No. 1096: It knows what scares you (early sunsets, Halloween, Election 2026 and candy corn, eeewww)

 

Take your pick: Welcome to Friday, intrepid innovators, and not just any Friday but a bona fide amalgam of milestone moments.

Not only are we completing another busy workweek (and another momentous month), but today is the eve of All Hallows Eve (a.k.a. the day before Halloween, which to the delight of parents and homeowners everywhere falls on a Saturday this year). We also change the clocks this weekend (falling back one hour at 2 a.m. Sunday, to the delight of nyctophobes everywhere) and, of course, we’re enjoying the last moments of sanity (well, what passes for sanity these days) before Election Day, a monumental midterm referendum on the current Presidential administration (with early voting already underway across the nation – and more popular than ever, by some counts).

That’s a lot of notable stuff. Thank goodness you’ve got this supersized innovation-week-in-review newsletter to catch you up.

Boo: If tomorrow is Halloween, then today is Oct. 30 – Mischief Night, of course, at least in this neck of the (haunted) woods, with mild pranks (up to and including pumpkin-smashing) in the forecast.

If you think that’s scary, hold on tight – it’s also National Text Your Ex Day (bravely going where angels fear to tread) and National Candy Corn Day, celebrating the horrifically awful candy (yeah, we said it).

Dead reckoning: Also invoking the dead (or undead?) is Create a Great Funeral Day, when end-of-life planning is all the rage. And it’s National Checklist Day, which should help with the funeral-planning.

You’ve likely dipped into the trick-or-treat bowl already, but either way, there’s a ton of sweets in your immediate future, so give your gut a break today – just a little nibble on National Breadstick Day, carb loading every Oct. 30.

Church on time: With ghosts and ghouls and other demonic forces having a day, we could all use a little churching up – bringing to mind St. Paul’s Chapel, the oldest church building on Manhattan Island, which opened on this date in 1766.

Work on time: Also clocking in today is Rochester-based inventor Daniel Cooper, who patented the punch-card time clock on Oct. 30, 1894.

Six-eight time: Also keeping a beat (a primary compound meter of 6/8 in its first movement, with meters of 12/8 and 2/4 in its second movement) is composer Amy Beach’s “Gaelic Symphony” – the first major work by an American female composer, which debuted on this date in 1896 in Boston.

High times: Way up at the top of the brand-new Empire State Building, the National Broadcasting Co. began construction of its iconic broadcasting antenna 95 years ago today, heightening what was already (at the time) the world’s tallest building.

End times? And it was Oct. 30, 1938, when listeners tuning into “The Mercury Theater on the Air” radio show were unnerved by the infamous “War of the Worlds” broadcast.

Although reports of panic in the streets have been exaggerated through the decades, several anxious callers – duped by producer Orson Welles and his innovative scriptwriters, who doctored H.G. Wells’ classic sci-fi masterwork – did flood police and radio stations looking for updates on the deadly alien invasion.

Make a day of it: Italian explorer Christopher Columbus (1451-1506) – a morally ambiguous master navigator, intrepid admiral and mass murderer who made four transatlantic voyages (and conquered many indigenous peoples) to pave a path for European expansion and colonization – would be 575 years old today.

Also born on Oct. 30 were American statesman, attorney, diplomat, political philosopher, writer and Founding Father John Adams (1735-1826), the American Revolution leader who became the second president of the United States; American philanthropist Elizabeth Coolidge (1864-1953), a trained pianist who used her family fortune to support the arts, especially music; Italian American bodybuilder and entrepreneur Charles Atlas (born Angelo Siciliano, 1892-1972), the brains (and brawn) behind one of history’s greatest advertising campaigns; American musician and painter Grace Slick (born Grace Barnett Wing, 1939), the Jefferson Starship frontwoman hailed as an icon of the 1960s counterculture movement; and American fashion model and body activist Ashley Graham (born 1987), a plus-size champion of body positivity and self-acceptance.

