mini-Annals of Improbable Research ("mini-AIR")
May 2024, issue number 2024-05. ISSN 1076-500X.
improbable.com/publications/newsletter-mini-air/
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Research that makes people LAUGH, then THINK.
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01 TABLE OF CONTENTS
02 IN THE MAGAZINE ITSELF: Ants, Aunts, Aunts, Ants
03 Onion-Flavored Milk
04 June 5 Is Dead Duck Day
05 LIMERICK CHALLENGE: Onion, Garlic, Milk
06 Rat Kings in Estonia Limerick Winner
07 MORE IMPROBABLE: 23-Fold, Cuteness, Dunning
08 Dimple Devi: Use Onions for Milk Freshness
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20 SOME IMPROBABLE EVENTS
30 — Subscribe to the Actual Magazine! (*)
31 — How to start or stop receiving this little newsletter (*)
32 — Contact Info (*)
33 — Standard Gobbledegook (*)
Items marked (*) are reprinted in every issue.
What you are reading at the moment (mini-AIR) is overflow detritus
from the magazine Annals of Improbable Research (AIR).
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02 IN THE MAGAZINE ITSELF: Ants, Aunts, Aunts, Ants
The special ANTS & AUNTS issue (vol. 30, no. 3) of the magazine continues to enchant every ant and nearly every aunt who reads it. The table of contents and selected articles are at: improbable.com/2024/05/05/the-special-ants-aunts-issue/
The next issue, the special NON-NEWTONIAN PHYSICS issue, is in prep.
SUBSCRIBE to the MAGAZINE, or get BACK ISSUES (there are more than 150 of them!): gumroad.com/improbable
Tables of Contents: improbable.com/magazine-2/
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03 Onion-Flavored Milk
This month's quasi-haphazardly selected research report of the month (QHSRROTM) is:
"No Easy Remedy for Wild Onion Flavor in Milk," L.W. Aurand and J. L. Moore, North Carolina Agricultural Experiment Station, Research and Farming, vol. 10, 1951.
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04 June 5 Is Dead Duck Day
A reminder that June 5 is Dead Duck Day, commemorating the incident commemorated in the study "The first case of homosexual necrophilia in the mallard Anas platyrhynchos (Aves: Anatidae)". The 2003 Ig Nobel Prize for biology honored that discovery.
For details see:
improbable.com/2024/05/20/dead-duck-day-2024-in-public-and-in-private-june-5th/
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05 LIMERICK CHALLENGE: Onion, Garlic, Milk
This month's RESEARCH LIMERICK challenge — Devise a pleasing limerick that encapsulates this study:
"Inhalation the Chief Factor in Onion or Garlic Contamination Of Milk," Margaret B. MacDonald and M. Jacob, Science, vol. 68, no. 1771, 1928, pp. 568-569.
cabdirect.org/cabdirect/abstract/19282700011
Submit your perfectly formed, delightfully enlightening limerick to:
ONION GARLIC MILK LIMERICK COMPETITION
c/o MARC aaattt IMPROBABLE dddooottt COM
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06 Rat Kings in Estonia Limerick Winner
The judges have chosen a winner in last month's Competition, which asked for a limerick to explain this study:
"Rat Kings in Estonia," Andrei Miljutin, Proceedings of the Estonian Academy of Sciences. Biology. Ecology, vol. 56, no. 1, 2007, article 77œ81. citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/document?repid=rep1&type=pdf&doi=31dffe4152fb5c5846bf9c31872fb300d2be4939
Winning limerickicist MARGE WOO writes:
Rats tied in a knot by their tails
Is a story that just never fails
To stimulate thinking
And laughter and winking.
It tops other rat tail tales.
This month's take from our LIMERICK LAUREATE, MARTIN EIGER:
How many rats have we got
In this tale of tied tails? Quite a lot.
The rats that are shown ya,
They come from Estonia.
Why they're tied in a knot, we know not.
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07 MORE IMPROBABLE: 23-Fold, Cuteness, Dunning
Recent improbable research bits you may have missed...
BLOG: www.improbable.com:
• Unexpected 23-Fold Depths of an autopsy
• Cuteness as Soft Power
• Dunning Discusses Dunning & Kruger
• …and much more
WEEKLY COLUMN IN NEW SCIENTIST MAGAZINE:
newscientist.com/author/marc-abrahams/
LUXURIANT FLOWING HAIR CLUB FOR SCIENTISTS (LFHCfS):
www.improbable.com/category/lfhcfs-hair-club/
PODCAST ARCHIVE:
www.improbable.com/category/the-weekly-improbable-research-podcast/
FACEBOOK: facebook.com/improbableresearch
MASTODON: @MarcAbrahams@mstdn.science
INSTAGRAM: instagram.com/improbable_research/
PATREON: patreon.com/ImprobableResearch
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08 Dimple Devi: Use Onions for Milk Freshness
This month's Other Haphazardly-Selected Research Report (OQHSRROTM) of the month is:
"Onion Peel Extract as Milk Freshness Indicator in Biopolymer-Based Intelligent Packaging Films," Dimple Devi, Santosh Kumar, and Avik Mukherjee, Food and Humanity, vol. 2, May 2024, article 100223.
doi.org/10.1016/j.foohum.2023.100223
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TREAT YOURSELF TO (MUCH) MORE IMPROBABLE STUFF.
SUBCRIBE TO THE (PDF) MAGAZINE!
improbable.com/magazine-2/
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20 SOME IMPROBABLE EVENTS
· Worldcon, Glasgow, Scotland — Aug 2024
· 34TH FIRST ANNUAL IG NOBEL PRIZE CEREMONY, MIT — Sep 12, 2024
· Ig Nobel Face-to-Face, MIT — Sep 14, 2024
· AAAS Annual Meeting, Boston, MA, USA — Feb 2025
· 2025 Ig Nobel EuroTour — Spring 2025
· Balticon, Baltimore, USA — May 23-26, 2025
OTHER EVENTS TBA
For details and additional events, see: improbable.com/upcoming-events/
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30 — Subscribe to the Actual Magazine! (*)
The Annals of Improbable Research is a 6-issues-per-year magazine,
in PDF form. It's packed with research that makes people laugh, then think.
improbable.com/publications/magazine
SUBSCRIPTIONS ($25, for six issues)
BACK ISSUES ($5 each)
(mini-AIR, the thing you are reading at this moment, is but a tiny, free-floating appendix to the actual magazine.)
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31 — How to start or stop receiving this newsletter (*)
This newsletter, Mini-AIR, is just a (free!) tiny monthly *supplement* to the big, bold six-times-a-year magazine Annals of Improbable Research.
To SUBSCRIBE or UNSUBSCRIBE to mini-AIR, see the links at the end of this email.
ARCHIVES: improbable.com/publications/newsletter-mini-air/
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32 — CONTACT INFO (*)
Annals of Improbable Research (AIR)
improbable.com
EDITORIAL: MARC aaattt IMPROBABLE dddooottt COM
SUBSCRIPTION QUESTIONS: subscriptions AT improbable.com
Cambridge, MA, USA
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33 — Standard Gobbledegook (*)
EDITOR: Marc Abrahams
CO-CONSPIRATORS: Kees Moeliker, Alice Shirrell Kaswell, Gary Dryfoos, Nan Swift, Stephen Drew
PROOFREADER: Ambient Happenstance
AUTHORITY FIGURES: Nobel Laureates Dudley Herschbach, Sheldon Glashow, Richard Roberts
Key words: improbable research, science humor, Ig Nobel, AIR, the
(c) copyright 2024, Improbable Research
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