Throwing a few changeups: Batter up, dear readers! It’s Wednesday out there, and another Long Island Winter workweek – snow, rain, cold, wind, the works – is rounding the bases.
Alas, there’s sunlight at the end of the tunnel: The Super Bowl is over and Major League baseball pitchers and catchers have reported for duty in Florida and Arizona. Hang in there, winter warriors … Spring is in sight!
For your thoughts: We kick things off today with National Lost Penny Day, which marks the Feb. 12, 1909, release of the Lincoln Penny (on President Abraham Lincoln’s 100th birthday, see below) – and takes on new meaning with the penny now truly lost. (The dangers of unilateral policymaking aside, we agree with idea of eliminating the penny – according to the United States Mint, it costs a ridiculous 3.69 cents to make and distribute each one-cent coin).
Who named this?: It’s a cake, not a pudding, and there’s not a plum in sight … otherwise, we’re big fans of plum pudding. (A.K.A. Christmas pudding, obviously explaining why it’s celebrated in February.)
Diverse thinking: More politically divisive – sure to blow some MAGA minds, in fact – are NAACP Day, memorializing the 1909 founding of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and National Freedom to Marry Day, an LGBTQ observation supporting gay marriage.
Also splitting the vote is National Plum Pudding Day, an annual Feb. 12 celebration of a love-it-or-hate-it English dessert that contains molasses, butter, flour, spices and candied fruits – but no plums, for those keeping score.
Just peachy: The state has never legalized same-sex marriage, sanctioned comprehensive sex education or held an official Pride parade – but today we also salute Georgia, which became a thing on this date in 1733 (largely on the backs of African slaves, though it’s also worth noting that NAACP Georgia is the then-colony, now-state’s oldest and largest civil rights organization).
Masked man: Back to those pitchers and catchers, specifically the catchers, most of whom still have their teeth and have otherwise avoided serious facial injuries thanks to the catcher’s mask, an indispensable addition to the tools of ignorance patented on Feb. 12, 1878, by Harvard University Baseball Club captain Frederick Thayer.
Graaff-ic content: Speaking of electrifying patents, American physicist Robert Jemison Van de Graaff locked up his electrostatic generator – generating much higher direct-current voltages than contemporary generators and raising hair at science museums across the land – 90 years ago today.
Damn, I thought it was closer: Kilometer signs were not embraced by U.S. motorists.
Meter readers: Less successful were the four highway signs showing distances in kilometers (in addition to miles) unveiled on this date in 1973 along Ohio’s portion of Interstate 71 – the first U.S. road signs to speak metric. (Motorists were not impressed.)
We will not always have Paris: And it was Feb. 12, 2016, when Fiji became the first nation to ratify the Paris Agreement, a legally binding international treaty on climate change that aims to curb greenhouse gas emissions enough to keep the global temperature increase below 2 degrees Celsius in the 21st Century – ultimately ratified and/or signed by 198 nations, including the United States and China.
For the record, the United States exited the agreement on Nov. 4, 2020, re-entered the agreement on Jan. 20, 2021, and announced on Jan. 25 of this year that it was withdrawing once again.
The Greatest: Sixteenth U.S. President Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) – consistently ranked as the greatest-ever U.S. President, lauded for holding the nation together during the U.S. Civil War and for abolishing American slavery – would be 216 years old today.
Bobi and weave: Wine, still fighting the good fight.
Also born on Feb. 12 were British naturalist Charles Darwin (1809-1882), a seminal scientist whose scientific theory of evolution by natural selection is the foundation for modern evolutionary study; African American physician Alice Woodby McKane (1865-1948), the first Black woman to practice medicine in Georgia, remembered for vastly improving healthcare in Black communities; American theoretical physicist Julian Schwinger (1918-1994), a Noble Prize-winning pioneer of quantum electrodynamics; Chinese astrophysicist Fang Lizhi (1936-2012), who decried Marxist theories of physics, championed the Big Bang, was expelled from the Chinese Community Party, became the CCP’s scapegoat for the Tiananmen Square protests and ultimately defected to the United States; and American author Judy Blume (born 1938), beloved (and award-winning) creator of numerous children’s and young-adult novels.
Fine Wine: And take a bow, Robert Kyagulanyi Ssentamu! The Ugandan activist, politician, singer, lawyer and actor known best as Bobi Wine – an Afrobeat star who served in the Ugandan Parliament, lost a fraud-ridden presidential election, endured years of house arrest, produced a documentary chronicling his treacherous journey and continues to battle Ugandan political corruption – turns 43 today.
Give the “edutainment” sensation and fearless leader of the Ugandan National Unity Platform your best at editor@innovateli.com, where we also fearlessly seek to educate and entertain, starting with your news tips and calendar events (though, admittedly, we’ve never been shot with teargas pellets, at least not yet.)
About our sponsor: St. Joseph’s University, New York, has provided a diverse population of students in the New York metropolitan area with an affordable education rooted in the liberal arts tradition since 1916. The independent and coeducational university provides a strong academic and values-oriented education at the undergraduate and graduate levels, aiming to prepare each student for a life characterized by integrity, intellectual rigor, social responsibility, spiritual depth and service. Through its Long Island, Brooklyn and online campuses, the university offers degrees in 100 majors, special course offerings and certificates and affiliated and pre-professional programs. Learn more here.
