BIOPHARMA

Expanding health care environments offer growth and attraction opportunities for science.

NEWS DIGEST

Tesla’s new logistics hub in South Carolina; Solenis in Virginia; Cummins, Daimler Truck and Paccar in Mississippi; Wieland Group in Illinois; a new offshore wind farm for the Massachusetts grid; new geothermal power and lithium production by California’s Salton Sea.

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We dive into the data behind the new DHL Global Connectedness Report 2024, which tracks how flows of trade, capital, information and people move around the world and measures the globalization of 181 countries and territories.

Photo by Olivier Blouin courtesy of Parc Olympique and v2com newswire

Olympic Park in Montréal this month announced the launch of an international competition to creatively reuse and add value to all materials and structural components from the Montréal Olympic Stadium roof's dismantling, set to start this summer. “The proposals sought must aim at resilience and adaptation to climate change, which represents a challenge of real Olympic proportion,” says the Société de développement et de mise en valeur du Parc olympique (SDMVPO - Olympic Park). “Consequently, proposals need to target specific outcomes that have the potential to improve residents’ living conditions upon deployment by addressing neighborhood issues.”

The neighborhood was on the minds of folks at finance giant Desjardins Group and architecture and urban design firm Provencher Roy as Desjardins moved hundreds of people into office space in Olympic Tower — the tallest inclined tower in the world — several years ago. People from both organizations walked us through the unique location move in May 2020 .

An architectural creation of Roger Taillibert, the Olympic Park was built for the 1976 Summer Games and as a venue for the Montréal Expos baseball club (1977-2004). Among the highlights SDMVPO points to that will be relevant to reuse proposals:

• The roof’s current two membranes (outer and inner), cover an area of 42,000 sq. m. (452,100 sq. ft.), “equivalent to a little more than 26 hockey rinks.”
• Cables of the current roof structure total approximately 12 kilometers (7.5 miles), “roughly representing the length of Montreal’s symbolic Boulevard Saint-Laurent.”
• The roof’s framework comprises 434 steel connectors that secure cables.

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Map courtesy of NSF

You already knew about the inaugural National Science Foundation Regional Innovation Engines announced in January. This month the NSF announced a funding opportunity to invest in a new set of NSF Engines. In this round of funding, the NSF Engines program is only accepting proposals for full NSF Engines, competing for up to $160 million over 10 years. A webinar about the new funding opportunity takes place today, Thursday, April 25, at 2 p.m. Eastern time.

“As we have begun to see with the 10 inaugural NSF Engines announced earlier this year, the NSF Engines program is generating robust partnerships rooted in scientific and technological innovation,” said Erwin Gianchandani, NSF assistant director for Technology, Innovation and Partnerships (TIP), in an April 16 release. “We are proud to see that our initial investment has already unlocked more than twice as much in matching commitments from public and private funders. This latest NSF Engines funding opportunity represents more forward momentum in establishing a network of flourishing regional technology- and innovation-driven leaders of economic activity throughout the U.S.”

The Little Traverse Wheelway in Michigan

Photo by Chuck Gulker courtesy of Rails to Trails Conservancy

Saturday, April 27, marks Celebrate Trails Day. Started by Rails to Trails Conservancy in 2013, the occasion encourages people to get outside and enjoy the nation’s exceptional trails and trail systems. Hundreds of events will take place across the country. Event listings are available at RailstoTrails.org/CelebrateTrails. Since its founding in 1986, RTC can claim 25,000+ miles of rail-trails on the ground nationwide and more than 9,000 miles of rail-trails ready to be built.

The Top of Michigan Trails Council says the Little Traverse Wheelway pictured here, known locally simply as “the bike path,” runs 26 miles from Charlevoix through Petoskey to Harbor Springs. “The part between Petoskey’s Bayfront Park to Petoskey State Park follows closely the path of the original Little Traverse Wheelway that stretched from Petoskey to Harbor Springs in the 1880s and ‘90s,” the Council says. “A gate over the trail at the east end of Bayfront Park proclaims ‘No Teaming or Driving,’ and replicates the original gate that stood at nearly the same spot. This gate is a reminder of a time when people were prohibited from riding horses or horse-drawn carriages on the trail.”