On purpose: Here we are, dear readers – knee-deep in the first workweek of 2022, with a fresh year of innovation ahead.
What will 2022 bring? After two years of COVID with a side of Trump, specifics are hard to predict, but you can take this to the bank: This year will be whatever we make it, individually and collectively.
You know Innovate Long Island’s socioeconomic stance: embrace science, support sustainability, honor entrepreneurs, promote smart investment, reward logic and civil discourse, battle racism/sexism/ageism/classism and otherwise foster new and better thinking.
It’s Jan. 5, 2022, and the New Year is here. What are your plans?
Serving suggestion: Whip it! Whip it good!
Carb-out: Your New Year’s plans may include a diet, which may get a fat-burning boost on National Keto Day.
Meanwhile, resolutions far and wide take a hit on National Whipped Cream Day, also celebrated each Jan. 5. (Bonus: keto whipped cream!)
Fade in: Today is also National Screenwriters Day, recognizing the mighty pens who put words in characters’ mouths – and thoughts in our minds.
Armageddon, the prequel: Like a CGI-filled big-studio blockbuster, the night of Jan. 5, 1834 – known to many as The Night the Stars Fell – had the terrified Kiowa people of the Southern Plains convinced the world was ending.
Of course, it was only an intense meteor shower – the second in six weeks, actually.
Secret identity: The title duo’s big-screen debut, circa 1931.
British horror story: Speaking of fantastic tales, “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde” – Robert Louis Stevenson’s often-screen-adapted masterpiece – was published on this date in 1886.
The X-ray files: Also sounding a bit like science fiction was German physician Wilhelm Röntgen’s ability to see through skin and metal using electromagnetic radiation, which went public on Jan. 5, 1896.
Bird house: Devoted to science fact, the National Audubon Society – known first as the National Association of Audubon Societies for the Protection of Wild Birds and Animals – incorporated in New York State 117 years ago today.
They prefer “little” planet: But Eris – officially, the Solar System’s second dwarf planet – was discovered on this date in 2005.
Orbiting our Sun three times farther than Pluto, Eris is only slightly smaller than that other dwarf planet. (For those keeping score, they’re both smaller than Earth’s Moon.)
It’s National Whipped Cream Day, remember? American inventor and industrialist Aaron Lapin (1914-1999) – who patented the aerosolizing whipped cream nozzle and founded Reddi-Wip, but not in that order – would be 108 years old today.
To the point: Lange, seaworthy mixologist.
Also born on Jan. 5 were self-trained American chemist Edmund Ruffin (1794-1865), the father of soil science and a notorious, slave-holding secessionist; American manufacturer King Gillette (1855-1932), who built an empire on disposable razor blades; English archaeologist Dame Kathleen Kenyon (1906-1978), among the 20th Century’s preeminent women archaeologists; American actor George “Superman” Reeves (1914-1959), whose premature death remains a mystery; and American actor, director and screenwriter Theodore William Lange III (born 1948), known best as Isaac, your bartender, on “The Love Boat.”
The Godmother: And take a bow, Diane Hall Keaton! The Academy, Tony and Golden Globe award-winning actress and idiosyncratic fashionista turns 76 today.
Wish the oft-honored performer well at editor@innovateli.com, where you can ask us about our business just this one time (well … anytime, actually).
About our sponsor: The Long Island Business Development Council has helped build the regional economy for 53 years by bringing together government-economic development officials, developers, financial experts and others for education, debate and networking.
BUT FIRST, THIS
First things first: Trumpeting regional business opportunity, the Suffolk County Industrial Development Agency has revised its longstanding Long Island First Policy.
Designed to encourage local business participation in projects seeking IDA assistance, the policy has been on the books “for quite some time,” noted Suffolk County Industrial Development Agency Commissioner and Chairwoman Natalie Wright. But the new standards – developed with input from the construction and real estate industries, along with other labor and business leaders – require applicants to make “best faith efforts” to engage Long Island-based employees, suppliers and services, including “detailed documentation showing their best efforts to meet the policy’s goals,” according to the IDA.
The idea is to maximize the economic impact of each IDA tax-incentives package – already a critical coin of the economic-development realm – by enhancing opportunity along each project’s supply chain. “These revisions will create enhanced opportunities for local businesses when investments are being made with IDA assistance,” Wright said. “This policy will go a long way in ensuring investments being made by IDA applicants … [create] a waterfall effect of economic gains within our region.”
