PLEASE FORWARD/POST AS APPROPRIATE ================================================================ The mini-Annals of Improbable Research ("mini-AIR") Issue number 2005-07 July 2005 ISSN 1076-500X Key words: improbable research, science humor, Ig Nobel, AIR, the ---------------------------------------------------------------- A free newsletter of tidbits too tiny to fit in the Annals of Improbable Research (AIR), the journal of inflated research and personalities ================================================================ ----------------------------- 2005-07-01 TABLE OF CONTENTS 2005-07-02 Imminent Events - Tasmania 2005-07-03 What's New in the Magazine 2005-07-04 Stroop? Smoot? 2005-07-05 Koffka/Kafka Kompetition 2005-07-06 The Hole in the Sum of the Parts 2005-07-07 Better-Than-Zero 2005-07-08 Research Pencils (1) 2005-07-09 Research Pencils (2) 2005-07-10 Research Pencils (3) 2005-07-11 Pigeon Load Poets 2005-07-12 Ig Nobel News 2005-07-13 Fresh Heads of Hair 2005-07-14 RESEARCH SPOTLIGHT: Extracting the Shapeliness of Pigs 2005-07-15 On Our Blog 2005-07-16 MAY WE RECOMMEND: Cold Meals, Forced Humor 2005-07-17 Improbable Research Events 2005-07-18 How to Subscribe to AIR (*) 2005-07-19 Our Address (*) 2005-07-20 Please Forward/Post This Issue! (*) 2005-07-21 How to Receive mini-AIR, etc. (*) Items marked (*) are reprinted in every issue. mini-AIR is a free monthly *e-supplement* to AIR, the print magazine ---------------------------------------------------------- 2005-07-02 Imminent Events - Tasmania IG NOBEL TOUR OF TASMANIA AUG 12-19, 2005 Details will be posted on our web site soon. ---------------------------------------------------------- 2005-07-03 What's New in the Magazine The July/August issue (vol. 11, no. 4) of the Annals of Improbable Research is the special SNAILS & COOKIES issue. Highlights include: <> "Sluggish Data Transport Is Faster Than ADSL," by Ami Ben- Bassat, Revital Ben-David-Zaslow, Shimon Schocken and Yossi Vardi. <> "Slugs, Snails and Coffee," by Grover Quist. <> "'Toll House' Recipe Cookies Do Not Maintain Their Morphology Under Heat Stress Conditions," by Michael Cammer. and much more... The entire table of contents is, and several of the articles are, at ---------------------------------------------------------- 2005-07-04 Stroop? Smoot? The voting is over. The debate is ended. The question was: Who is the greatest figure in science whose name is no less than five and no more than six letters long, begins with an "S," and has an "oo' in the middle? Our panel of prejudges had narrowed the choice to two: John Ridley Stroop and Oliver Smoot (see last month's mini- AIR for more about them). The results: Stroop 46% Smoot 47% Cannot choose 07% Thus the winner is: Oliver Smoot, by a Smoot. Some voters rued the ruling out of other candidates. Investigator Tommy Marcus McGuire sent in a plea for Gottlob Frege: "Gottlob Frege spent approximately 30 years formulating a logical foundation for mathematics, only to have a great stinky hole poked in his work by the more famous Bertrand Russell's set theory thing just as Frege's book was going to the publisher. (Russell's own attempt also had an aromatic void added, but that's neither here nor there.) Clearly, Frege deserves any accolades he can get, even (perhaps especially) if he is not strictly eligible." ---------------------------------------------------------- 2005-07-05 Koffka/Kafka Kompetition This month the Limerick Competition takes a slightly new direction. COMPARE AND CONTRAST: KURT KOFFKA, the gestalt psychologist versus FRANZ KAFKA, the novelist Please send your newly composed limerick to: Koffka/Kafka Kompetition c/o ---------------------------------------------------------- 2005-07-06 The Hole in the Sum of the Parts Investigator Caroline Richmond writes: When my late friend Pat Wall got made an FRS, I went with him to the ceremony. One of the others who was so honoured was a Dr. Mike Slack, co-author of the Hatch-Slack hypothesis. I whispered to Pat that it was a good job it wasn't the other way around, to which he replied that Enrico Fermi produced a theorem, or as it a hypothesis with a Dr Laporte. ---------------------------------------------------------- 2005-07-07 Better-Than-Zero Enter, if you like, our Better-Than-Zero Essay Competition. Submit a 50-word essay that honors a thought expressed recently by Lt. Gen. Henry A. Obering III, the director of the United States Missile Defense Agency. General Obering said: We have a better-than-zero chance of successfully intercepting, I believe, an inbound warhead. For details see ---------------------------------------------------------- 2005-07-08 Research Pencils (1) Last month's glottal affairs research-bureau-of-the-month was the Bureau of Glottal Affairs at UCLA. Professor Jody Kreiman, acting on behalf of the institution, sent us a set of official Bureau of Glottal Affairs pencils. We send her Professor Kreiman our thanks. ---------------------------------------------------------- 2005-07-09 Research Pencils (2) Do you have a complete list of the all research bureaus that have official pencils? If so, please send us a copy. ---------------------------------------------------------- 2005-07-10 Research Pencils (3) We would be interested in receiving citations of provocative published research that concerned, in the main, pencils. ---------------------------------------------------------- 2005-07-11 Pigeon Load Poets The judges have chosen a winner for last month's PIGEON LOAD LIMERICK COMPETITION, which sought limericks that celebrate this research report: "Transmitter Loads Affect the Flight Speed and Metabolism of Homing Pigeons," J.A. Gessaman and K.A. Nagy, Condor, vol. 90, 1988, pp. 662-8. The winning