‘EXCUSE ME, DO YOU HAVE AIR CONDITIONING?’
Robert Barca of Sound Beach snapped this photo of a wild turkey peering into the window of his home. The curious young bird stopped by for a visit on a humid August 3.
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Jim Molloy explores imaginative new subjects and styles in solo exhibit
By Melissa Arnold
Artist Jim Molloy of Miller Place has earned a reputation as a nautical and landscape painter, and it’s easy to see why. His oil-on-canvas masterpieces of lighthouses in Maine, the local harbors of Stony Brook, Port Jefferson and Mount Sinai, or the intricate components of a sailboat will transport you to another place. His award-winning work has been showcased up and down the East Coast.
These days, though, Molloy is exploring something completely different. And it all started with a trip to the antique store.
“I found some [children’s] blocks and thought they would make a nice still life,” said Molloy, 53. “From there I started working with Tinker Toys, LEGOs, things like that, anything I could find.”
The new focus on what he calls “abstract realism” has given Molloy a surge of fresh ideas, and he’s ready to share them with the world. His first solo exhibit, entitled Primary Colors, will debut at Gallery North in Setauket on Aug. 30.
Art has always been a part of Molloy’s life, and he worked for decades using his talents wherever he could — as an illustrator for technical manuals, in the advertising industry, making 3-D models, doing custom airbrush work on vehicles and the list goes on. His real passion was for painting, however, and 12 years ago he left the workforce to paint full time.
It was easy to keep up his old rhythm of waking up and getting to work, said Molloy, who paints daily in his home studio. Self-taught, he honed his skills through hours of reading and study.
“After I quit my job, I visited museums and read every book I could get my hands on [about painting],” he said, adding he is especially inspired by Andrew Wyeth, Edward Hopper and Winslow Homer.
There are also the artists that encouraged and collaborated with him along the way. Among them are Irene Ruddock, president of Setauket Artists, who met Molloy at an art festival years ago. He began to exhibit with the group, and in 2015, they named him their Honored Artist.
“People are attracted to Jim’s paintings, not just because of his skillful techniques, but because of their soulfulness,” Ruddock said. “His work contains that special quality that tugs a bit at your heart, where you know that you are not just looking at something — you are feeling something that is warm and rare. In short, his paintings become memorable.”
The journey to Primary Colors began last year at Gallery North, when Molloy was featured in a group exhibit titled The Art of Eating. Each work in the show focused on food, and Molloy’s contribution was a whimsical painting of children’s blocks arranged to resemble a plate of sushi with a pair of chopsticks.
The painting, an oil-on-panel work titled “Square Meal,” captured the attention of Gallery North Executive Director Judith Levy.
“I was amused by it. It was unique, interesting and fun,” said Levy in a recent phone interview. “When Jim approached me about an exhibit, I told him I would love to focus on that painting. It’s important for us to show a range of different ideas, and I’m very excited.” The show will also be on view during the gallery’s 2018 Outdoor Art Show and Music Festival on Sept. 8 and 9.
The process of creating each painting is a true labor of love for Molloy. Once he finds a subject that interests him, he’ll take it home and set it up in the studio. But before the painting begins, Molloy takes a photo of the subject that he can work from as time goes on. Getting the perfect angle and lighting is painstaking, and Molloy often shoots 100 photos or more before getting it just right.
In total, 32 works of art will be showcased during Primary Colors, many of them created within the past year with the exhibit in mind. The title hints at a common theme — each painting features the three primary colors — red, yellow and blue — in a prominent way. The paintings vary in size, from 6-by-12 inches to 3-by-5 feet, and all will be available for purchase.
“People in this area know me for my landscape art, so I’m honestly a little nervous about how they’ll respond to this exhibit,” Molloy admitted. “But I think it’s fun and colorful. In the beginning, when I first started painting [in this way], I never would have noticed the little details. But now I see everything differently. It’s a new perspective.”
Primary Colors will be on display from Aug. 30 to Sept. 21 at Gallery North, 90 North Country Road, Setauket. The public is invited to an opening reception on Aug. 30 from 5 to 7 p.m., and Molloy will be the featured artist at the gallery’s ArTalk series on Sept. 16 from 3 to 5 p.m. For more information about the exhibit, visit www.gallerynorth.org or call 631-751-2676.
To see more of Jim Molloy’s artwork, visit www.molloyart.com.
Images courtesy of Gallery North
By Daniel Dunaief
It was discovered in Sweden in 1756 and its name means “boiling stone,” which suggests something that might be a part of a magic show.