Jessica Schleider: Good behavioral.
Intervention invention: Even brief online interventions can have a profound effect on teen depression, according to a new Stony Brook University study.
Published in December in the scientific journal Nature Human Behavior, the study – led by Jessica Schleider, an assistant professor in SBU’s Department of Psychology – involved more than 2,400 adolescents (ages 13 to 16) and showed just one short online intervention can help curb teen depression. Adolescents from all 50 states experiencing elevated depressive symptoms were recruited via Instagram for the study and participated in one of two online single-session interventions, one teaching “behavioral activation” (the idea that positive actions can boost moods) and the other “growth mindset” (the idea that depression symptoms and personal behaviors can change).
Researchers found that both single-session interventions reduced depression symptoms and hopelessness levels – according to Schleider, an especially important revelation in the COVID era. “In some teens, the [interventions] helped reduce their symptoms a lot, for others only a small amount,” the psychologist noted. “But on a public health scale, since the programs are so easily accessible and free, this type of intervention could help reduce the overall burden of depression in this vulnerable population of youth.”
POD PEOPLE
Episode 18: Master maker Mitch Maiman.
Sponsored by clean-energy pioneer ThermoLift, Season 2 of Spark: The Innovate Long Island Podcast kicks off the New Year with an old friend: Legendary Long Island maker Mitch Maiman, who has stepped down as president of Hauppauge-based Intelligent Product Solutions to tackle a new slate of innovation challenges.
TOP OF THE SITE
Ship shape: With a hefty stake from Amazon, a new client of Stony Brook University’s Clean Energy Business Incubator Program is developing sustainable solutions to clean up cargo shipping.
Enjoy your stay: A 22-year Nassau County Industrial Development Agency PILOT package will help developers construct a new luxury hotel and conference center in Jericho.
Healthy start: In the season of new beginnings, don’t you think your entire innovation team should have their own free and easy subscriptions to this fantastic newsletter? (Of course you do).
VOICES
Voices healthcare anchor Terry Lynam checks in on the national nursing shortage – which is getting worse – and shares some constructive suggestions on what to do it about it, straight from the top of Northwell Health’s nursing ranks.
STUFF WE’RE READING
Best guess: Twenty-two forecasts for a bumpy 2022. Vox takes a stab.
Best chance: Agricultural innovations can save the world. The World Economic Forum lays it out.
Best face: Trick yourself, again, into liking your cramped home workspace. HuffPost mixes it up.
RECENT FUNDINGS
+ Curi Bio, a Washington State-based developer of human stem cell-based drug discovery platforms, held the second closing of a $10 million Series A financing. New investors UTC Investment and DS Asset Management joined current investor and Series A lead Dynamk Capital.
+ X-Therma, a California-based med-tech focused on regenerative medicine and organ preservation, closed a $13 million Series A funding round led by Lorea AG, Zen11 Holdings, Graphene Ventures, VU Venture Partners, 2b AHEAD Ventures and Methuselah Foundation, along with angel investors.
+ Sorriso Pharmaceuticals, a Utah-based biotech focused on anti-inflammatory antibody therapy, closed a $31 million Series A financing co-led by New Enterprise Associates and Arix Bioscience.
+ Osigu, a Florida-based platform providing real-time claims processing and e-prescription services in Latin America, secured $7.5 million in funding led by IDC Ventures, with participation from strategic investor Jose Vargas.
+ Overjet, a Massachusetts-based AI software provider for the dental industry, raised $42.5 million in Series B financing led by General Catalyst, Insight Partners, Crosslink Capital and the MIT-affiliated E14 Fund.
+ Adventr, a New York City-based video-communications software platform, raised $5 million in seed funding led by Paladin Capital, Reinventure Capital, Invisible Ventures and music artist John Legend.
BELOW THE FOLD
Prodigious: Raising a child genius is harder than it sounds.
Low effort: One-hundred ways to live better without really trying.
Middle march: How digital tech levels the playing field for the middle market.
High achieving: Congratulations, your child is gifted – now what?!?
Top form: Please continue supporting the amazing organizations that support Innovate Long Island, including the Long Island Business Development Council, 50-year steward of regional socioeconomics. Check them out.