poet and limerick are: INVESTIGATOR RICHARD SEYMOUR: A pigeon who wants to be talking, On cellphones, instead of just squawking, Must make sure the mass Is right for his class -- Else rather than flying, he's walking. And here is the view expressed by IMPROBABLE LIMERICK LAUREATE MARTIN EIGER: If a harness is what you should tie To a pigeon, then can it still fly? Two researched showed It's slowed by the load. Its CO2 levels tell why. Laureate Eiger notes that (A) "The 2 in CO2 is a subscript, of course"; and (B) "Strangely, I travel faster when harnessed with an automobile than without." Several of the runner-up limericks are posted on the Improbable Research blog, at . ---------------------------------------------------------- 2005-07-12 Ig Nobel News Here's the latest on the Ig Nobel Ceremony: A) Tickets will go on sale August 5, from the Harvard Box Office. B) The new winners will be journeying to Harvard from 4.1 different continents. C) The new book "The Ig Nobel Prizes 2" will be published on September 22. You can pre-order copies now at The Ig home page is ---------------------------------------------------------- 2005-07-13 Fresh Heads of Hair The Luxuriant Flowing Hair Club for Scientists (LFHCfS) has a whole heaping headful of new members. Admire them at ---------------------------------------------------------- 2005-07-14 RESEARCH SPOTLIGHT: Extracting the Shapeliness of Pigs Each month we select for your special attention a research report that seems especially worth a close read. This month's pick: "Extracting the Three-Dimensional Shape of Live Pigs Using Stereophotogrammetry," Jiahua Wu, Robin Tillett, Nigel McFarlane, Xiangyang Ju, J. Paul Siebert and Paddy Schofield, Computers and Electronics in Agriculture, vol. 44, no. 3, September 2004, pp. 203-22. (Thanks to Brian Yanites for bringing this to our attention.) The authors report that: Sometimes the model construction failed catastrophically. Most of these failures were due to the stereo matching. process finding the strong bright-to-dark transition at the edge of the pig, and assuming it was a good correspondence match... The problem occurred most often in the rear-view images, because the pig was most sharply curved from this view. ... [But on the whole, the] 3D models of the pigs were qualitatively good in appearance, and locally smooth. ---------------------------------------------------------- 2005-07-15 On Our Blog Here are some recent topics (a new one appears every weekday) in our blog: Show me your teeth De-excitation quenching The prehistory of rap Battlefields and bladders ... and many others Read the blog via ----------------------------------------------------------- 2005-07-16 MAY WE RECOMMEND: Cold Meals, Forced Humor IT'S COLD. LET'S EAT. "Exposure to Heavy Meals in Lapland [article in Finnish]," P. Luoma, et al., Duodecim, vol. 110, no. 5, 1994, pp. 487-92. ENFORCED HUMOR "Personality, Attitudes and Humor Preferences of Prisoners and Controls," G.D. Wilson and A. Maclean, Psychological Reports, vol. 34, no. 3, June 1974, pp. 847-54. ------------------------------------------------------------ 2005-07-17 Improbable Research Events ==> For details and updates see ==> Want to host an event? 617-491-4437. ==> IG NOBEL TOUR OF TASMANIA AUG 12-19, 2005 Details will be posted on our web site soon. INFO: Wayne Goninon (+61) 3 6226 7810 CASCADIACON, SEATTLE -- THURS, SEPT 1 - MON, SEPT. 5, 2005 PAUL SMITH'S COLLEGE, PAUL SMITHS, NY WED, SEPT. 21, 2005 AIR editor MARC ABRAHAMS will discuss the Ig Nobel Prizes. FIFTEENTH 1ST ANNUAL IG NOBEL PRIZE CEREMONY -- OCT 6, 2005 Sanders Theatre, Harvard University, 7:30 PM Tickets will go on sale August 5. IG INFORMAL LECTURES -- OCT 8, 2005 MIT, room 10-250. 1:30 PM. -------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------- 2005-07-18 How to Subscribe to AIR (*) Here's how to subscribe to the magnificent bi-monthly print journal The Annals of Improbable Research (the real thing, not just the little bits of overflow material you've been reading in this newsletter). ................................................................ Name: Address: Address: City and State: Zip or postal code: Country Phone: FAX: E-mail: ......................................................... SUBSCRIPTIONS (6 issues per year): USA 1 yr/$29 2 yrs/$53 Canada/Mexico 1 yr/$33 US 2 yrs/$57 US Overseas 1 yr/$45 US 2 yrs/$82 US ......................................................... BACK ISSUES are available, too: First issue: $8 USA, $11 Canada/Mex, $16 overseas Add'l issues purchased at same time: $6 each ......................................................... Send payment (US bank check, or international money order, or Visa, Mastercard or Discover info) to: Annals of Improbable Research (AIR) PO Box 380853, Cambridge, MA 02238 USA 617-491-4437 FAX:617-661-0927 ----------------------------------------------------- 2005-07-19 Our Address (*) Annals of Improbable Research (AIR) PO Box 380853, Cambridge, MA 02238 USA 617-491-4437 FAX:617-661-0927 EDITORIAL: marca@chem2.harvard.edu SUBSCRIPTIONS: air@improbable.com WEB SITE: ----------------------------------------------------- 2005-07-20 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 (marca@chem2.harvard.edu) MINI-PROOFREADER AND PICKER OF NITS (before we introduce the last few at the last moment): Wendy Mattson WWW EDITOR/GLOBAL VILLAGE IDIOT: Amy Gorin (airmaster@improbable.com) COMMUTATIVE EDITOR: Stanley Eigen (eigen@neu.edu) 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 2005, Annals of Improbable Research ----------------------------------------------------- 2005-07-21 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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