All these years later, zeolites, as this class of crystalline porous aluminosilicates are known, have become a key part of many products, such as in water and air purifiers, in detergents and in petroleum refining and hydrocarbon synthesis. They are even a part of deodorizers for people’s homes.
While these rocks, which are produced naturally and synthetically, act as sieves because their contained pores are the size of small molecules, the surface science plays a role in their interactions involves some mysteries.
For researchers like associate materials scientist J. Anibal Boscoboinik, who works at Brookhaven National Laboratory in the Center for Functional Nanomaterials, the unknowns stem from the way the reactions occur inside three-dimensional pores, which is inaccessible to the typical tools of surface science.
Boscoboinik, who is also an adjunct professor of materials science and engineering at Stony Brook University, has addressed this problem by creating synthetic two-dimensional models of this versatile substance. The models, which he designed when he was at the Fritz Haber Institute of the Max Planck Society in Berlin, have the same active sites and behave chemically like zeolites.
Using the high-tech tools at BNL, including the National Synchrotron Light Source, which is the predecessor to the current NSLS II, Boscoboinik derived an unexpected result. “We found, by accident, that when we exposed [zeolites] to noble gases, they got trapped in the little cages the structure has” at room temperature, he said.
Noble gases — including argon, krypton, xenon and radon — can become enmeshed in zeolite. The only noble gases that pass directly through or enter and exit easily are helium and neon, which are too small to bind to the surface.
When a noble gas with a positive charge enters zeolite, it gains an electron immediately upon entering, so it becomes neutral. The noble gases can also get trapped even when silicates don’t have a negative charge. These gases’ ions are produced when researchers use X-rays. The ions are smaller than the neutral atom, which allows them to enter the cage.
“The energy required to get them out of the cage is high,” Boscoboinik explained. “Once they are in, it’s hard to get them out.”
This finding, which Boscoboinik and his colleagues made last year, was named one of the top 10 discoveries and scientific achievements at BNL. These zeolite cages have the potential to trap radioactive gases generated by nuclear power plants or filter carbon monoxide or other smaller molecules.
The science behind understanding zeolites is akin to the understanding of the inner workings of a battery. Zeolites and batteries are both commonly used in industry and commercial applications, even though researchers don’t have a precise understanding of the reactions that enable them to function as they do.
Indeed, scientists at BNL and elsewhere hope to gain a better understanding of the way these processes work, which offers the hope of creating more efficient, less expensive products that could be technologically superior to the current designs.
Boscoboinik, who has been at BNL for almost five years, is especially appreciative of the opportunities to collaborate with scientists at the Department of Energy-sponsored facility and worked closely with Deyu Lu on the noble gas experiments.
He would not have learned as much only from experiments, Boscoboinik said. The theory helped explain the trapping of radon, which he didn’t work on for safety reasons because of its radioactivity.
Trapping radon gas could have significant health benefits, as the gas is often found in the ground or in basements. Radon is the second leading cause of lung cancer.
Lu, who is a physicist and theorist at the Center for Functional Nanomaterials, said in a recent email he was “impressed by the novelty of [Boscoboinik’s] research on two-dimensional zeolite.”
The two researchers received funding starting in 2014 on a four-year collaboration. Lu said that he wanted his computational modeling to “confirm the hypothesis from the experiment that noble gas atoms prefer to enter the nano-sized pore [rather] than the interfacial area of the zeolite bi-layer.”
The two-dimensional zeolite model system “gives us a wonderful playground to learn physical insights from both theory and experiments,” he continued. Boscoboinik is “one of the few experts who can synthesize the two-dimensional zeolite film, and he is leading the field to apply synchrotron X-ray techniques to study this remarkable new material,” Lu explained.
More broadly, Boscoboinik is interested in developing a deeper awareness of the process through which zeolite breaks down hydrocarbons. He would also like to get a specific model for the way zeolite can convert methane — a gas that is increasing in the atmosphere and has been implicated in the greenhouse gas effect — into methanol, a liquid that can be converted into gasoline.
A resident of Stony Brook, Boscoboinik, who was raised in Argentina, is married and has two young children. His family enjoys going to the beach and recently visited Orient Point State Park. When he was growing up in South America and had more discretionary time, he enjoyed reading. His favorite authors are Jorge Luis Borges and Julio Cortazar.
Boscoboinik appreciates the curiosity-driven questions he gets from his children. In his work, he “tries to think like a kid. At work, I try to ask the same question my five-year old asks,” although he thinks like an adult in matters of safety.
As for his work, Boscoboinik said he knows he has a long way to go before he answers the questions he asks. “When working in this environment, you never know what you’re going to find,” he said.
