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The mini-Annals of Improbable Research
("mini-AIR")
Issue number 2007-01
January 2007
ISSN 1076-500X
Key words: improbable research, science humor, Ig Nobel,
AIR, the
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A free newsletter of tidbits too tiny to fit in
Annals of Improbable Research (AIR)
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2007-01-01 TABLE OF CONTENTS
2007-01-02 Imminent Event
2007-01-03 What's New in the Magazine
2007-01-04 Pasta Optimization
2007-01-05 Professor-Professor Quintet
2007-01-06 Professor-Professor Documentation Challenge
2007-01-07 In Re the Tongue
2007-01-08 Kidney Calculus Link Poet
2007-01-09 The Metrically Perfect Professor
2007-01-10 Exhibitionists' Progress Competition
2007-01-11 RESEARCH SPOTLIGHT: RSVP (Ball State Stimulus)
2007-01-12 BLOGLIGHTS: Roller Coaster, Mousy Flavor,
Awkwardness
2007-01-13 MAY WE RECOMMEND: Brain/Cocaine and Vicious
Walks
2007-01-14 Improbable Research Events
2007-01-15 How to Subscribe to AIR (*)
2007-01-16 Our Address (*)
2007-01-17 Please Forward/Post This Issue! (*)
2007-01-18 How to Receive mini-AIR, etc. (*)
Items
marked (*) are reprinted in every issue.
mini-AIR
is
a
free monthly *e-supplement* to the print magazine
Annals
of Improbable Research
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2007-01-02 Imminent Event
San Francisco, Hilton Hotel on O'Farrell St.
Feb 16, 2007. Friday, 8 pm
Improbable Research show at the American Association for
the
Advancement of Science (AAAS) Annual Meeting, San
Francisco.
Featuring Marc Abrahams, Ig Nobel Prize winners Ivan
Schwab and
Phil Zimbardo; Yoram Bauman; Leslie Lamport and Ellen
Gilkerson;
Jeff Van Bueren; Scott Sandford; and Doug Zongker.
Free and open to the general public.
DETAILS:
<http://improbable.com/improbable-research-shows/complete-schedule>
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2007-01-03 What's New in the Magazine
The Jan/Feb issue (vol. 13, no. 1) of the Annals of
Improbable
Research will be the special Pepsi, Coke & Coli
issue. It will be
emerging from the printers some time in the next few
weeks.
To subscribe (6 paper issues per year) go to
<http://improbable.com/subscribe/>
or see Section 2007-01-15, below.
As we would be quick to agree if someone were to suggest
it, a
subscription would make an improbable gift.
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2007-01-04 Pasta Optimization
What is the proper way to cook pasta?
If you (as a researcher) know, and can express it in 50
words or
fewer, please do so. Send your perfectly cooked data to:
(Thanks to Ig Nobel Prize winner Ben
[herrings-communicate-by-
farting] Wilson for suggesting this.)
PROJECT
OPTIMAL PASTA
c/o
<marca AT chem2.harvard.edu>
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2007-01-05 Professor-Professor Quintet
The registry of professor-professors has five new
entries.
CHEN CHEN
Honorary Associate Professor of Physiology
Monash University
Clayton, Victoria, Australia
(Thanks to INVESTIGATOR COLIN CLYNE for bringing this
professor-
professor to our attention.)
<http://www.phimr.monash.edu.au/cellbiol.html>
DAVID J. DAVID
Professor and Executive Chairman
Australian Craniofacial Institute
North Adelaide, Australia
(Thanks to INVESTIGATOR NGA LUC for bringing this
professor-
professor to our attention.)
<http://www.craniofacial.com.au/icfs/home/board.html>
KARIM H. KARIM
Associate Professor
School of Journalism and Communication
Carleton University
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
(Thanks to INVESTIGATOR BOB JONKMAN for bringing this
professor-
professor to our attention.)
<http://www.carleton.ca/sjc/facultystaff/karim.html>
KARIM S. KARIM
Assistant Professor
School of Engineering Science
Simon Fraser University
Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada
(Thanks to INVESTIGATOR BOB JONKMAN for bringing this
professor-
professor to our attention.)
<http://www.ensc.sfu.ca/people/faculty/karim.html>
RAMSEY ERIC RAMSEY
Associate Professor
Faculty Director
Barrett Honors College
Arizona State University
Tempe, Arizona, USA
(Thanks to INVESTIGATOR ROY GATHERCOAL for bringing this
professor-professor to our attention.)
