Summer love: Welcome to Wednesday, dear readers, but not just any Wednesday – not only is it Juneteenth, it’s the last Wednesday of Spring, with the Summer Solstice in our beautiful Northern Hemisphere set for 4:50 p.m. Thursday (and a bona fide Northeast heat wave to prove it).
We’re saluting the seasonal switch with another Hump Day Edition of your favorite innovation newsletter. Crank that AC and let’s rock!
Mix and match: However you take your martini, enjoy one today.
Split decision: Today is June 19 and, as mentioned, Juneteenth, a (divisive at best) federal holiday celebrating the emancipation of American slaves – specifically, the final enforcement of the Emancipation Proclamation in Texas on June 19, 1865.
Some consider it the United States’ second Independence Day. Nearly half of U.S. States don’t count it as an official state holiday (some in Alabama think Confederate President Jefferson Davis’ birthday should be celebrated instead). And while banks, schools and government offices are closed across the land, only about 40 percent of private-industry workers enjoy a paid day off, for those keeping score.
Down time: If you’re among them, congratulations – you get extra time to enjoy World Sauntering Day, when we’re encouraged to take it slow and smell the proverbial roses.
Whether you’re working or not, there’s no better way to toast the evening (or maybe the afternoon) than National Martini Day – made with gin, with vodka, with or without vermouth, with or without olives, extra dirty, shaken, stirred or however else you like it every June 19.
X factor: A toast to Greek mathematician, geographer and astronomer Eratosthenes, who reasoned that the Earth was spherical – and even calculated its circumference, and fairly accurately at that – on this date in 240 B.C.
MPD: We’ll also raise a glass to the Bobbies, Peel’s Police and/or the Blue Devils! Whatever you prefer to call them, Sir Robert Peel’s Metropolitan Police Department – London’s first modern police force – was established by royal assent on June 19, 1829.
FCC you real soon: Established by presidential assent was the Federal Communications Commission, which independently monitors communication by radio, television, wire and satellite and came into existence when President Franklin Roosevelt signed the Communications Act of 1934 into law 90 years ago today.
Three Cheerios: Actually, it’s more like 20 — the official number of Cheerios varieties on the market today, including vanilla, oat crunch berry and vanilla spice.
O yeah: Honey Nut, Multigrain, Apple Cinnamon, Banana Nut, Chocolate, Fruity, Frosted, Multigrain Peanut Butter (!) and all the other varieties would come later, but the original, still-awesome breakfast staple Cheerios was created on this date in 1941 (as “Cheerioats”) by General Mills food scientist Lester Borchardt.
JPO OK: And it was June 19, 1977, when the Joint Pipeline Office – a state and federal board monitoring the new 800-mile Trans-Alaska Pipeline System – greenlighted operations of the Alyeska Pipeline Service Co., a joint venture of several energy companies.
Crude began flowing the next day from the Prudhoe Bay oilfields to Prince William Sound’s Port of Valdez.
Iron man: American professional baseball player Henry Louis Gehrig Jr. (1903-1941) – a Hall of Fame talent known for his remarkable durability, until he ironically succumbed to his namesake disease – would be 121 years old today.
Green with envy: Zoë Saldaña gets all the colorful roles.
Also born on June 19 were French mathematician, physicist, inventor, philosopher and Catholic writer Blaise Pascal (1623-1662), who got an early start; German pharmacist Friedrich Sertürner (1783-1841), the alkaloid chemistry pioneer who discovered morphine; American actor and comedian Moses Harry Horwitz, (1897-1975), known best as “Boss Stooge” Moe Howard; American electrical engineer Raymond Noorda (1924-2006), the Father of Computer Networking; and Burmese politician, diplomat and author Suu Kyi (born Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, 1945), famed human rights advocate and 1991 Nobel Peace Prize laureate.
Am I blue? Or is it green today? And take a bow, Zoë Yadira Saldaña-Perego! The American actress, model and dancer – known best for gracing science-fiction epics (often in heavy makeup), including many of the highest-grossing films of all time – turns 46 today.
Wish the star-trekking guardian of the avenging avatar well at editor@innovateli.com, where our science begins with your news tips – and your calendar events are the very finest nonfiction.
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BUT FIRST, THIS
Delivery driver: The Long Island African American Chamber of Commerce is giving a jump to minority-owned small businesses – a JumpSMART, actually.