“You have to keep your eyes open for the unexpected so you don’t miss things that are really interesting, even if they are not what you were aiming at.”
MEET MACY!
Forget what you heard about Torties because there is no tortitude here! Macy is a friendly and sweet 11-month-old domestic short hair currently waiting at Kent Animal Shelter for her furever home. Folklore says that tortoise shell cats bring good luck and we certainly believe that any home with a tortie is a lucky one! Macy comes spayed, microchipped and as up to date as possible on vaccines.
Kent Animal Shelter is located at 2259 River Road in Calverton. The adoption center is open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. every day. For more information on Macy and other adoptable pets at Kent, call 631-727-5731.
By Yusuf A. Hannun, M.D.
Recently the New York State Department of Health (DOH) reported elevated levels of leukemia, bladder cancer, thyroid cancer and lung cancer in three central Long Island communities — Farmingville, Selden and Centereach.
As Suffolk County’s only academic-based cancer research facility, Stony Brook University Cancer Center has researchers working with DOH scientists to interpret the data and look at possible causes of these high incidence rates.
More information and analysis are needed
The state’s reports raise important questions about possible reasons, what the results mean and what can be done to change them. First, we need to determine which subtypes of the four cancers are responsible for these higher incidence rates. Each type of cancer can be divided into subtypes, based on certain characteristics of the cancer cells, and these subtypes may have distinct causes and risk factors. It’s important to know the subtype of a cancer to identify the possible causes.
Also, it is important to know whether mortality rates from these cancers are higher in the three Long Island communities than they are in the rest of the state. This information is critical because sometimes increases in incidence rates are due to improved diagnosis and detection. We must determine if the data in the DOH study truly are the results of higher incidences, which can be assessed by determining whether the higher incidence rates have translated into higher mortality rates.
Findings for Farmingville, Centereach and Selden
Bladder cancer, lung cancer, thyroid cancer and leukemia were diagnosed at statistically significant elevated levels in Farmingville, Centereach and Selden, according to the DOH data. The cancer incidences were identified with information from the New York State Cancer Registry.
The registry collects reports on cancer diagnoses from health care providers, which include the sites of tumors, the stages when diagnosed, the cell types of the cancer, treatment information and demographic information. Every person diagnosed with cancer in New York state is reported to the registry. The incidences also were identified from statistical mapping of neighborhoods in the three communities.
We learned that, from 2011 to 2015, the following number of cases occurred:
• 311 cases of lung cancer, 56 percent above statewide rate
• 112 cases of bladder cancer, 50 percent above statewide rate
• 98 cases of thyroid cancer, 43 percent above statewide rate
• 87 cases of leukemia, 64 percent above statewide rate
Cancer research
With all the resources of an academic medical center, the Stony Brook Cancer Center will move quickly to examine the findings from this study.
Transforming cancer care is the driving force behind the construction of our new cancer center, which will be located in the 240,000-square-foot, eight-story Medical Research and Translation (MART) building opening in November. It is where researchers will revolutionize breakthrough medical discoveries and create lifesaving treatments to deliver the future of cancer care today.
For more information on the DOH study, or the Stony Brook Cancer Center, call us at 631-638-1000 or visit www.cancer.stonybrookmedicine.edu.
Dr. Yusuf A. Hannun is the director of the Stony Brook University Cancer Center and vice dean for cancer medicine.
By Sabrina Petroski
Eat, drink and be merry at An Evening of Wine Under the Stars! Hosted by the Huntington Historical Society, the 28th annual celebration will be held on Thursday, Sept. 6 from 6:30 to 9:30 p.m. on the grounds of the Dr. Daniel W. Kissam House Museum (1795), located at 434 Park Ave. in Huntington Village. With delicious food and drink from local restaurants, wineries and breweries, live music from the band Ladies Drink Free (a blend of gritty funk, R&B/soul, pop rock and modern jazz) along with a silent auction and raffles, guests are sure to have a night full of fun.
This year’s event will honor The Paramount and its owners, Jim Condron, Dominick Catoggio, Stephen Ubertini and Brian Doyle. “We are thankful to them for restoring the Huntington Theater, built in 1927,” said Lorraine Kelley, the chairperson for the event. “The Huntington Theater is an important part of our history. The Founder’s Room at The Paramount is also part of the walking tour and pub crawl led by town historian Robert Hughes.”
