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The mini-Annals of Improbable Research
("mini-AIR")
Issue number 2007-02
February 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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2007-02-01 TABLE OF CONTENTS
2007-02-02 Imminent Event
2007-02-03 What's New in the Magazine
2007-02-04 Hiccups: The Barrier to Know-How
2007-02-05 Self-Dentistry?
2007-02-06 Tongue-Shaped Food Response
2007-02-07 Professor-Professors, 4 More
2007-02-08 Exhibitionists Progress Link Poet
2007-02-09 Tiller Vibration Competition
2007-02-10 RESEARCH SPOTLIGHT: Acrobats' Dreams
2007-02-11 BLOGLIGHTS: Worms and Harrison Schmitt
2007-02-12 MAY WE RECOMMEND: Shaven, Garbage, Molteno and
Blebs
2007-02-13 Improbable Research Events
2007-02-14 How to Subscribe to AIR (*)
2007-02-15 Our Address (*)
2007-02-16 Please Forward/Post This Issue! (*)
2007-02-17 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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2007-02-02 Imminent Event
IG NOBEL TOUR OF THE UK (for Nat'l Science Week)
Cardiff (Fri,
Mar 9)
Bristol (Mon,
Mar 12)
London (Tue,
Mar 13)
Portsmouth (Wed,
Mar 14)
London (Thu,
Mar 15)
Cambridge (Sat,
Mar 17)
All shows are free, but to be assured of a seat, you must
reserve
tickets in advance (except in Cardiff).
DETAILS:
<http://improbable.com/improbable-research-shows/ig-uk-tour/>
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2007-02-03 What's New in the Magazine
The Jan/Feb issue (vol. 13, no. 1) of the Annals of
Improbable
Research is the special Pepsi, Coke & Coli issue.
The table of contents is at
<http://tinyurl.com/yscv9n>
To subscribe (6 paper issues per year) go to
<http://improbable.com/subscribe/>
or see Section 2007-02-15, below.
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2007-02-04 Hiccups: The Barrier to Know-How
The celebrated case of Jennifer Mee demonstrates (if one
can
assess this from press coverage) that new medical
knowledge
reaches doctors slowly, if at all.
Afflicted with what is called, technically,
"intractable
hiccups," the teenage Ms. Mee has apparently not
been offered the
medical literature's best-documented treatment: digital
rectal
massage.
A simple Pubmed search for the term "intractable
hiccups" turns
up the key reports -- two of them -- called
"Termination of Intractable Hiccups with Digital
Rectal Massage."
But not all doctors consult the medical literature, and
perhaps
Jennifer Mee's physicians, whom news reports describe as
"baffled," have not done a literature search.
[NOTE: the digital rectal massage medical case reports
eventually
earned the 2006 Ig Nobel Medicine Prize for Drs. Fesmire,
Odeh,
Bassan and Oliven. Drs. O, B and O also published another
report
detailing further triumphs of the technique.]
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2007-02-05 Self-Dentistry?
Investigator Margot Detweiler writes:
"Despite the rule that 'the physician who treats
himself has a
fool for a patient," there are doctors who do tend
their own
illnesses and injuries. But what about dentists? Are
there
dentist who fill their own cavities, pull their own
teeth, and
give themselves root canal procedures?"
If you know of any published medical reports about this,
please
send us the citations.
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2007-02-06 Tongue-Shaped Food Response
Investigator B. Mango's micro-essay about the
sensualities of
tongue-shaped food (in last month's mini-AIR) provoked
many to
muse about prawn crackers. Here is one such, from
investigator
Philip Ward:
"The tongue, being a flexible organ, does not need
to fit exactly
with a food product to create a pleasing effect. Long
before
Pringles were around, we had prawn crackers. These may
not have
such regular shapes as Pringles, but have the property of
attaching themselves limpet-like to your tongue. Many
people also
find this sensation enjoyable."
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2007-02-07 Professor-Professors, 4 More
The registry of professor-professors has four new
entries.
THEOHARIS C. THEOHARIDES
Professor of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics
Tufts University Sackler School of Graduate Biomedical
Sciences
Boston, Massachusetts, USA
(Thanks to INVESTIGATOR JOANNE SPETZ for bringing this
professor-professor to our attention.)
<http://www.tufts.edu/sackler/facultyIntros/theoharidesT.html>
IBRAHIM IBRAHIM
Research Professor at the Center
for Contemporary Arab Studies
Georgetown University, Washington, D.C., USA
(Thanks to INVESTIGATOR SARAH CLARK for bringing this
professor-professor to our attention.)