Correctamundo: And take a bow, Henry Franklin Winkler! The American actor, author, producer and director – who beat dyslexia to become Arthur Fonzarelli, famously “jumped the shark” and fought hard against typecasting for the rest of his career – turns 81 today.

Stay cool and send birthday wishes for the “Happy Days” alum to editor@innovateli.com, where your news tips and calendar events always get a thumbs up.

 

About our sponsor: St. Joseph’s University-New York, has provided a diverse population of students in the New York metropolitan area with an affordable education rooted in the liberal arts tradition since 1916. The independent and coeducational university provides a strong academic and values-oriented education at the undergraduate and graduate levels, aiming to prepare each student for a life characterized by integrity, intellectual rigor, social responsibility, spiritual depth and service. Through its Long Island, Brooklyn and online campuses, the university offers degrees in 100 majors, special course offerings and certificates and affiliated and pre-professional programs. Learn more here.

 

BUT FIRST, THIS

Live from Farmingdale: If you can’t get to Farmingdale State College to catch this weekend’s Nassau County girls’ high school soccer championships, don’t worry – you can catch the matches live on YouTube.

The girls’ county championships, slated to run yesterday through Saturday at Farmingdale State, are being livestreamed on Hicksville-based sports broadcaster Varsity Media’s YouTube channel. Already known for livestreaming regional high school sports (and archiving the events for future viewing), Varsity Media – which serves Long Island, New York City and portions of Upstate New York – is covering the Nassau girls’ high school soccer championships for the first time.

The championship coverage – which started Thursday with the Class AAA title tilt between Oceanside High School and Massapequa High School and is scheduled to concluded with Saturday’s Class A final, pitting Floral Park Memorial HS against Seaford HS – is sponsored by USL Long Island, a new professional soccer franchise preparing to complete in USL League One. “We’ve consistently said that USL Long Island is going to be the community’s team,” noted team Co-owner and President Sara Whalen. “These young women deserve to have their championship moments celebrated and shared with their families, friends and the entire Long Island soccer community.”

Qunnect-ing flight: A quantum-computing technology created at Stony Brook University has cracked Time Magazine’s list of the year’s best inventions.

Behold, the Qu-MEM, a next-generation quantum-memory device commercialized by Brooklyn-based Qunnect, a 2017 startup launched by Stony Brook Endowed Presidential Professor of Physics Eden Figueroa and friends that’s now in the capable guiding hands of CEO Noel Goddard, a veteran research scientist and entrepreneur. Based on lab work directed by Qunnect co-founders Mehdi Namazi, Mael Flament and Figueroa – the director of the Stony Brook University Quantum Institute – Qu-MEM is designed to store, manipulate and retrieve quantum states and integrate them into existing fiberoptic infrastructures, without the near-absolute-zero, superconductivity-facilitating temperatures normally required by quantum computers.

Self-billed as the world’s first commercial room-temperature quantum-memory device, Qu-MEM has been hailed as a major computational breakthrough – and a punching-above-its-weight victory for SBU worthy of inclusion on Time’s prestigious best-inventions list. “A lot of people doubted that a state university could pull off a breakthrough like this,” Figueroa noted. “But seeing our work featured in Time alongside tech giants proves what’s possible … a true testament to the exceptional talent and determination of our students.”

 

TOP OF THE SITE

Money (for nothing): Effective philanthropy is about more than a monetary donation – a critical factor, according to Voices Social Services Anchor Jeffrey Reynolds, that’s often lost in a world of direct deposits and cash grabs.

No money (for everything): You can always catch up with these fantastic Friday Newsletters in Innovate Long Island’s amazing Newsletter Archive … but remember, our equally awesome Monday Calendar Newsletter isn’t archived (it’s for free subscribers only). Catch up with those right here.

 

STUFF WE’RE READING

Trust no one: As Musk and friends remove safeguards, AI-driven election disinformation runs wild on social media. The Guardian eviscerates election-meddling.

