Candyland: Welcome to Wednesday, dear readers, and welcome to November, as we bundle up for 2023’s penultimate month and gear up for the second half of this latest autumnal workweek.
Of course, we’re also knee-deep in candy – the Nov. 1 spoils of a great tradition-turned-mindless retail ritual (1. Everyone buys sacks of identical candy, 2. Candy is traded house-to-house by costumed laborers, 3. Everyone eats identical candy).
Big Stein wants an eggplant calzone: But even Steinbrenner couldn’t get one before the 18th Century.
Brush off: Hey, grumpus, it’s for the kids … so pop another fun-sized Almond Joy and quit bellyaching. (This is redundant, by the way, as every Almond Joy is a fun size).
But really, that’s enough candy for now – in fact, it’s National Brush Day, so go find some American Dental Association-recommended soft, angled bristles and a tube of minty Colgate.
Fortunately, candy and calzones both work: You’ll need that toothbrush again later – today is also National Calzone Day, celebrating the famous folded-pizza favorites (but maybe hold the pepperoni in honor of World Vegan Day, promoting plant-based menus every Nov. 1).
Twisted Sistine: Sadly, they couldn’t celebrate with calzones, which weren’t invented until the 1700s – but there was still plenty to enjoy on this date in 1512, when the Michelangelo-renovated Sistine Chapel opened to the public in Rome.
Shedding some light: They existed, though it’s not clear if calzones had made it from Naples to the United States by Nov. 1, 1879, when Thomas Edison patented his electric lamp.
Negative response: Long Island falls back this weekend from -4 UTC to -5 UTC, for those keeping score.
About time: What is clear is the City of Washington hosted the International Meridian Conference 139 years ago tonight and the attendees universally adopted the Greenwich Meridian, standardizing Greenwich Mean Time and its 24 global time zones.
Black pages: It’s based in North America’s Pacific Time Zone now, but Ebony magazine – the monthly periodical chronicling African American news, culture and entertainment – was headquartered in the Central Time Zone when it first hit newsstands on Nov. 1, 1945.
Ground game: And the world’s first thermonuclear explosion – a test-detonation of the gigantic U.S. fusion bomb Ivy Mike – blew up Elugelab Island real good on this date in 1952.
While Operation Ivy was deemed a success, Mike was very much a prototype: The bomb was 20 feet long and weighed more than 140,000 pounds, with another 12 tons of required refrigeration equipment – meaning even the largest plane couldn’t lift it.
Fine fellow: Canadian American chemist, teacher and scientific interpreter Robert Kennedy Duncan (1868-1914) – who wrote science books for laymen and struck on the idea of corporate fellowships to both further university research and meet industrial needs – would be 155 years old today.
Coach of the decade: Arbour led the early-1980s Islanders dynasty.
Also born on Nov. 1 were German geophysicist Alfred Wegener (1880-1930), ahead of his time on continental drift; American artist, poet and educator Margaret Taylor-Burroughs (1915-2010), the first lady of African American art; Austrian British mathematician and cosmologist Sir Hermann Bondi (1919-2005), who challenged the Big Bang theory by co-conceiving the universe’s steady state model; Canadian Hockey Hall of Fame player and coach Alger Joseph “Al” Arbour (1932-2015), who coached the New York Islanders to four straight Stanley Cup titles in the early 1980s; and American professional-wrestling heel Raymond Louis “Bobby the Brain” Heenan (1944-2017), a mediocre grappler who became the best manager (and funniest commentator) in squared-circle history.
Apple watch: And take a bow, Timothy Donald Cook! The American business executive – now in his 12th year as Apple Inc. CEO, and not above sleeping in on occasion – turns 63 today.
Give Forbes’ 1,568th wealthiest person (as of Tuesday afternoon) your best at editor@innovateli.com, where your news tips put the pro in our MacBooks – and your calendar events are always the apples of our eye.
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BUT FIRST, THIS
Age enlightenment: Try to remember this – epigenetics, not age, might best explain memory loss.
That’s the contention of a new study led by Stony Brook University researchers suggesting epigenetic age acceleration (wherein DNA patterns are altered by behavior and environment) might fritz memory and information-processing rates more than simple chronology. Aging and related physical/neurological wear-and-tear have long been associated with memory loss, but “Epigenetic Age Acceleration and Chronological Age: Associations With Cognitive Performance in Daily Life” – published this week in the Gerontological Society of America’s Journals of Gerontology – proposes epigenetics as a better indicator of a person’s ability to remember and process information.
