Play ball! Welcome to Wednesday, sports fans, and not just any Wednesday but the Wednesday before the start of the 2025 Major League Baseball season – which officially kicks off tomorrow, a surefire sign that Spring has sprung and Summer is just around the corner.
It promises to be an exciting year for New York fans, with professional prognosticators predicting both the Mets and the Yankees will be in the hunt all season. We’re just happy to welcome back the American pastime – although our eyes, of course, remain focused on the socioeconomic prize.
Leaf it right there: Eat your spinach today.
Purple reign: With that, a pleasant March 26 to you all, starting with International Purple Day, which has little to do with the color landing between red and blue and everything to do with global grassroots efforts to increase epilepsy awareness.
It’s also Make Up Your Own Holiday Day, and while we acknowledge that all of the observances we highlight here are contrived – in fact, every holiday, even the major ones, are “made up” – this one invites you to get in on the creative act. (We’re going to celebrate Better National Defense Through Group Chats Day.)
You are what you eat: Our daily menu is an absolute homage to acquired tastes, as we highlight National Spinach Day (which, if you can choke it down, keeps you strong to the fin-ich) and National Nougat Day (chewing on a sticky kryptonite for dental health and – like “moist” and “mucus” – just one of those words, you know?).
Band on the run: Also sticky was the adhesive medical plaster patented on March 26, 1845, by South Carolina doctors Harrell Day and William Shecut – less an actual Band-Aid then a metaphorical band-aid for an ancient medical problem, though credited as a forerunner to the modern disposable adhesive bandage.
Are you there, Spock? It’s me, Edmond: Showing less sticktoitiveness was the “ghost planet” Vulcan, which was “observed” on this date in 1859 – orbiting closer to the Sun than Mercury – by amateur French astronomer Edmond Modeste. (Spoiler alert: It wasn’t).
Radiation celebration: Practicing more solid science is the American Roentgen Ray Society, which formed on this date 125 years ago today as the very first U.S. radiological society.
Stick figure: Jonas Salk inoculates a child with the polio vaccine in 1954.
Vaccination celebration: It was this date in 1953 when American virologist Jonas Salk announced that he had successfully tested a vaccine against the virus that causes polio – eventually leading to a 99.9 percent global decrease in incidence of polio (which still survives only in Pakistan and Afghanistan).
The older and well-rested: And it was March 26, 1973, when seminal soap opera “The Young and the Restless” premiered on the CBS Television Network.
The core families at the heart of the matter (the Brooks and the Fosters) have been rejiggered (to the Abbots and the Williamses, plus the Newmans, the Baldwin-Fishers and a few others) – though, five decades later, original character Jill Abbott is still battling arch-rival Katherine Chancellor for bragging rights in Genoa City, Wis.
Fascinating: Also somewhat familiar with fictitious planets named Vulcan, American actor, director, poet, photographer and musician Leonard Simon Nimoy (1931-2015) – forever “Star Trek’s” Mr. Spock – would be 94 years old today.
Lady justice: Sandra Day O’Connor remains an icon of national equality.
Also born on March 26 were American poet Robert Frost (1874-1963), the four-time Pulitzer Prize-winner who was the most famous poet of his time; American writer and educator Joseph Campbell (1904-1987), the influential mythologist who mastered the “hero’s journey”; American playwright and screenwriter Thomas Lanier “Tennessee” Williams (1911-1983), who liked a little sex and violence with his romantic gentility; American attorney, politician and jurist Sandra Day O’Connor (1930-2023), the first woman to serve as a U.S. Supreme Court justice; and American computer scientist, engineer and Internet entrepreneur Larry Page (born 1973), the Google co-founder currently weighing in around $141.9 billion, good for seventh-wealthiest in the world.
Speak up: And take a bow, Nancy Patricia Pelosi! The American politician – the first woman elected Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives and first woman to lead a major political party in either chamber of Congress – turns 85 today.
Give your best to the longtime congresswoman – currently serving her 20th term representing California’s 11th Congressional District – at editor@innovateli.com, where your news tips and calendar events are always well-represented.
About our sponsor: ZE Creative Communications is a full-service integrated marketing communications agency specializing in public relations, creative marketing, crisis communication and social media. Founded in Great Neck, ZE Creative Communications has been helping clients create compelling and successful messaging campaigns for more than three decades. Learn more here.
BUT FIRST, THIS
Book smarts: Small-minded federal officials may be gutting funding for the nation’s library systems, but bigger brains out there still appreciate the educational and social importance of expansive, well-resourced centers of study.