In Trump he trusts: Is the President (not so) secretly plotting for Republicans to lose the midterms? Raw Story studies senseless statements.

Trust funds: What can a Democratic Congress actually do to address affordability? U.S. News & World Report predicts pricing priorities.  

 

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: Sebastopol-based Asian barbecue sauce boss Bachan’s expands its condiment cart with silky, savory Japanese mayonnaise flavors.

From Kansas: Kansas City-based higher-ed expansion enabler Archer Education helps institutions gauge online growth capacity with its free Market Potential Calculator.

From California: Los Angeles-based Webby Award-winning podcast “The Telepathy Tapes” returns with an exploration of children who clearly recall past lives.

 

RECENT FUNDINGS

+ PreScalar, a California-based software developer focused on testing manufacturing infrastructure, raised $7 million in Seed funding led by Dynamo Ventures and BMW i Ventures, with participation from Blue Wire Capital, Uplift Ventures and Antler.

+ Luxor Technology, a Washington State-based full-stack computation champion, raised $16 million in primary and secondary funding led by CMT Digital, with participation from Canaan, MicroBT, Halo and Steelhead.

+ Nirva, a California-based wearable AI “personal companion” developer, raised $25 million in initial funding led by Lightspeed Venture Partners and South Park Commons.

+ Hexagon Bio, a California-based biopharma creating new payload mechanisms for antibody-drug conjugates, raised $62 million in Series C funding led by The Column Group, with participation from Nextech Invest, Deviation Capital, 8VC and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board.

+ Nevis, a New York City-based, AI-powered wealth-management operating system, raised $70 million in Series B funding led by EQT Ventures, with participation from The Charles Schwab Corp., QuantumLight, Sequoia Capital, ICONIQ and Ribbit Capital.

+ Pathos, a NYC-based, AI-powered technology and clinical-stage drug-development company, raised $237 million in Series E funding led by Bristol Myers Squibb.

 

ON THE MOVE

+ Ruben Quintero has been named chief of fetal surgery at Northwell Health’s New Hyde Park-based Long Island Jewish Medical Center. He is director at The Fetal Institute in Florida and is the inventor of the Quintero Staging System, the global standard for diagnosing and rating Twin-to-Twin Transfusion Syndrome.

+ South Setauket-based Jefferson’s Ferry has elected three new members to its Board of Directors:

• James Danowski has been elected chairman of the Board of Directors. He is partner emeritus at Cullen & Danowski in Port Jefferson Station.
• Kim Kubasek has been elected vice chairwoman of the Board of Directors. She is chief executive officer at Brightway Living & Learning in Smithtown.
• Valentin Staller has been elected as a member of the Board of Directors. He is vice president of Staller Associates Realty in Islandia.

+ Josh Van Kirk has been hired as senior counsel at Uniondale-based Harris Beach Murtha. He was senior attorney at Hunton Andrews Kurth in New York City.

+ Ramana Davuluri has been named a fellow of the American College of Medical Informatics. He is a SUNY Distinguished Professor and interim chairman of Stony Brook University’s Department of Biomedical Informatics.

+ Chaya Rosenbaum has been hired as an associate at Uniondale-based Ruskin Moscou Faltischek. She was an associate attorney at Weiss Zarett Brofman Sonnenklar & Levy in New Hyde Park.

 

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 St. Joe’s). Gregory Zeller can tell you more.

 

BELOW THE FOLD (Halloween 2026 Edition)

Spider-sense: Superhero costumes rule this year’s roost – and one swings far above the rest.

Historical hysterics: From ancient Samhain rituals to modern trick-or-treating, tracing Halloween history.

Maybe it’s a purple people-eater thing? When (and how) did purple become a Halloween color?

So good, it’s scary: Please continue supporting the innovative institutions that support Innovate Long Island, including St. Joseph’s University, fighting the forces of darkness one professionally (and spiritually) prepared graduate at a time. Check them out.