Middle ground: Welcome to Wednesday, dear readers, as we reach the midpoint of this latest winter workweek – and the median and the first month of 2025.
We’re embracing the middleman (and middlewoman) with another fair-to-middling innovation review – so rest those middle fingers and center yourself with some above-average infotainment.
A day without a newsletter: Before we begin, a quick reminder that Innovate Long Island is taking an extra day this weekend to honor the legacy of civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr., so no Calendar Newsletter on Monday. Please enjoy your regularly scheduled week-in-review newsletter this Friday, and we’ll be back with you on Tuesday, Jan. 21.
Pot luck: Or bad luck, as winter weather wreaks havoc on paved roadbeds.
Look out below: Here on Jan. 15, we begin with a ground-level observation that’s less about innovation than defensive driving – National Pothole Day, acknowledging a highway hazard that actually dates back to the ancient Roman Empire.
Top it all off: On a slightly higher plane, we tip our cap to National Hat Day, when the spotlight shines on your favorite fedora, classiest cloche, fanciest fez and boldest beret.
Topping our daily menu is everyone’s favorite breakfast bread – it’s also National Bagel Day, a Jan. 15 toast to circular loaves first referenced in Jewish community ordinances in 17th Century Poland. (According to legend, Jewish bakers circumvented antisemitic laws preventing Polish Jews from baking bread by first boiling their dough.)
A head of his time: Speaking of hats, headstrong London-based haberdasher John Hetherington towered above the competition on this date in 1797, when he sported the world’s first top hat. (The excessive accessory frightened women, children and dogs, as the story goes, earning the hatmaker a breach-of-the-peace charge and a 500-pound fine.)
Give him a brake: Also reaching new heights was New York City-based inventor Elisha Otis, who patented his safety elevator (complete with emergency brakes) on Jan. 15, 1861.
Roller coaster in spaaaaace: Actually, the original Space Mountain, which opened on this date in 1975, is in Florida. (There are five now — all on Earth, for those keeping score.)
To infinity, and Orlando: Also applying brakes – at least, around some of its sharper curves – is Space Mountain, the rocket-age rollercoaster that opened at Florida’s Walt Disney World Resort 50 years ago today.
Let’s be careful out there: Also reimagining entertainment was “Hill Street Blues,” the gritty NBC Television Network drama that changed police shows forever (by upgrading predictable crime-of-the-week action with an ensemble cast, long-form character development and sustained story arcs) when it debuted on this date in 1981.
Check your sources: And it was Jan. 15, 2001, when Wikipedia went live.
Now boasting more than 6.8 million articles in 300-plus languages, the online encyclopedia – still considered dubious by many, due to its open-source structure – was launched by American entrepreneur Jimmy Wales and American philosopher/Internet project developer Lawrence Sanger, who’d failed with Nupedia, their earlier attempt at an online encyclopedia.
Portrait of greatness: King — the ultimate symbol of everything that’s wrong with America, but could be made right — was born 96 years ago today.
The dreamer: Nobel Prize-winning American Baptist minister, activist and political philosopher Martin Luther King Jr. (1929-1968) – celebrated on the third Monday in January, and eternally, as the American civil rights movement’s icon of icons – would be 96 years old today.
Also born on Jan. 15 were Canadian military veteran and statesman Frederick Arthur Stanley (1841-1908), the 16th Earl of Derby, sixth governor of Canada and namesake of the National Hockey League’s cherished championship trophy; pioneering Austrian physician Josef Breuer (1842-1925), who was a psychoanalyst before psychoanalysis was cool; Russian mathematician Sofya Kovalevskaya (1850-1891), the first European woman appointed as a math professor; Hungarian American theoretical physicist and chemical engineer Edward Teller (1909-2003), the “Father of the Hydrogen Bomb”; and Spanish American actress, singer, comedian and flamenco guitarist María Rosario Pilar Martínez Molina Baeza (born 1951), beloved globally as Charo.
EEEEEEEYOOOOOO! And take a bow, Armando Christian Pérez! The American rapper, singer, songwriter, actor and philanthropist known best as Pitbull – who in 2019 successfully double-trademarked that sound he makes in every song (one for recordings, one for live performances) – turns 44 today.
Wish Mr. 305 well at editor@innovateli.com, where we’d be thrilled if you’d Give Me Us Everything, but we’ll Feel This Moment if you just send news tips (and we’ll have the Time of Our Lives with your calendar events … it’s good to have Options).
About our sponsor: Whether it’s helping with site selection, cutting through red tape or finding innovative ways to meet specific needs, businesses that settle in the Town of Islip soon learn that we take a proactive approach to seeing them succeed. If your business wants to locate or expand in a stable community with great quality of life, then it’s time you took a closer look at Islip.
BUT FIRST, THIS
Innovative inhibition: A California biotech leveraging a Stony Brook University-created anti-inflammation technology has passed a crucial test.
Solana Beach-based Artelo Biosciences has announced a completed safety review involving eight healthy volunteers, part of the clinical-stage pharmaceutical company’s Phase 1 study of ART26.12, the lead compound in its proprietary Fatty Acid Binding Protein platform. The FABP inhibitors represent a novel treatment approach for several potential indications, including new medicines for people living with cancer and various dermatologic and neurological conditions.
