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The mini-Annals of Improbable Research
("mini-AIR")
Issue number 2007-11
November 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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2007-11-01 TABLE OF CONTENTS
2007-11-02 Imminent Events
2007-11-03 What's New in the Magazine
2007-11-04 Triumph of the Brians (1): Hair Club Member
Makes Good
2007-11-05 Triumph of the Brians (1): Ig Winner Makes
Good
2007-11-06 Proof Less Strange Poet Triumph
2007-11-07 Proof Less Strange Nit-Picker
2007-11-08 Sandcastle Stability Competition
2007-11-09 RESEARCH SPOTLIGHT: Caffeine and the Learned
Honey Bee
2007-11-10 BLOGLIGHTS: Crabs, Yawns, Stools, Frogs and a
Jerk
2007-11-11 MAY WE RECOMMEND: Listening and Hooking
2007-11-12 Improbable Research Events
2007-11-13 -- How to Subscribe to AIR (*)
2007-11-14 -- Our Address (*)
2007-11-15 -- Please Forward/Post This Issue! (*)
2007-11-16 -- 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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2007-11-02 Imminent Events
NPR
"SCIENCE FRIDAY" IG NOBEL BROADCAST - Fri, Nov 23
<http://www.sciencefriday.com/>
IMPERIAL
COLLEGE LONDON - Mon, Nov. 26
<http://tinyurl.com/3ccnyz>
TECHNISCHE
UNIVERSITEIT EINDHOVEN, THE NETHERLANDS
-
Wed, Nov 28
<http://tinyurl.com/35oser>
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2007-11-03 What's New in the Magazine
The November/December issue (vol. 13, no. 6) of the
Annals of
Improbable Research is the special Ig Nobel issue, chock
full of
photos and Igformation.
The issue will be escaping from the printer any day now,
making
its way to the doorsteps of subscribers.
To subscribe (6 paper issues per year) go to
<http://improbable.com/subscribe>
or see info at bottom of this newsletter.
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2007-11-04 Triumph of the Brians (1): Hair Club Member
Makes Good
Congratulations to Luxuriant Flowing Hair Club for
Scientists
(LFHCfS) member (and astrophysicist, and lead guitarist
for the
rock group Queen) Brian May. He has just been named
chancellor of
Liverpool John Moores University.
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2007-11-05 Triumph of the Brians (1): Ig Winner Makes
Good
Brian Wansink, who won the 2007 Ig Nobel Nutrition Prize
for
inventing and using the bottomless bowl of soup, is on
his way to
Washington. (Thanks to investigator Jeff Hecht for
alerting us to
the news.) A November 20 Ithaca Journal article says:
*
* *
CORNELL NUTRITION PROFESSOR GETS FEDERAL POST
Brian Wansink, a Cornell University professor whose work
into the
psychology of consumer food choices has had him
frequently in the
national media limelight, has been named to lead a
federal office that
develops official dietary guidelines and nutrition
programs for the
country.
He will be executive director of the U.S. Department of
Agriculture Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion,
according
to an announcement by Nancy Johner, Agriculture Under
Secretary
for Food, Nutrition and Consumer Services. He now serves
as the
John S. Dyson Professor of Marketing and the Director of
the
Cornell Food and Brand Lab in the Department of Applied
Economics
and Management at Cornell University in Ithaca.
*
* *
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2007-11-06 Proof Less Strange Poet Triumph
The judges have declared a winner for last month's Proof
Less
Strange Competition, which asked for a limerick to honor
the
study "A Less Strange Version of Milnor's Proof of
Brouwer's
Fixed-Point Theorem," C.A. Rogers, American
Mathematical Monthly,
vol. 87, no. 7, August/September 1980, pp. 525-7,
<http://tinyurl.com/yutdgo>. The winner is:
INVESTIGATOR IAN WANLESS:
In the quest for math'matical truth
Rogers
prided himself as a sleuth
He'd one hairy ball
And that fact says it all
Showing
fiction is less strange than proof
And here is the assessment from Limerick Laureate MARTIN
EIGER:
Rogers makes perfectly clear
That smooth maps from a ball to a sphere
Fixing points on the ball
Don't
exist, not at all.
So did Milnor, but strangely, I fear.