The Garden City-based chamber has teamed up with Long Beach-based Trellus Same-Day Local Delivery & Marketplace to distribute $125,000 in JumpSMART grant funding to minority-owned small businesses across Suffolk County, via individual $2,500 LIAACC Delivery Grants. The grants – part of Suffolk’s JumpSMART Small Business Downtown Investment Program, an offshoot of the American Rescue Plan launched last September – are meant to give those mom-and-pop businesses a fighting chance against Amazon and other e-commerce giants by providing Main Street entrepreneurs with their own reliable, local delivery services.
As many as 40 countywide small businesses will receive competitive grants – an investment “in the heart and soul of our local economies,” according to LIAACC President Phil Andrews. “The LIAACC Delivery Grant not only addresses the immediate challenges posed by the digital divide and the economic impact of the pandemic, but also reinforces our commitment to fostering sustainable growth and resilience within our communities,” Andrews added.
Sound judgment: Swim Across America’s Long Island Sound open-water fundraiser annually attracts hundreds of swimmers.
Swim class: A waterborne national nonprofit knee-deep in the fight against cancer is suiting up for its 32nd open-water swim across the Long Island Sound.
Massachusetts-based Swim Across America expects 800-plus swimmers and volunteers (including swimmer-supporting boaters, paddleboarders and kayakers) to make a splash July 27. This year’s fundraiser offers various distances – 10-kilometer swim across the sound, 5-kilometer and 2-kilometer point-to-point swims and a half-mile pool swim at the Larchmont Shore Club – with proceeds benefitting the multi-location Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York City’s Columbia University Irving Medical Center, NYC’s Weill Cornell Medicine and Purchase-based Cancer Support Team, which offers in-home services for cancer patients and their families.
Over three decades-plus, the Long Island Sound swim has raised more than $25 million for cancer research and support around Greater New York – about 25 percent of Swim Across America’s total $100 million haul. “The funds … have gone directly into supporting pivotal cancer trials and treatment protocols that save lives,” noted Swim Across America-Long Island Sound Event Director Jean Fufidio. “The money raised local also stays local, and that is a huge benefit for our New York-area beneficiaries.”
TOP OF THE SITE
Philly fanatics: A subsidiary of Melville-based Canon USA has helped Drexel University publish the milestone 10th edition of it literary and photography anthology about life in Philadelphia.
Your turn: Engaging one-on-ones brimming with life lessons, business intelligence and lots of laughs … that’s Spark: The Innovate Long Island Podcast, where the leaders of the regional innovation economy share the details of how they got where they are – and how you can get there, too.
VOICES
Genius solutions to today’s most vexing socioeconomic problems, straight from the front lines of law, communications, technology, healthcare and other key sectors – welcome to Innovate Long Island’s exclusive Voices Library, where you pick the subject, the professor and the lesson. Five minutes from now, you’ll be much smarter.
STUFF WE’RE READING
Light touch: A NASA rover has made an unprecedented discovery on Mars. Mashable lightens up.
Light show: Earth has great seats as T Coronae Borealis prepares to go nova. Earth.com looks up.
Electrolyte show: Chinese scientists have enhanced the safety and performance of lithium-ion batteries. Tech Xplore powers up.
RECENT FUNDINGS
+ Elion Therapeutics, a New York City-based biotech advancing the treatment of life-threatening fungal infections, closed an $81 million Series B funding led by Deerfield Management and the AMR Action Fund.
+ Princeton NuEnergy, a New Jersey-based leader in lithium-ion battery direct recycling, closed a $30 million Series A funding. Backers included Samsung Venture Investment Corporation and Helium-3.
+ Tender, a Massachusetts-based food-tech startup, raised $11 million in Series A funding led by Rhapsody Venture Partners.
+ Unigrid Battery, a California-based startup developing advanced sodium-ion batteries, raised $12 million in Series A funding led by Transition VC and Ritz Venture Capital.
+ CargoSense, a Virginia-based supply chain automation platform, raised $8 million in Series A funding led by Lanza techVentures.
+ Wild Common, a Wyoming-based agave spirits manufacturer, raised $5 million in Series A funding backed by HIPstr.
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 Nixon Peabody). Marlene McDonnell can tell you more.
BELOW THE FOLD (See The World Edition)
By sea: Passengers say three-and-a-half years aboard the Villa Vie Odyssey costs about the same as living on land.
Domestic policy: The United States edges out Japan as the top country for tourism.
French quarters: Paris has big plans for its Olympic Village after the summer games.
Cruise control: Visiting 147 countries over three-plus years on a residential cruise ship.
Worldly: Please continue supporting the fantastic firms that support Innovate Long Island, including Nixon Peabody, where all-world expertise and global reach fuel superior legal services. Check them out.