Coming nearly seven years after the Research Foundation for the State University of New York licensed the science to Artelo Biosciences – and six months after the FDA approved human trials of the ART26.12 compound – progression to the next cohort marks a major milestone for the ambitious biotech, according to President and CEO Gregory Gorgas. “We look forward to learning from the initial safety, pharmacokinetic and biomarker data from this ongoing human study,” Gorgas said in a statement. “We are committed to building on the unique, lipid-modulating mechanism of FABP inhibition to address the unmet needs of patients reliant on medicines that are often ineffective and intolerable.”
On schedule: The LIRR had a record-setting year in 2024, insofar as schedule-keeping.
All aboard: The Long Island Rail Road has just completed its best year, performance-wise, in the railroad’s nearly 200-year history.
That’s the word from Gov. Kathy Hochul, who took some time Jan. 10 to greet commuters and announce the LIRR’s fantastic 2024 performance. Among the highlights: an overall 95.65 percent on-time performance (the railroad’s best ever, outside of the low-traffic COVID era of 2020-2022), with all 12 LIRR branches exceeding their 94 percent on-time targets throughout the year.
The railroad – which also completed Americans With Disabilities Act-dictated upgrades at its Copiague, Amityville and Lindenhurst stations in 2024 – also set a single-month on-time performance record of 96.23 percent in November, and recorded a substantial upswing in customer satisfaction in the latest installment of it bi-annual Customer Satisfaction Survey, conducted in Fall 2024 (an overall satisfaction score of 76 percent, the highest percentage since the January 2023 opening of the shiny, sprawling Grand Central Madison terminal). “New Yorkers deserve fast and reliable train service, wherever they’re headed,” Hochul said in a statement. “The LIRR delivered to our commuters in 2024 with its strongest year to date.”
POD PEOPLE
Episode 40: Lauren Sheprow, mastering the message in Port Jefferson.
Stellar conversations with the big brains over at boutique marketing agency Brandtelling, outgoing New York Institute of Technology President Henry Foley and progressive Bethpage Federal Credit Union President Linda Armyn have kickstarted another stellar season of “Spark: The Innovate Long Island Podcast.”
More great one-on-ones coming soon – catch up first on these and any of the other four-dozen terrific dialogues you might have missed. Definitely worth a listen!
TOP OF THE SITE
Certified fresh: The Garden City-based Family and Children’s Association will add key clinical certifications to two existing facilities – opening their doors to Long Islanders in need, regardless of their diagnosis or insurance status.
Don’t just take our word for it: You’re a big thinker, too – so share your criticisms, praise and other frontline socioeconomic observations with the CEOs, lawmakers, educators, investors and inventors that read Innovate Long Island week after week. Our Opinion Page and our all-new Entrepreneur’s Edge feature stand ready … speak up! (More on the Entrepreneur’s Edge right down there.)
VOICES
Long Island socioeconomics are still being hamstrung by rental- and affordable-housing shortages – but New York City’s new “City of Yes” zoning amendments could provide a smart path forward, according to Sahn Ward Braff Coschignano Managing Member and Voices Law Anchor Michael Sahn, who thinks Island lawmakers should work in some key COY concepts.
Something to say? Welcome to The Entrepreneur’s Edge, Innovate Long Island’s new promoted-content news feature platform – a direct link from you to our innovation-focused audience. Progressive product to promote? Singular service to sell? Sociopolitical position to push? Shine a bright light on the big picture, the little details and everything in between with The Entrepreneur’s Edge. What you need to know.
STUFF WE’RE READING
Phantom menace: Bad news for job-seekers – one out of every five job listings is fake. Quartz grills “ghost jobs.”
A new hope: A relatively new antiviral medication may be useful for “long COVID” patients. The Seattle Times pops the pills.
Attack of the clones: The strange saga of a Montana rancher who cloned endangered sheep to create trophy-hunting giants. Earth.com files the copy.
RECENT FUNDINGS
+ Aerin Medical, a California-based med-tech manufacturer focused on nasal airway obstruction treatments, raised $32.5 million in funding backed by KCK MedTech, Questa Capital, OrbiMed and Ally Bridge Group.
+ Tune Therapeutics, a North Carolina-based biotech focused on epigenome editing, raised more than $175 million in Series B funding led by New Enterprise Associates, Yosemite, Regeneron Ventures and the Hevolution Foundation.
+ RheumaGen, a Colorado-based biotech focused on cell and gene therapies, raised $15 million in Series A funding led by SPRIM Global Investments and William Taylor Nominees.
+ Nema Helath, a Connecticut-based virtual trauma and PTSD care platform, raised $14.5 million in Series A funding led by Deerfield Management.
+ Gridware, a California-based power grid-monitoring solutions provider, raised $26.4 million in Series A funding led by Sequoia Capital.
+ Unlisted, a New York City-based, artificial intelligence-powered real estate platform specializing in off-market and private home sales, raised $2.25 million in Seed funding led by HearstLab.
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 the Town of Islip). Gregory Zeller can tell you more.
BELOW THE FOLD (Be The Best You Edition)
Animal attraction: Zebra print is one of 2025’s leading fashion micro trends.
In demand: How to hone the skills that employers want most.
Zebra stripes? Really? Yep … and there’s lots more to dressing for success in 2025.
What the hack: Critical life hacks for better conversations, better romance and better overall health.
Best in the business: Please continue supporting the outstanding organizations that support Innovate Long Island, including the Town of Islip Office of Economic Development, a true leader in regional business development. Check them out.