Participating restaurants as of press time include Mr. Sausage, Culinary Studio, California Pizza Kitchen, Crew Kitchen, Babalu NY, IMC, Shamrock Pub, Christopher’s Pub, Kerber’s Farms, The Sandbar, Miko, Black and Blue, Crabtree’s, Duck Island Bakery, Copenhagen Bakery, Jeff’s Surf & Turf and Red Restaurant. Wine will be provided by Bottles and Cases, Joanina and Millbrook Wines, a Hudson Valley winery; and three local breweries will be present — Blind Bat Brewery, Oyster Bay Brewing Company and HopWins Brewery.
One of the highlights of the evening will be the silent auction and raffle in the historic Kissam Barn. Auction items will include a shed from Burt Lumber, a fishing trip with Skip Hartmann, a wine tasting at Total Wine in Westbury for 20 people (wine included), a reproduction handmade dining room table and chairs and a reproduction handmade queen size bed. Baseball memorabilia items will also be auctioned, as well as an original piece of artwork from “The Lockhorns” that has been generously donated by cartoonist Bunny Hoest.
This year the society will be using Bidpal/OneCause for the first time to allow participants to bid on auction items while also purchasing their tickets online. For those who cannot attend, but wish to bid on the auction items or contribute to the society, it will be possible to register and bid from home. Participants do not need to attend or buy a ticket to bid.
Donations of approximately 40 raffle baskets have been received from merchants in Huntington, Greenlawn, Cold Spring Harbor and Northport, filled to the brim with restaurant gift cards, spa and beauty salon gift cards, baskets of wine, free passes for Pilates and dance lessons and various books.
“This event is our most important fundraiser of the year,” said Kelley. “The money we raise allows us to offer free programs to the community such as the Sheep to Shawl Festival in May and Apple Festival in October. It also gives us the funding to restore and maintain our four historic properties. We are so grateful to all the restaurants and businesses who are donating food, wine and gifts to help us reach our goal.”
Tickets for An Evening of Wine Under the Stars are $75 for members and $90 for nonmembers. Any remaining tickets will be sold at the door for $100. For further information, please call 631-427-7045, ext. 401, or visit www.huntingtonhistoricalsociety.org.
Making Memories with Music, a special program for people with dementia and their care partners, returns to the Cinema Arts Centre, 423 Park Ave., Huntington on Aug. 27 at 11 a.m. Facilitated by Marcy Rhodes, the morning will feature a performance by The Jazz Loft Trio — Tom Manuel on cornet and vocals, Steve Salerno on guitar and Keenan Zach on double bass. Admission is $5 per person. Popcorn and beverages will be served. Registration is required by calling 631-423-7610, ext. 0.
Avalon Park & Preserve in Stony Brook will present a free screening of the documentary “Sky Quest” at its barn off Shep Jones Lane on Friday, Aug. 24 at 8 p.m. A family favorite, it tells the story of one woman’s quest for astronomy exploration and her childhood dreams of the stars.
Led by David Cohn and David Barnett, the film will be followed by Sky Lab and Sky Dome viewing of Venus, Jupiter, Saturn, Mars, a waxing gibbous Moon and various deep sky objects around 9 p.m. (weather permitting). Free. For more information or directions, call 631-689-0619 or visit www.avalonparkandpreserve.org.
By Desirée Keegan
University of North Carolina standout Jamie Ortega wanted to live up to the hype after being named Inside Lacrosse’s No. 1-ranked freshman attacker, and she did just that with a record-breaking first season with a Tar Heels team that reached the NCAA semifinals.
The Centereach native was tabbed National Rookie of the Year as well by the lacrosse-centric publication, and Freshman of the Year by the Atlantic Coast Conference, navigating her way to be the top goal-scorer on a deep North Carolina offense. She shot 57.4 percent for 70 goals and added 16 assists while starting in all 18 games, scoring multiple goals in each of the Tar Heels’ final 14 contests, including 12 in a three-game span in the NCAA tournament. Her 86 points broke UNC’s single-season record while she led all ACC rookies and ranked fourth overall in the conference. Her 70 goals also broke a 2008 record (50) for most goals scored by a freshman in a season, ranked second overall in the ACC and tied for 11th in Division I.
“She’s a tremendous talent,” 23-year North Carolina head coach Jenny Levy said. “[Myself and my coaching staff] have done this for a long time, and when you see ‘It’, you see it. She really has multiple weapons — she can dodge, feed and play off-ball — and she’s done that for a long time. She’s had the most tremendous freshman year we’ve ever had.”
Levy, who is considered among the best coaches in women’s lacrosse history, ranking third in NCAA Division I history in career wins and is a two-time national champion and a two-time National Coach of the Year, said she challenged Ortega to perform at a high level after UNC graduated a huge class of seniors. She said she hadn’t put that type of pressure on a freshman in a long time, and said she thought Ortega responded.