Case in point: The California-based Marian B. and Jacob K. Javits Foundation, which has gifted $1 million to Stony Brook University Libraries for the purpose of preserving and promoting the Senator Jacob K. Javits Collection at Stony Brook – a compendium of almost 2 million items (speeches, bills, campaign literature, audio and film recordings, photographs, memorabilia and more) highlighting the U.S. senator’s career, originally bequeathed to the university in 1981.
Stony Brook University Library’s largest-ever endowment will be matched by the New York State endowment match program – introduced by Gov. Kathy Hochul in 2023 – and the Simons Infinity Investment Match Challenge, tripling the impact of a gift that “reaffirms our commitment to serving as a hub of knowledge and collaboration for all,” according to SBU Libraries Dean Karim Boughida. “We are profoundly grateful for the generous endowment received to maintain the Sen. Jacob K. Javits Collection,” Boughida added. “As we navigate these challenging times, it’s more important than ever to ensure access to such invaluable resources.”
By the book: Originally constructed in 1929, Lynwood Public Library is a classic example of early 20th Century institutional architecture.
History in the making: Speaking of libraries, a classically constructed bibliothèque in the Village of Lynbrook has been nominated for placement on the National and New York State Registers of Historic Places.
Circa-1929 Lynbrook Public Library is one of 20 statewide nominations – including brick-and-mortar properties and entire districts – for the coveted honor, which can trigger eligibility for state preservation grants and federal historic-rehabilitation tax credits and otherwise assist property owners’ revitalization efforts. Also included on the latest list of nominations, announced this week by Gov. Kathy Hochul’s office, are a Jewish cemetery in Buffalo, a divinity school in Rochester and a public-housing complex in Brooklyn, among others.
The National Register of Historic Places includes more than 128,000 historic properties across New York State, which leads the nation in the use of historic tax credits ($7.17 billion in total rehabilitation costs from 2018-2024, stimulating more than $16.4 billion in project expenditures, according to Hochul’s office). “We are dedicated to researching and documenting complete histories … and to connecting communities with the resources they need to help preserve and promote these unique assets,” noted New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation Deputy Commissioner for Historic Preservation Daniel Mackay.
TOP OF THE SITE
Healthy investments: The Spring 2025 Hofstra-Digital Remedy Venture Challenge featured eager entrepreneurship, impressive innovation and a heavy focus on health and wellness.
Going up: Our latest sky-high season of “Spark: The Innovate Long Island Podcast” has reached new heights of intellectual discourse and entertaining dialogue, all focused on upper-level issues important to your personal and business ascension. Gain some altitude!
VOICES
Dating all the way back to the late-1940s founding of “America’s first suburb,” Long Island’s shameful history of housing discrimination continues today – and according to Family and Children’s Association President/CEO and Voices Social Services Anchor Jeffrey Reynolds, it’s only going to get worse, thanks specifically to draconian HUD funding cuts ordered by the Trump Administration.
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
Bad road: Actually, from bad to worse as Tesla recalls 46,000-plus defective Cybertrucks. Forbes rewinds a very bad year.
Ominous: Consumer confidence is at its lowest level in 12 years – and national recession alarms are flashing. The Conference Board shares very bad signs.
Ripe renaissance: Agricultural innovation is spurring strategic autonomy and market competitiveness across Europe. Politico reviews very promising agriscience.
RECENT FUNDINGS
+ Wheeler Bio, an Oklahoma-based biologics contract-developer and manufacturer, raised $35 million in Series A-1 funding led by Alloy Therapeutics and Echo Investment Capital.
+ Sibel Health, an Illinois-based med-tech focused on wireless vital-sign monitoring and data integration, raised $30 million in Series C funding led by Dräger and the Steele Foundation for Hope.
+ Blueshift, a Massachusetts-based electrochemical climate-tech innovator, raised $2.1 million in Pre-Seed funding. Backers included ConocoPhillips, Ridgeline and the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center.
+ Coreshell, a California-based battery-technology innovator, raised $24 million in funding led by Ferroglobe PLC and Zeon Ventures.
+ Hunted Labs, a Virginia-based software security specialist, raised $3 million in Pre-Seed funding led by Red Cell Partners.
+ Curevo, a Washington State-based clinical-stage biotech focused on next-generation non-mRNA vaccines, raised $110 million in Series B funding led by Medicxi.
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). Gregory Zeller can tell you more.
BELOW THE FOLD (Have You Had Lunch Edition)
Volksweiner: The people’s sausage.
Secret sauce: How pasta reveals the secrets of the universe.
Turn for the wurst: Volkswagen now sells more sausages than cars.
Pop goes your healthcare: Prebiotic Pepsi? Kombucha Cola? The soda wars are now targeting gut health.
Refined tastes: Please continue supporting the amazing agencies that support Innovate Long Island, including ZE Creative Communications, always serving a sizzling smorgasbord of made-to-order marketing messages. Check them out.
