On the records: Welcome to Wednesday, dear readers, as the fantastic innovation economy and the Winter That Winter Forgot, with its record-setting warmth here on Long Island, roll on.
Have a Coke and a bargain: At $200,000 per 30 seconds, Mean Joe Greene’s super-famous Super Bowl ad was a relative steal.
Speaking of records, when Super Bowl LVII kicks off at 6:30 p.m. Sunday, advertisers will be paying a highest-ever $7 million per 30-second commercial spot. For those keeping score, when Mean Joe Greene tossed his jersey to that pesky kid in 1979, those same 30 seconds ran about $200,000.
Demotion overruled: It’s Feb. 8 out there, and before we jump in, a quick correction to Friday’s newsletter, which erroneously noted that Cushman & Wakefield Executive Managing Director David Pennetta and Avison Young Managing Director Ted Stratigos had been elected co-vice presidents of the Commercial Industrial Brokers Society of Long Island. The duo serves as CIBS co-presidents.
Feeling it: With that egg wiped off our virtual face, good feelings abound – Feb. 8 brings National Kite Flying Day (not a bad choice, considering LI’s springlike weather), Molasses Bar Day (an acquired taste for sure) and National Laugh and Get Rich Day, which values a good giggle over monetary gains.
Scouting ahead: Good feelings were also evident on this date in 1910, when the Boy Scouts of America was officially incorporated – seven months before British Army officer Robert Baden-Powell, the renowned founder of Scouting, gave the U.S. program his blessing.
It’s a start: Also getting out in front of things was future General Motors Corp. Director of Research Charles Kettering, who patented the self-starting automobile engine on Feb. 8, 1916.
The mouse that roared: More catching up to the pack was Walt Disney Studios, which became a thing 97 years ago today, when the namesake animator renamed his floundering Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio.
Multimedia: Television’s first transatlantic trip was front-page news.
The long view: Other slow starts that picked up fast include television broadcasts, which were first beamed across the Atlantic Ocean on Feb. 8, 1928 – grainy, pixilated images of people sitting and moving their heads, a test connecting transmitters in London with viewers in Westchester County.
A day in the life: And from international television to the World Wide Web, where we find 24 Hours in Cyberspace gathering a global array of artists, designers, editors and programmers 27 years ago today for a snapshot of life on the very early Internet.
Keynoted by Vice President Al Gore, the event attracted 3 million online visitors – the largest online event to that point – and indirectly led to millions of dollars in venture-capital fundraising.
Brings a lot to the table: Russian chemist Dmitri Ivanovich Mendeleev (1834-1907) – best known for formulating the Periodic Law and creating an early version of the periodic table of elements – would be 189 years old today.
The Force is with him: Williams, well-composed.
Also born on Feb. 8 were French novelist, poet and playwright Jules Verne (1828-1905), a true science-fiction pioneer; American physicist Chester Carlson (1906-1968), who brought photocopiers to life; American actress Audrey Meadows (1922-1996), still fresh-faced, long-suffering housewife Alice Kramden of “The Honeymooners”; American actor James Dean (1931-1955), icon of social estrangement; and master American composer John Williams (born 1932), the still-cranking-them-out Academy Award-winner behind many of Hollywood’s most recognized themes.
Firm hand: And take a bow, John Ray Grisham Jr.! The American novelist, lawyer and former Mississippi state representative – known best for top legal thrillers including “The Firm” and “The Pelican Brief” – turns 68 today.
Wish “America’s favorite storyteller” well at editor@innovateli.com, where your news tips twist the plot – and your calendar events always keep us in suspense.
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BUT FIRST, THIS
CASHE-ing in: From the Don’t Rush Me Department comes Adelphi University, which has earned high praise for encouraging its less-decisive students.
The Garden City-based university has won an Innovative Academic Support Initiative award from the American College Personnel Association’s Commission for Academic Support in Higher Education. The CASHE Award is not a … well, cash award … but it does honor exemplary programs, practices and collaborations that foster innovative academic-support efforts, in this case Adelphi’s personalized approach to matriculated-but-undeclared students – including interdisciplinary “360 Seminars” (taught by a plethora of rotating professors) and the university’s PATH Program, a core-curriculum smorgasbord focused on preparation, awareness, transformation and hands-on learning.
The CASHE honor reaffirms the university’s “commitment to offering creative, fresh solutions for our students to create their own unique academic path,” according to Andrea Ward, Adelphi’s interim associate provost for student success. “Adelphi is very focused on giving students personalized attention,” Ward added. “This is especially true for our students who haven’t declared a major yet.”