“I wasn’t really expecting being ranked the top recruit in the nation, and it did make me nervous because I felt like I had to live up to that expectation, but it also made me want to work harder, because I wanted to prove I was the No. 1 lacrosse recruit in the nation,” said Ortega, who was also named to the Inside Lacrosse ILWomen All-Rookie Team and All-America third team. “Being named the Rookie of the Year means a lot to me because it showed that through college — which is really hard, because it’s not like high school, everyone’s good — I can still stand out.”
She credited her teammates, like Marie McCool, a decorated player in her own right, for pushing her to become better, and giving her opportunities to succeed.
McCool said Ortega proved she was a force all her own, especially after the freshman recorded her 15th goal of the conference tournament, which broke a North Carolina record set by attacker Molly Hendrick the season prior.
“I don’t let things get to me. I feel I can push through adversities and the challenges defenders face me with.”
— Jamie Ortega
“Jamie Ortega is a special player,” McCool told The Daily Tar Heel. “She’s only a freshman and the confidence that she plays with — you don’t see it often with freshmen.”
Ortega played her best lacrosse the second half of the season. She scored a career-high seven goals and closed out a 10-0 first-half run in a 20-10 win against Duke University April 21. The performance was one goal shy of the UNC single-game record set in 2002.
Ortega grew accustomed to the spotlight in high school, having experienced facing double-teams throughout her six years on her Middle Country high school team, which she led to its first Suffolk County title and state championship game in 2017. Even a switch from midfield to attack couldn’t slow her down this season.
“It just comes so natural to her, playing the game how it is supposed to be played,” Middle Country head coach Lindsay Dolson said. “Jamie did an awesome job on defense and offense for us. She definitely led the team in that aspect.”
Her senior year she tallied 98 goals and 45 assists and finished as New York state’s all-time leader in points with 588 (402 goals and 186 assists). She was also a five-year varsity starter and two-time all-county pick on Centereach High School’s soccer team.
“I’m a pretty confident person,” Ortega said. “I think that’s really important for other players to have. I don’t let things get to me. I feel I can push through adversities and the challenges defenders face me with.”
Through all her triumphs she also had some unique experiences as a Tar Heel, like when she faced her older sister Nikki, an attack for the University of Notre Dame. The sisters scored unassisted and back-to-back for the first goals for each of their teams in UNC’s come-from-behind win.
“It was stressful, because you want them both to win,” their mother Susan said, laughing. “I’m so proud of them, and one thing with Jamie is she’s always trying to get better and her hard work really paid off. Jamie is the most humble kid you’re ever going to meet. She doesn’t talk about herself, she doesn’t watch herself, and I think that makes it even more impressive to me because she’s all about the game and playing, and playing with her team, and having fun doing it.”
Jamie Ortega also had the chance to play minutes from her home when Stony Brook University hosted the NCAA playoffs for North Carolina, which made its 10th appearance in the NCAA tournament semifinals, including seven in the last 10 years. She had four goals and one assist in the team’s final appearance of 2018 against James Madison University, earning All-NCAA Tournament Team honors.
If that all wasn’t enough, Ortega is giving back to a sport that’s given so much to her.
She worked a camp called Top of the Class at Lawrence Academy in Massachusetts with her assistant coach Phil Barnes, who runs it with Harvard University head coach Devon Wills. Many Ivy League schools and coaches were there, along with six of her UNC teammates. She said working with the freshman to junior players felt natural.
“I didn’t feel like I was coaching — it felt like I was just hanging out with some lacrosse girls,” Ortega said. “This is definitely something I never expected, because I’m not one to brag, but being an idol to others really motivated you more. Lacrosse means everything to me, and to be able to play, and to still play at this level, making memories with my teammates, trying to succeed with them and giving back to others has been a privilege.”
An overturned kayak in the Long Island Sound required emergency rescue services from the Suffolk County Police Department Aug. 23.
The Suffolk County Police Department received a 911 call regarding a man who was in distress after his kayak overturned in the Long Island Sound, approximately two miles north of the Shoreham Nuclear Power Plant at 11:52 a.m. Thursday, according to police. Aviation Section Officers John Carey and Richard Davin responded in the police helicopter, located the kayaker and guided Marine Bureau Officers Steven Tarolli and Christopher Erickson, who were onboard Marine Delta, to the victim. Officers Tarolli and Erickson were able to pull the victim onto the boat. The Wading River Fire Department and Town of Brookhaven Bay Constable assisted in the rescue.
The victim, Andrew Punella, 61, of Queens, was transported by the Wading River Fire Department to Peconic Bay Medical Center in Riverhead for treatment of hypothermia.
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