<http://www.west.asu.edu/chs/cmaster/Profiles/ramsey.htm>
The complete list (as we have it so far) of
professor-professors,
with links, is at
<http://improbable.com/2006/02/09/prof-profs/>
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2007-01-06 Professor-Professor Documentation Challenge
Investigator Ken Russell writes about a self-made
professor-
professor:
*
* *
There is a celebrated equation for the rate of phase
transformations in solids that bears the name, Avrami.
Avrami
wrote several papers in this area, of which the later
bear the
name, M. A. Melvin, with the notation, formerly M.
Avrami. I
figured that Avrami may have been a woman who got married
to a
man named Melvin and decided to take his name. Wrong!
Avrami was
a male Palestinian who became an American citizen and
wanted to
sound more American. He changed his name from Melvin
Avrami to
Melvin Avrami Melvin, giving the world another Professor
Professor.
*
* *
Melvin Melvin will enter the registry of the professor
professors
when and if someone can supply us with a URL that helps
document
his existence.
If you can supply such, please send it to:
PROF
PROF MELVIN MELVIN BIOGRAPHY
c/o
<marca AT chem2.harvard.edu>
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2007-01-07 In Re the Tongue
Investigator B. Mango writes:
*
* *
I loved Pringles as a child, not because of the taste,
but
because you could put them right down on your tongue. You
can put
any food on your tongue, of course, but none lay neater
or more
fittingly on the human tongue than a Pringle. A single
chip would
lay there like a duvet until gently dissolving. Milano
cookies
(another childhood favorite) also had that tongue-fit
thing going
on. Are there other foods that lay particularly nicely on
the
tongue, and does this contribute to their pleasure
factor? Would
ordinary foods (crackers, pizza, cheese) be more
enjoyable if
they were cut into servings the size and shape of the
human
tongue?
*
* *
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2007-01-08 Kidney Calculus Link Poet
The judges have chosen a winner for last month's Kidney
Calculus
Link Limerick Competition, which asked for a limerick to
honor
the following study:
"Kidney
Calculus Link?" A.G. Fazackerley,
British
Dental Journal, vol. 168, no. 10,
May
19, 1990, p. 387.
The winner is investigator Ed Childers, who wrote:
A
lim'rick's self-writing, I think,
For
a fine kidney calculus link
One thing that I've found:
Rounded upwards or down,
If
it's black then it's not in the pink.
And here is the latest from Limerick Laureate Martin
Eiger:
To
be keeping your teeth and gums clean'll --
And
brushing out food in between'll --
Diminish the tartar.
And what could be smarter?
The
organs you save could be renal.
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2007-01-09 The Metrically Perfect Professor
A distinguished professor of English submitted a kidney
calculus
limerick that, in the judges' view, some people would
find
awkward at first reading. A voluminous correspondence
ensued.
Here's how it ended:
*
* *
Our correspondence about limericks was initiated by a
technical
scruple on your part: you advised me to drop an awkward
extra
syllable from my final line. There is no such syllable;
the line
is metrically perfect.
When my other daughter submitted a limerick for a
different
competition, you sent her exactly the same advice, and
once again
you were mistaken. In that case the winning limerick
contained
obviously botched lines (and was part of an illegal
multiple
submission as well), but you didn't notice.
Not all of us presume to offer advice on matters about
which we
are completely ignorant -- in your case, versification.
If you
can't get someone who understands poetry to judge your
competitions, you should at least refrain from telling
the
contestants how to "improve." That's equivalent
to my urging you
to get your molecules in better order.
That's all from me. Kindly "unsubmit" my poem,
as I will
unsubscribe from Mini-AIR.
*
* *
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2007-01-10 Exhibitionists Progress Competition
Exhibitionists and their phases is/are the subject of
this
month's limerick competition. To enter, compose an
original
limerick that illuminates the nature of this report:
"Progressive
Phases in the Group Therapy of
Exhibitionists,"
J.L. Mathis and M. Collins,
International
Journal of Group Psychotherapy,
vol.
20, no. 2, April 1970, pp. 163-9.
RULES: Please make sure your rhymes actually do, and that
your
poem adheres to classic limerick form.
