NEW SERIES OF EVENTS: Improbable Research Table Talks

This month, we’ll begin doing a new kind of Improbable Research event: Improbable Research Table Talks. The first event will happen on Monday morning, July 16.

At each Improbable Research Table Talk, Marc Abrahams (editor of the Annals of Improbable Research, and founder of the Ig Nobel Prize ceremony) will chat with you about one or another research study that makes people laugh, then think. Some of these studies have won Ig Nobel Prizes; others we have explored in the magazine, in the podcast, etc.

These chats will be cozy, informal, and brief, around a table. Sometimes Marc will bring along a professor, physician, engineer, or other famous or infamous researcher.

Please join us! Bring friends, and maybe meet some new friends.

The first Improbable Table Talk

The first talk will be Monday, July 16, 2018, at 10 am, at Toscanini’s Ice Cream, 159 First St., Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA. It will include special guest researcher Gus Rancatore, proprietor of Toscanini’s. Bring friends and colleagues, if you like. The event is free.

Future Improbable Table Talks

We will announce many of these talks on the Improbable events schedule. Here are some of the upcoming dates/topics:

• July 16. Topic: “The physics of walking backwards while carrying coffee“
• July 23. Topic: “Can a cat be both a liquid and a solid?“
• July 30. Topic: “The Neural Bases of Disgust for Cheese: An fMRI Study“
• August 6. Topic: “Is That Me or My Twin? Lack of Self-Face Recognition Advantage in Identical Twins“
• August 31. Topic: “Electrocortical Activity in a Pianist Playing ‘Vexations’ by Erik Satie Continuously for 28 Hours”

A Table Talk at Your Place?—If you are in the Boston area (or not far beyond it), and would like to gather a few friends/colleagues and host an Improbable Research Table Talk at your favorite coffee shop, office, lab, library, school, or other cozy place, please get in touch with us.