BDN covers Maine Science Festival presentation by UMaine staff
The Bangor Daily News reported on a University of Maine staff presentation at the Maine Science Festival in Bangor on March 16 in an article about a middle school student who aspires to have his invention patented. Rachel Knapp, a science and engineering librarian at UMaine’s Fogler Library, and Renee Kelly, UMaine assistant vice president for innovation and economic development, gave a presentation titled “From Donut Holes to Earmuffs: A (quirky) history of inventions from Maine.” Knapp told the audience that to be approved for a patent an invention must be new, useful and not obvious. The first invention from Maine still in use today probably is the doughnut — in 1847, Hanson Crockett Gregory claimed to have invented round pieces of fried dough with a hole in the middle so they would cook more evenly, Knapp said. John F. Blondel of Thomaston patented a device to improve doughnut dough cutters about 25 years later, the article states. The presentation highlighted 10 inventors born in Maine, including Blondel; Chester Greenwood, of Farmington, who patented earmuffs in 1877; Alvin Orlando Lombardo, of Springfield, who patented a steam-driven log hauler in 1907; UMaine professor of crop ecology and management Gregory Porter, who helped develop the Caribou russet potato; and Habib Dagher, executive director of the Advanced Structures and Composites Center at UMaine, who led a team that developed the “Bridge in a Backpack.”