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The mini-Annals of Improbable Research ("mini-AIR")
March 2009, Issue number 2009-03. ISSN 1076-500X.
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A free online supplement to
the Annals of Improbable Research (AIR)
This issue is at
<http://www.improbable.com/airchives/miniair/2009/mini2009-03.htm>
Archive at <http://improbable.com/airchives/miniair/>
Key words: improbable research, science humor, Ig Nobel, AIR, the
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2009-03-01 TABLE OF CONTENTS
2009-03-02 Imminent Events
2009-03-03 What's New in the Magazine: Bagels & Zombies
2009-03-04 Second Triple Oberdrster
2009-03-05 Global Warming Cheat Sheet, and the F/R Ration
2009-03-06 Ig Nobel UK Tour, March 7-12
2009-03-07 Withering Bad Breath Poets
2009-03-08 Doubly-Labeled Water Competition
2009-03-09 RESEARCH SPOTLIGHT: Arm Crossing and Persistence
2009-03-10 OTHER RECENT IMPROBABILITIES: Random, Crud, Hair
2009-03-11 MAY WE RECOMMEND: Doll Phobia, Economics & Ignorance
2009-03-12 Improbable Research Events
2009-03-13 -- How to Subscribe to AIR (*)
2009-03-14 -- Our Address (*)
2009-03-15 -- Please Forward/Post This Issue! (*)
2009-03-16 -- How to Receive mini-AIR, etc. (*)
Items marked (*) are reprinted in every issue.
mini-AIR is
but a wee monthly *supplement*
to the bi-monthly magazine Annals of Improbable Research
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2009-03-02 Imminent Events
Mar 6-15, UK - Oxford, Newcastle, Portsmouth, Bristol, London
Details: <http://tinyurl.com/k87xs>
Mar 25-26, SOUTH AFRICA
Apr 21-25, DENMARK
Full schedule & details at <http://tinyurl.com/k87xs>
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2009-03-03 What's New in the Magazine: Bagels & Zombies
The special Ig Nobel issue (vol. 15, no. 1) of the Annals of
Improbable Research is the special Mummies, Zombies and Bagels
issue.
Download a free low-res PDF (which we will post any day now), or
subscribe to the traditional comfy paper edition (which has just
been mailed out from the printers), or get a spiffy hi-res PDF.
Many back issues are online at
<http://www.improbable.com/magazine/>
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2009-03-04 Second Triple Oberdrster
Last month's triple-Oberdrster citation (part of our
Multiplicity of Monikers collection) is not unique. Investigator
Charlene Biswas found another, which she says is her favorite of
the two multi-Oberdrster citations:
"Concepts of Nanoparticle Dose Metric and Response Metric,"
Gu_nter Oberdrster, Eva Oberdrster, and Jan Oberdrster,
Environmental Health Perspectives, vol. 115, no. 6, June 2007, p.
A290. <http://tinyurl.com/dkxr9n> This triple-Oberdrster study
takes issue with a non-Oberdrster study that takes issue with
the content of the first triple-Oberdrster study.
Oberdrster scholars already know that the three Oberdrsters are
pictured and interviewed at <http://tinyurl.com/dezd7r>
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2009-03-05 Global Warming Nutshell Sheet, and the F/R Ration
Investigator Grover Winthrop composed a handy "in-a-nutshell
study sheet" for scientists who are confused by the great debate
about global warming. Winthrop writes: "People tell me there's a
debate about global warming. Yet these days I don't meet any any
competent scientists who see it as a debate. So here — for my
colleagues — is a guide to what people mean when they tell us
there is a debate:
1. Global warming is not happening; and
2. It causes no problems; and
3. It's not caused by human engineering; and
4. Whatever problems it causes are easily solved by engineering.
"What we are seeing here," enthuses Winthrop, "is the birth of
some new kind of logic. It's fascinating."