Weighing “biological clocks” (derived from the DNA of 142 study participants, ages 25 to 65) against daily cognitive tests (taken via smartphone), researchers concluded that epigenetic acceleration’s effects were the same as or worse than “the well-known chronological age differences between younger and older adults,” according to co-author Stacey Scott, an SBU associate professor of psychology. “We found that age acceleration distinguished people’s performance in daily life,” Scott added. “Not just in the laboratory.”
Armed and ready: But each new booster seems to have fewer takers.
Shot in the dark: You’re not keeping up with your COVID boosters, according to the latest Mount Sinai Truth in Medicine poll.
The second Truth in Medicine poll of 2023 and 19th in the long-running series, released Tuesday by the Oceanside-based Long Island flagship of the New York City-based Mount Sinai Health System, finds that only 15 percent of area residents have received the latest COVID-19 vaccine, approved in September by the Food and Drug Administration. For the record, that’s better than the national average – though 25 percent of poll respondents said they won’t get the shot, with nearly half of those saying they don’t think they need it and/or doubting its effectiveness.
That’s counterintuitive in a poll where 70 percent of the 600 New York City and Long Island residents queried said they believe vaccines are important – a clear indication that COVID vaccines have “become a political issue,” noted Mount Sinai South Nassau President Adhi Sharma. “But this is about science, not politics,” Sharma added. “And the science is clear: Both the updated COVID-19 and flu vaccines … save lives.”
TOP OF THE SITE
Building toward something: A decade-long collaboration between the Suffolk County IDA and friends has supercharged several regional downtowns – and maybe created Long Island’s best path forward.
Special guests: Top CEOs? Honored university presidents? Brilliant creators from across art and science and sports and industry, all sharing their unique innovation stories and best advice? All this (plus plenty of laughs) awaits on Spark: The Innovate Long Island Podcast. Listen better.
VOICES
Twomey, Latham, Shea, Kelley, Dubin & Quartararo intellectual property ace and Voices IP/Patent Anchor Allison Singh howls for WolfieTank, the Stony Brook University School of Business pitch-a-thon that mirrors “Shark Tank” – and proves the importance of proper legal services for early-stage enterprises.
STUFF WE’RE READING
Location: New York’s best historic downtowns have been ranked – and none are on Long Island. TheTravel does some day-tripping.
Location: The Biden Administration has identified 31 locales ripe for business-building tech hubs. Inc. puts innovation on the map.
Location: Mar-a-Lago may soon be on the market. Salon predicts a fire sale.
RECENT FUNDINGS
+ Seurat Technologies, a Massachusetts-based 3D metal printer, raised $99 million in Series C funding led by NVentures, Capricorn’s Technology Impact Fund and Honda Motor Co.
+ MapLight Therapeutics, a California-based clinical-stage biopharma, raised $225 million in Series C funding led by Novo Holdings, 5AM Ventures and Cowen Healthcare Investments.
+ CoverForce, a New York City-based independent insurance platform, raised $5 million in seed funding led by Nyca Partners, Muir Capital, QED Investors, Sidekick Partners and Moving Capital.
+ Innerworld, a Tennessee-based mental health platform, received a $2 million grant from the National Institute of Mental Health.
+ Eden, a Massachusetts-based natural resource-recovery innovator, raised $12 million in seed funding led by TechEnergy Ventures, Helmerich & Payne and the Grantham Foundation for the Protection of the Environment.
+ Castellum.AI, a NYC-based global-risk data platform, raised $4 million in seed funding led by Spider Capital, NewFund, Remarkable Ventures and Cameron Ventures.
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 Sahn Ward). Marlene McDonnell can tell you more.
BELOW THE FOLD (The One Where We Lose Matthew Perry)
Losing a friend: We tend to take celebrity deaths personally.
Gone too soon: Perry’s passing marks the latest shocking celebrity death.
“The myth of threes”: Why celebrity deaths seem to triple up.
Right in the gut: Why celebrity deaths affect us so deeply.
They’ll be there for you: Please continue supporting the great firms that support Innovate Long Island, including Sahn Ward, your best friends in real estate law. Check them out.