PRIZE: The winning poet will receive a (if we manage to
send it
to the correct address) a free, and possibly
exhibitionistic,
issue of the Annals of Improbable Research. Send entries
(one
entry per entrant) to:
EXHIBITIONISTS
LIMERICK COMPETITION
c/o
<marca AT chem2.harvard.edu>
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2007-01-11 RESEARCH SPOTLIGHT: RSVP (Ball State Stimulus)
Each month we select for your special attention a
research report
that seems particularly worth a close read. This month's
pick:
"The Effect Of Stimulus Content on Volunteering for
Sexual
Interest Research Among College Students," G.A.
Gaither, M.
Sellbom and B.P. Meier, Journal of Sex Research, vol. 40,
no. 3,
August 2003, pp. 240-8. The authors, who are at Ball
State
University, Muncie, Indiana, explain that:
"Students completed questionnaires in small groups
and were asked
whether they would be willing to volunteer for studies
that would
involve viewing and rating five different types of
sexually
explicit images (nude men, nude women, heterosexual
behavior,
male homosexual behavior, and female homosexual
behavior).
Results indicate that men and women differed in the types
of
images that they would volunteer to view."
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2007-01-12 BLOGLIGHTS: Roller Coaster, Mousy Flavor,
Awkwardness
Here are some recent topics in our blog:
<> Psych demonstration: Roller Coaster
<> Further postal experiments
<> Slightly-high-heel injury epidemic
<> Gravity and a spy
<> Eponymy authority figure: English
and some from the newspaper column in The Guardian:
<> Mousy Off-Flavor: A Review
<> Intellectual Distancing (Aegean and elsewhere)
<> Divine: Professor Tedlock
<> Awkward moments run in the family
...
and many others
Read
the blog
every
day at <http://www.improbable.com>
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2007-01-13 MAY WE RECOMMEND: Brain/Cocaine and Vicious
Walks
BRAIN (AND COWARD) ON COCAINE
"A Review of the History, Actions, and Legitimate
Uses of
Cocaine," P.F. Brain and G.A. Coward, Journal of
Substance Abuse,
vol. 1, no. 4, 1989, pp. 431-51.
VICIOUS WALKS + WALL
"Vicious Walks With a Wall, Noncolliding Meanders,
and Chiral and
Bogoliubov-de Gennes Random Matrices," Makoto
Katori, Hideki
Tanemura, Taro Nagao and Naoaki Komatsuda, Physical
Review E;
vol. 68, no. 2, August 2003, p.021112/1-021112/16.
(Thanks to Tom
Roberts for bringing this to our attention.)
LATE-CENTURY UNHAPPINESS WITH LOGIC
"Research Directions in Rewriting Logic," Josˇ
Meseguer, in
Computational Logic, U. Berger and H. Schwichtenberg,
editors,
NATO Advanced Study Institute, Marktoberdorf, Germany,
July 29 -
August 6, 1997. Springer-Verlag, 1998.
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2007-01-14 Improbable Research Events
For details and updates see
<http://improbable.com/improbable-research-shows/complete-schedule>
AAAS ANNUAL MEETING, SAN FRANCISCO -- FRI, FEB 16, 2007
TU DELFT, THE NETHERLANDS --
MON, FEB 26, 2007
LINDEN PONDS, HINGHAM, MA --
WED, FEB 28, 2007
2007 IG NOBEL TOUR OF THE UK --
MAR 9-18, 2007
APS/AAPT JOINT, U MAINE, ORONO --
APR 20, 2007
2007 IMPROBABLE RESEARCH EUROPEAN TOUR -- MAY/JUN 2007
IG NOBEL PRIZE CEREMONY --
OCT 4, 2007
IG INFORMAL LECTURES --
OCT 6, 2007
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2007-01-15 How to Subscribe to AIR (*)
The Annals of Improbable Research is a paper magazine.
(It's not
just the little bits of overflow material you've been
reading in
this newsletter). Subscribe at <http://improbable.com/subscribe/>
or send in this form:
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Send payment (US bank check, or international money
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Annals
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PO
Box 380853, Cambridge, MA 02238 USA
617-491-4437
FAX:617-661-0927 <air AT improbable.com>
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2007-01-16 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: air AT improbable.com
WEB SITE: <http://www.improbable.com>
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2007-01-17 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 2007, Annals of Improbable Research
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2007-01-18 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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To subscribe or unsubscribe, please visit
<http://chem.harvard.edu/mailman/listinfo/mini-air>
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