Investigator Daniele Ramos, too, has been fascinated by reports
that there is a debate. She alerts us to a simple tool she uses
to analyze the debaters' arguments. Ramos writes:
"The arguments I've heard and read (saying there's no global
warming problem) nearly always have a very low F/R ratio. The F/R
ratio — the 'Facts-to-Rage ratio' — was invented (I think) by the
journalist Josh Marshall. As soon as I find myself in a
discussion with someone whose argument has a very low F/R ratio,
I relax and simply enjoy the spectacle. It does wonders for my
stress level."
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2009-03-06 Ig Nobel UK Tour, March 7-12
The seventh Ig Nobel Tour of the UK (for National Science and
Engineering Week) will have five shows in as many cities. All
events are free. It's advisable to reserve tickets in advance, as
the venues generally fill to capacity (and would exceed it, but
for the UK's famous, fearsome Health & Safety regulations). The
London show, the biggest of the bunch, is already nearly booked
full.
Sixteen individuals and teams, many of them Ig Nobel winners,
will explain briefly what they did and why they did it. Each show
will have a unique subset of those sixteen. The show in Newcastle
will also feature a performance of the mini-opera Atom & Eve.
Many of the speakers are new to the tour (with topics such as:
comparative dog and cat flea jumping ability; organizational
bastards; measuring hot potato mouth; UK/US necrophilia
forensics; etc.).
Some are returning after previous appearances, now armed with
fresh new topics (buying plutonium; left/right medical mishaps;
etc.).
Details (and some downloadable posters) are at:
<http://tinyurl.com/k87xs >
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2009-03-07 Withering Bad Breath Poets
The judges have chosen a winner in the Whither Withering Bad
Breath Competition, which asked for a limerick to honor the study
"Time Profile of Putrescine, Cadaverine, Indole and Skatole in
Human Saliva" <http://tinyurl.com/d2aqfz>.
The winner is INVESTIGATOR A.S. KASWELL, who wrote:
Cadaverine has so few charms
And Putrescine raises alarms.
We make them at night,
Say Cooke, Leeves and White —
Our mouths become chemical farms.
Here's the offering from LIMERICK LAUREATE MARTIN EIGER:
Herein, the three authors explore
Some noxious amines, to wit, four.
Of one, not a bit
Is found in your spit.
Of others, they found slightly more.
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2009-03-08 Doubly-Labeled Water Competition
Doubly labeled water is the subject of this month's limerick
competition. To enter, compose an original limerick that
illuminates the nature of this report:
Doubly Labelled Water: Theory and Practice,
John R. Speakman, Springer (publisher), 1997.
ISBN 0412637804. <http://tinyurl.com/ak9r28>
RULES: Please make sure that: (1) your rhymes actually do; and
(2) your poem is in classic, trills-off-the-tongue limerick form.
PRIZE: The winning poet will receive (if we manage to send it to
the correct address) a free, possibly moist, high-res PDF issue
of the Annals of Improbable Research. Send entries (one entry per
entrant) to:
DOUBLY LABELED WATER LIMERICK COMPETITION
c/o <marca AT chem2.harvard.edu>
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2009-03-09 RESEARCH SPOTLIGHT: Arm Crossing and Persistence
This month's specially selected study describes arm crossing and
persistence. The paper is:
"The Effect of Arm Crossing on Persistence and Performance,"
Ron Friedman and Andrew J. Elliot, European Journal of Social
Psychology, vol. 38, no. 3, pp. 449-61.
<http://tinyurl.com/ae7b4e> The authors, at the University of
Rochester, report:
"Experiment 1 found that inducing participants to cross their
arms led to greater persistence on an unsolvable anagram.
Experiment 2 revealed that arm crossing led to better performance
on solvable anagrams, and that this effect was mediated by
greater persistence."
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2009-03-10 OTHER RECENT IMPROBABILITIES: Random, Crud, Hair
Improbable TV Collections
<http://improbable.com/tv/>
Collection #116 swoops through the classic adventure book "One
Million Random Digits".