<http://ccas.georgetown.edu/research-books.cfm?id=161>
MATHEW MATHEW
Director of the Department of Medicine
Mercy Hospital of Philadelphia
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
(Thanks to INVESTIGATOR SHELLY GLASHOW for bringing this
professor-professor to our attention.)
<http://mercyhealth.org/physician/detail.php?id=343>
LI LI
Professor of Physics
Tsinghua University
Beijing, China
(Thanks to INVESTIGATOR STEPHEN ROSS for bringing this
professor-professor to our attention.)
<http://tinyurl.com/2wrdnf>
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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2007-02-08 Exhibitionists Progress Link Poet
The judges have chosen a winner for last month's
Exhibitionists
Progress Limerick Competition, which asked for a limerick
to
honor the following study:
"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.
The winner is investigator Joanne Leary, who wrote:
Therapists noted for treating
Those who would show off their seating
Have
marked a progression
From
urge to obsession
In all who attended a meeting.
And here is the latest from Limerick Laureate Martin
Eiger:
In the first phase, the flasher denies,
Then accepts, then is angry, then cries.
Would
the problem, some day,
Simply vanish away
If others averted their eyes?
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2007-02-09 Tiller Vibration Competition
Tiller vibration is the subject of this month's limerick
competition. To enter, compose an original limerick that
illuminates the nature of this report (which was brought
to our
attention by investigator Tom Gill):
"Vibration
Characteristics of Walking and
Riding
Type Power Tillers," Bini Sam and
K.
Kathirvel, Biosystems Engineering, vol. 95, no. 4,
December
2006, pp. 517-28.
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 almost vibrant, issue
of the
Annals of Improbable Research. Send entries (one entry
per
entrant) to:
TILLER
VIBRATION COMPETITION
c/o
<marca AT chem2.harvard.edu>
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2007-02-10 RESEARCH SPOTLIGHT: Acrobats' Dreams
Each month we select for your special attention a
research report
that seems particularly worth a close read. This month's
pick:
"Effects
of Somatosensory Stimulation on Dream Content
in
Gymnasts and Control Participants:
Evidence
of Vestibulomotor Adaptation in REM Sleep,"
Anny
Sauvageau, Tore A. Nielsen and Jacques Montplaisir,
Dreaming,
vol. 8, no. 2, June 1998. The authors, who are
at
the Universitˇ de Montrˇal, found that:
"the
dream content of gymnasts does not differ markedly
from that of controls."
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2007-02-11 BLOGLIGHTS: Worms and Harrison Schmitt
Here are some recent topics in our blog:
<> Open: A can of worms
<> Schmitt: This time is different
<> The Improbability of Because
<> Librarians in the wild
<> Old science lessons
and some from the newspaper column in The Guardian:
<> Choose the right seats?
<> Punks versus bean-counters
<> Coke, Pepsi, Pronko
<> Heat from a cow (improvement)
...
and many others
Read
the blog
every
day at <http://www.improbable.com>
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2007-02-12 MAY WE RECOMMEND: Shaven, Garbage, Molteno and
Blebs
CLOSE-SHAVEN VICTIMS
"Close-Shaven Women, Victims of Mud-Wrestling
Disease" [article
in Swedish], Lakartidningen, vol. 90, February 17, 1993,
p. 582.
GARBAGE COOPERATION
"On-the-Fly Garbage Collection: An Exercise in
Cooperation,"
Edsger W. Dijkstra, Leslie Lamport, A.J. Martin, C.S.
Scholten,
and E.F.M. Steffens, Communications of the ACM, vol. 21,
no. 11,
November 1978, pp. 966-75.
MOLTENO ON BLEBS
"Molteno Implants: The Principles of Bleb
Management," A.C.
Molteno, A.G. Dempster, and A. Carne, Australia and New
Zealand
Journal of Ophthalmology, vol. 27, no. 5, October 1999,
pp. 350-
2.
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2007-02-13 Improbable Research Events
For details and updates see
<http://improbable.com/improbable-research-shows/complete-schedule>
2007 IG NOBEL TOUR OF THE UK --
MAR 9-18, 2007
APS/AAPT JOINT MEETING, 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
DFG ANNUAL ASSEMBLY, BERLIN, GERMANY -- JUL 1, 2008
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2007-02-14 How to Subscribe to AIR (*)
The Annals of Improbable Research is a paper magazine.
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reading in
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2007-02-15 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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2007-02-16 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
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AIR for commercial purposes.
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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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2007-02-17 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
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