BUT FIRST, THIS
They’ll manage: A progressive Long Island university has announced a new master’s degree program designed to support the region’s exponentially expanding healthcare sector.
The State University of New York at Old Westbury is introducing a Master of Science program in Healthcare Management, with the first cohort of students slated to enroll for the Fall 2025 semester. The 30-credit program, which can be completed in one year of full-time postgraduate study, is designed for business-degree holders who desire further specialization in the healthcare field, with a supervised research project capstone ultimately requiring master’s candidates to apply the management, operational and financial skills they learn to an intensive study of real-world healthcare organizations.
The idea, according to SUNY Old Westbury School of Business Dean Shalei Simms, is to prepare a new generation of managers to bring efficiency – and, ultimately, better patient services – to medical providers on Long Island and beyond. “The highest priority of healthcare organizations must be patient wellness,” Simms noted. “The constantly evolving landscape of financial and regulatory factors makes that challenging and requires more (and) better-trained professionals who can step into management positions and lead their organizations successfully.”
Be careful: Workplace injuries can happen in virtually any industry … but in some, more frequently than in others.
Injured reserve: This just in from our friends at Kuru Footwear: Workplace injuries come in all shapes and sizes, and even real estate agents aren’t safe.
Leveraging U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data covering calendar years 2022 and 2023, the Utah-based, health-focused shoe brand has compiled a list detailing the 10 U.S. professions where nonfatal occupational injuries are most common. According to Kuru’s research, workers in the Transportation and Warehousing sectors suffer the most non-life-threatening harms (4.5 injuries per 100 workers), with the Arts/Entertainment/Recreation workforce finishing a surprising second (4.3) and employees in the Agriculture/Forestry/Fishing & Hunting industries limping into third (4.2).
Construction workers, of course, make the list – but they’re merely the seventh-most-likely to be injured (also surprising), with only 2.3 injuries per 100 employees – and so do healthcare providers (3.6), retail sector employees (3.1, due to the dangers of stocking shelves) and real estate professionals (2.0, watch that sunken living room!). To mitigate workplace risks, Kuru recommends regular employee safety training, proper equipment, updated emergency procedures and plenty of water and rest breaks, among other precautions.
TOP OF THE SITE
Sweet victory: Stony Brook University researchers have unlocked a key clue in how and why the brain craves sweet foods – potentially, an important new weapon in the war against obesity.
Amazing stories: The respected New York State judge, the queen of credit unions, the acclaimed university president, the healthcare hero, the mall master, the legendary DJ … movers, shakers and master innovators abound on Spark: The Innovate Long Island Podcast. No telling who’ll turn up next – but the four-dozen episodes “in the can” are already pretty amazing.
VOICES
Opioid use disorder is raging across Long Island and the nation, but a new synthetic painkiller could dramatically reduce drug-overdose deaths – if it’s administered correctly, according to Family and Children’s Association President/CEO and Voices Social Services Anchor Jeffrey Reynolds, who consults with experts about Journavx.
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. Living on the edge.
STUFF WE’RE READING
Stuck in reverse: With its CEO busy playing politics, Tesla sales are in global freefall. The Independent shifts gears.
Reverse course: From Amtrak and Pepsi to Target and the FBI, here are all the U.S. organizations deleting their DEI initiatives. Forbes lines them up.
Revising, in reverse: The odds of the “city-killer” asteroid hitting Earth in 2032 keep updating – in the wrong direction. Gizmodo calculates collisions.
RECENT FUNDINGS
+ Tyba, a California-based energy-storage optimization platform, raised $13.9 million in Series A funding led by Energize Capital.
+ ThreatMate, a Delaware-based, AI-powered cybersecurity startup, raised $3.2 million in Seed funding led by Top Down Ventures’ Founders Fund I.
+ MacroCycle Technologies, a Massachusetts-based plastic waste upcycling innovator, raised $6.5 million in Seed funding led by Clean Energy Ventures.
+ Greyson Clothiers, a Michigan-based performance apparel brand, raised $20 million in Series A funding led by NewBound Ventures and Chris Koch.
+ Clean Core Thorium Energy, an Illinois-based nuclear fuel company, raised $15.5 million in Seed funding led by a Singapore-based family office.
+ X-energy, a Maryland-based nuclear reactor and fuel technology innovator, raised $700 million in an upsized Series C-1 funding round. Backers included Segra Capital Management and Jane Street.
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 St. Joe’s). Gregory Zeller can tell you more.
BELOW THE FOLD (Black History Month Edition)
Clubber: Known best for swinging his hands, Joe “The Brown Bomber” Louis made history swinging clubs at Langston Golf Club in 1940.
Labor intensive: Why African Americans are industry’s invisible changemakers.
First place: Recalling the first tournament held at a historically Black D.C. golf course.
Innovation ovation: Honoring 101 African American inventors who changed the world.
Colorblind: Please continue supporting the innovative institutions that support Innovate Long Island, including St. Joseph’s University, where the content of your character – not the color of your skin – matters most. Check them out.