Scan fans: Stony Brook University innovators say their new handheld scanner dramatically increases burn-injury assessments.
Burn notice: An innovative handheld scanner can do a better job assessing burn injuries than current assessment practices, according to Stony Brook University scientists.
Burn-diagnosis and burn-classification accuracy rates of 60 to 75 percent are common now, according to lead investigator M. Hassan Arbab, an assistant professor in SBU’s Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. But Arbab’s team, which recently detailed its findings in the peer-reviewed journal Biomedical Optics Express, determined that use of Terahertz Time-Domain Spectroscopy – essentially, measuring the properties of matter with one-trillionth-of-a-second electromagnetic pulses – can increase burn-related accuracy rates to about 93 percent.
Combining a unique handheld device with a neural-network model, the next-generation burn-assessment method could prove enormously beneficial to 416,000-plus burn victims treated annually in U.S. emergency rooms. “Our research has the potential to significantly improve burn-healing outcomes by guiding surgical treatment plans,” Arbab noted. “[That] could have a major impact on reducing the length of hospital stays and number of surgical procedures for skin grafting while also improving rehabilitation after injury.”
POD PEOPLE
Episode 30: Elaine Gross, ERASE-ing racism.
Top innovators in energy, public relations, politics, education, economic development, law enforcement and social service – plus a brilliant kid telling creepy ghost stories – made Season 3 of Spark: The Innovate Long Island Podcast the best yet.
New episodes will be cranking up soon. Until then, catch up on dozens of great conversations from the innovation economy’s front lines.
TOP OF THE SITE
Something to talk about: The Long Island STEM Hub is giving tomorrow’s regional workforce a running start with its comprehensive Career Conversations initiative.
Animal magnetism: Growth-minded Long Island University expects its cutting-edge Veterinary Medicine Learning Center to attract packs of future animal doctors.
Be their Valentine: It’s sweet that you share this educational and entertaining newsletter with your fellow innovators – if they had their own always easy, always free subscriptions, you could step up to candy and flowers.
VOICES
The “zombie drug” xylazine may ultimately prove deadlier than fentanyl – and “tranq,” as it’s known on the street, is spiking on Long Island, warns Voices nonprofits anchor Jeffrey Reynolds, president and CEO of the Family and Children’s Association.
STUFF WE’RE READING
Reduce: “Closed loop” recycling could reduce steel industry carbon emissions by 90 percent. Freethink loops in.
Reuse, recycle: Electric car batteries are living second lives in solar-energy storage. Axios shines on.
Waste not: The race is on to safely tap a controversial – but carbon-free – energy source. HuffPost goes nuclear.
RECENT FUNDINGS
+ Olokun Minerals, a California-based provider of minerals and metals for various supply chains, raised $1.1 million in pre-seed funding led by Propeller and Textbook VC.
+ Upwardli, a Wisconsin-based fintech offering credit-building products, raised $2 million in seed funding led by Dundee Venture Capital, Techstars, J4 Ventures and Cascade Seed Fund.
+ AnswersNow, a Virginia-based applied-behavior analysis platform, raised $11 million in Series A funding led by Left Lane Capital, American Family Institute for Social Impact, Blue Heron Capital, Difference Partners and former Kadiant CEO Lani Fritts.
+ Frontrow Health, a Texas-based digital-health startup, raised $3 million in seed funding led by Next Coast Ventures, NextGen Venture Partners and angel investor Andy Page.
+ Enteligent, a California-based solar-power and solar electric-vehicle charging optimizer, raised $7 million in funding led by Nova and Taronga Ventures.
+ Ratio Therapeutics, a Massachusetts-based biopharma specializing in targeted radiotherapeutics for cancer, raised $20 million in Series A funding led by Duquesne Capital and Schusterman Family Investments.
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 ZE Creative Communications). Marlene McDonnell can tell you more.
BELOW THE FOLD (Hot Potato Edition)
Happy accident: The brothers behind Ore-Ida got a little scrappy with their leftover potatos.
Cretaceous garden: Turns out potatoes, coffee and mint date back 80 million years.
Tot inspection: Behold, the tater tot – one of culinary history’s great accidents.
Meat market: Those French fries aren’t as vegetarian as you think.
You say potato…: Please continue supporting the amazing firms that support Innovate Long Island, including ZE Creative Communications, which always knows the right word – and the proper tone – to shape your best message. Check them out.
