers and leukemias to follow. “While our research … will be broad and far-reaching, we will initially focus on SLs in breast cancer development and therapy, the action of DNA-damaging chemotherapies and mitigating toxicity of chemotherapy,” Hannun noted.
Boston commons: Gordon F. Derner School of Psychology Dean J. Christopher Muran, a proponent of alliance-focused training, sees common ground in a Boston University-led psychotherapy study.
Psyched up: A leading Long Island psychology school has joined a multimillion-dollar mental-health research initiative.
Adelphi University’s Gordon F. Derner School of Psychology has been selected as a “collaborative partner” on a $5.2 million grant awarded to Boston University by the John Templeton Foundation, a Pennsylvania-based 501(c)3 that funds interdisciplinary scientific research. The grant supports a three-year BC initiative that aims to develop evidence-based tools to help professional psychotherapists and their patients thrive, with eight clinical sites across the United States and Ireland working collaboratively on the project.
The Derner School – which will focus on the effects of alliance-focused training on relational virtues, therapist performances and patient outcomes – is slated to receive $400,000 in direct funding, with an additional stipend for indirect costs. “Implementing an AFT approach helps therapists develop and refine their abilities … and revitalizes and deepens everyday clinical work,” noted Dean of the Derner School of Psychology J. Christopher Muran, who joins Principal Investigator Catherine Eubanks on the Adelphi team. “By integrating AFT with the study of relational virtues, the project aims to enhance therapeutic outcomes and promote human flourishing within mental healthcare settings.”
TOP OF THE SITE
Hole foods: A popular Plainview breakfast spot will square off with competitors from around New York City, the nation and the world next month at the 2025 New York BagelFest.
Stand-up folks: New episodes of “Spark: The Innovate Long Island Podcast” stand and deliver next week – but classic conversations with the media master, the IDA innovator, the construction kingpin, the small-business sage, the last-mile leader and dozens of other innovation-economy sparkplugs are standing by right now. Stand for nothing less.
VOICES
With artificial-intelligence deepfakes proliferating and Albany considering new protections, Sahn Ward Braff Coschignano Managing Member and Voices Law Anchor Michael Sahn deciphers the financial and moral implications of AI-generated “digital replicas” – for performers, producers and the general public.
Something you’d like to add? The Entrepreneur’s Edge is open for business! Innovate Long Island’s promoted-content platform provides a direct link from startups, established corporations and nonprofits to our forward-thinking audience – your future clients. Progressive product to promote? Singular service to sell? Sociopolitical position to push? Here’s your chance to shine a bright light on the big picture, the little details and everything in between, from the perspective of your innovation-focused enterprise. Learn more here!
STUFF WE’RE READING
Investment investigation: As federal R&D investments vanish, the United States risks losing its innovation edge. The Conference Board promotes scientific pillars.
Call in Clouseau? Breaking down the audacious, broad-daylight jewelry heist at the Louvre. CBS News investigates the crime scene.
Clever clusters: In honor of Smart is Cool Day, welcome to the world’s smartest cities. The BBC takes a tour.
RECENT FUNDINGS
+ Adaptyx Biosciences, a California-based biotech producing wearable molecular-monitoring devices, raised $14 million in Seed funding led by Interlagos Capital, with participation from Overwater Ventures, Starbloom Capital, Stanford University, the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub, Hyperlink Ventures, Cantos Ventures, Humba Ventures and Seaside Ventures.
+ Golpo, a California-based artificial intelligence platform that transforms documents and user-entered prompts into interactive instruction videos, raised $4.1 million in Seed funding led by BNVT Capital, with participation from Emergence Capital, Y Combinator and Afore Capital.
+ Valink Therapeutics, a Massachusetts-based biotech developing next-generation oncology therapeutics, closed an $11.8 million funding round led by redalpine, with participation from LongeVC, Oxford Science Enterprises, RV Invest, p53 Invest and Hoxton Ventures.
+ Fourier Health, a Florida-based “clinician-in-the-loop” AI platform that streamlines and summarizes patient clinical data, raised $4.8 million in Seed funding led by Yosemite, with participation from Innospark Ventures, NextGen Venture Partners and Tau Ventures.
+ Triplemoon, a Texas-based digital-health platform providing mental-health services to pediatric patients and their families, closed a $3.5 million Seed funding led by Activate Venture Partners and LiveOak Ventures.
+ Daylight Energy, a New York City-based decentralized energy company that rewards and finances distributed power, raised $60 million in project-development facility led by Turtle Hill Capital and $15 million in equity financing led by Framework Ventures, with participation from a16z crypto, Lerer Hippeau, M13, Room40 Ventures, EV3, Crucible Capital, Coinbase Ventures and Not Boring Capital.
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 – on Long Island, and soon, across New York State (just ask New York Tech). Gregory Zeller can tell you more.
BELOW THE FOLD (Longest In U.S. History Edition)
Marathon meeting: No TV show has been on the air longer than the NBC Television Network’s “Meet the Press.”
Stalling: The federal government shutdown is now the second-longest in history (behind the epic breakdown in Trump’s first term).
Terror-izing: Two decades, four Presidents, 2,000 American soldiers, nearly $1 trillion … recalling America’s longest war.
Channeling: From “Meet the Press” and “General Hospital” to “Sesame Street” and “The Price is Right,” celebrating America’s longest-running TV shows.
Long history: Please continue supporting the innovative institutions that support Innovate Long Island, including the New York Institute of Technology, which has been empowering students with cutting-edge educational and social programming for seven decades. Check them out.