Blog Items:
<http://improbable.com/>
<> Measurement: Who's the Most Famous of Them All?
<> Authors as words: Else Then
<> All hail Voldemutt, creator of vapid crud
<> All machines are not alike
<> Psychiatrists devise a new sanity test
And many more...
Newspaper Columns:
<http://tinyurl.com/6o348d>
<> The Attitudes To Chocolate Questionnaire
<> 101 uses for the sacred foreskin
<> Celebrity, academia's new growth industry
New Luxuriant Flowing Hair Club for Scientists Members:
<http://tinyurl.com/25lmfb>
<> Helena Koltai
<> Ryan Phillips
<> Jen St. Onge
<> Kevin Payne,
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2009-03-11 MAY WE RECOMMEND: Doll Phobia, Economics & Ignorance
PSEUDOSEIZURES ASSOCIATED WITH DOLL PHOBIA
"Pseudoseizures Associated With Doll Phobia," S.P. Chand, and
K.A. Khalili, International Journal of Psychiatry in Medicine,
vol. 30, no. 1, 2000, pp. 93-96. <http://tinyurl.com/b3wbv4>
INFLUENCE THROUGH IGNORANCE
"Influence Through Ignorance," Isabelle Brocas and Juan D.
Carrillo, RAND Journal of Economics, vol. 38, no. 4, Winter 2007,
pp. 931-47. Doi:10.1111/j.0741-6261.2007.00119.x. (Thanks to
Kristine Danowski for bringing this to our attention.) The
authors are at University of Southern California.
<http://www-rcf.usc.edu/~juandc/PDFpapers/wp-influ.pdf>
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2009-03-12 Improbable Research Events
For details and additional events, see
<http://improbable.com/improbable-research-shows/complete-schedule>
Ig Nobel Tour of the UK — Mar 7-12, 2009
SciFest Africa, Grahamstown, South Africa — Mar 25-26, 2009
Ig Nobel Tour of Denmark — Apr 21-25, 2009
Cambridge (MA) Science Festival — May 2, 2009
CSE, Pittsburgh, PA — May 4, 2009
Carnegie Mellon U, Pittsburgh — May 6, 2009
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2009-03-13 -- How to Subscribe to AIR (*)
The Annals of Improbable Research is a 6-issues-per-year
magazine. (It's bigger and better than the little bits of
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2009-03-14 -- Our Address (*)
Annals of Improbable Research (AIR)
PO Box 380853, Cambridge, MA 02238 USA
617-491-4437 FAX:617-661-0927
EDITORIAL: marca AT chem2.harvard.edu
SUBSCRIPTIONS: subscriptions AT improbable.com
WEB SITE: <http://www.improbable.com>
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2009-03-15 -- Please Forward/Post This Issue! (*)
Please distribute copies of mini-AIR (or excerpts!) wherever
appropriate. The only limitations are: A) Please indicate that
the material comes from mini-AIR. B) You may NOT distribute mini-
AIR for commercial purposes.
------------- mini-AIRheads -------------
EDITOR: Marc Abrahams
MINI-PROOFREADER AND PICKER OF NITS (before we introduce the last
few at the last moment): Wendy Mattson
COMMUTATIVE EDITOR: Stanley Eigen
ASSOCIATIVE EDITOR: Mark Dionne
PSYCHOLOGY EDITOR: Robin Abrahams
CO-CONSPIRATORS: Alice Shirrell Kaswell, Gary Dryfoos, Ernest
Ersatz, S. Drew
MAITRE DE COMPUTATION: Jerry Lotto
AUTHORITY FIGURES: Nobel Laureates Dudley Herschbach, Sheldon
Glashow, William Lipscomb, Richard Roberts
(c) copyright 2009, Annals of Improbable Research
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2009-03-16 -- How to Receive mini-AIR, etc. (*)
What you are reading right now is mini-AIR. Mini-AIR is a (free!)
tiny monthly *supplement* to the bi-monthly print magazine.
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