Today in your Trail Mix:
Protestors deliver bread to the governor to protest fracking.
Senator Schumer puts on the pressure to recruit a chip fabrication plant to Syracuse.
People continue to gamble on Kodak stock.
And Cornell raises tuition by nearly $2,000.
Natural gas
Hundreds of anti-fracking protestors showed up in Albany yesterday to deliver loaves of bread - representing the harvest of New York farmers - to the governor (Karen DeWitt, New York State Public Radio).
The Department of Energy says it now estimates that there are 141 trillion cubic feet of natural gas in the Marcellus Shale - not the 410 trillion previously estimated (Ken Ward Jr., Charleston Gazette).
Natural gas driller Chesapeake says it's cutting production in Pennsylvania in response to low prices for natural gas (AP).
Could fracking in Pennsylvania cause earthquakes? "There's not enough pressure into these faults," according to a seismologist (Susan Phillips, State Impact PA).
Controversial votes that allowed drillers to withdraw water from the Susquehanna River are going to be reconsidered (Andrew Maykuth, Philadelphia Inquirer).
Tech
Senator Schumer visited the Syracuse area yesterday to apply pressure to the Department of Defense, which is weighing whether or not to issue a contract to a chipmaker - a chipmaker that Schumer wants to locate in Syracuse (Ryan Delaney, WRVO/Innovation Trail).
Remember Ecovative, the firm we profiled that makes packaging materials out of mushrooms? They're featured in the latest issue of Wired (All Over Albany). Here's the video, in case you missed it:
A Buffalo-area research firm has won a contract to do work on an antibiotic for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (David Robinson, Buffalo News).
It's National Nuclear Science Week! (Debra J. Groom, Post-Standard).
The northern lights could be seen at unusually southern latitudes because of a solar storm blowing past earth. In addition to atmospheric fireworks, aircraft communications and power transmission could be disrupted (John Mariani, Post-Standard).
New York's Public Service Commission will look into a security breach that allowed a private contracted access to the personal data of RG&E and NYSEG customers (WXXI).
Kodak
Matthew Daneman at the Democrat and Chronicle has a great FAQ detailing why people are buying bankrupt Kodak's stock - "if you're willing to gamble and willing to lose it all, go ahead."
Still unsure about what Kodak's bankruptcy means? Here's the special that WXXI aired the day of the bankruptcy announcement.
Government
The president gives the State of the Union address tonight (Eyder Peralta, The Two-Way).
Overtime worked by state employees cost New Yorkers $469 million last year - a 4.5 percent jump over the previous year (Joseph Spector, Gannett).
The governor and the state comptroller are at odds about the practicality of the governor's proposal to create another "tier" in the state worker retirement system (Colby Hamilton, The Empire).
New York Now wants to know in their latest poll, how happy you are with the governor's proposed budget.
Buffalo's Common Council votes on new rules regulating food trucks today (Chris Caya, WNED).
Real estate and development
Syracuse's Carousel Center Mall has picked up a deal from the local industrial development agency to provide $420 million in financing, to complete upgrades at the property (Tim Knauss, Post-Standard).
Real estate sentiment in Binghamton, Syracuse, and Utica dropped in the fourth quarter (Rick Seltzer, Greater Binghamton Business Journal).
Watertown officials are considering how to redevelop a former Woolworth's (Joanna Richards, WRVO).
Higher ed
Cornell has approved a tuition increase of nearly $2,000 for the next school year (Rachel Stern, Ithaca Journal).
But if you're not deterred by the tuition hike, you can check out the campus before you go, via Google Maps. The campus was added to the map last week (Rachel Stern, Ithaca Journal).
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