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2007-11-07 Proof Less Strange Nit-Picker
Investigator Tony Harker began, but did not finish a
limerick
about the "Less Strange Version..." study. He
explains why:
"Having started down the road of 'A geometer combing
his mutt
found the hairs formed a swirl round its butt..' I
realised that
there's an anomaly in the paper being reviewed. Rogers
refers to
the 'hairy dog theorem', whereas the title of Milnor's
paper
contains the phrase 'hairy ball theorem.' Given that the
dog has
at least the connectivity of a torus, unidirectional
combing is
presumably possible -- though it could tickle
unpleasantly."
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2007-11-08 Sandcastle Stability Competition
Sandcastle stability is the subject of this month's
limerick
competition. To enter, compose an original limerick that
illuminates the nature of this report:
*
* *
"Maximum Angle of Stability of a Wet Granular
Pile," Sarah Nowak,
Azadeh Samadani, and Arshad Kudrolli, Nature Physics,
vol. 1,
August 15, 2005, pp. 50-2.
<http://physics.clarku.edu/~akudrolli/preprints/stability2.pdf>
(Thanks to Charles Oppenheim for bringing this to our
attention.)
The authors explain:
"Anyone who has built a sandcastle recognizes that
the addition
of liquid to granular materials increases their
stability.
However, measurements of this increased stability often
conflict
with theory and with each other.... Using the
frictionless model
and performing stability analysis within the pile, we
reproduce
the dependence of the stability angle on system size,
particle
size, and surface tension observed in our
experiments."
*
* *
RULES: Please make sure your rhymes actually do, and that
your
poem is in classic, trips-off-the-tongue limerick form.
PRIZE: The winning poet will receive a (if we manage to
send it
to the correct address) a free, possibly sandy issue of
the
Annals of Improbable Research. Send entries (one entry
per
entrant) to:
SANDCASTLE
STABILITY LIMERICK COMPETITION
c/o
<marca AT chem2.harvard.edu>
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2007-11-09 RESEARCH SPOTLIGHT: Caffeine and the Learned
Honey Bee
Each month we select for your special attention a
research report
that seems particularly worth a close read. This month's
pick:
"Effects of Caffeine on Olfactory and Visual
Learning in the
Honey Bee (Apis Mellifera)," A. Si, and S.W. Zhang,
et al,
Pharmacology Biochemistry and Behavior, vol. 82, no. 4,
2005, pp.
664-72. (Thanks to James Rodger for bringing this to our
attention.) The authors explain:
"Although caffeine is known to improve alertness and
arousal in
humans and other mammals, its impacts on specific
behaviours,
including complex cognitive processes, remain
controversial....
Behavioural testing was performed with either tethered or
free-
flying adult honeybees. We show that caffeine has marked
cognitive effects in this species."
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2007-11-10 BLOGLIGHTS: Crabs, Yawns, Stools, Frogs and a
Jerk
Here are some recent topics in our blog:
<> Five old crabs, and a fresh one
<> New yawning tool for interviewers
<> Donor stool triumphant
<> A frog in the throat, in passing
<> Jerk minimization
and some from the newspaper column in The Guardian:
<> The parallel adventures of Matt Talbot
<> A little problem with Mr. Small
...
and others
Read
the blog
every
day at <http://www.improbable.com>
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2007-11-11 MAY WE RECOMMEND: Listening and Hooking
EASY LISTENING FOR INCIPIENT DOCS
"Influence of Leisure-Time Noise on Outer Hair Cell
Activity in
Medical Students," Frank Rosanowski, Ulrich
Eysholdt, and Ulrich
Hoppe, International Archives of Occupational and
Environmental
Health, vol. 80, no. 1, October 2006, pp. 25-31. (Thanks to
Boris W. Becker for bringing this to our attention.)
PUBLISH OR HOOK
"Publishing as Prostitution? Choosing Between One's
Own Ideas and
Academic Success," B.S. Frey, Public Choice, vol.
116, 2003, pp.
205-23.
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2007-11-12 Improbable Research Events
For details and additional events, see
<http://improbable.com/improbable-research-shows/complete-schedule>
NPR "SCIENCE FRIDAY" IG NOBEL BROADCAST -- NOV 23, 2007
IMPERIAL COLLEGE, LONDON --
NOV 26, 2007
TECHNISCHE UNIVERSITEIT EINDHOVEN, THE NETHERLANDS
NOV
28, 2007
AAAS ANNUAL MEETING, BOSTON --
FEB 15, 2008
IG NOBEL UK TOUR --
MAR, 2008
DFG ANNUAL ASSEMBLY, BERLIN, GERMANY -- JUL 1, 2008
IG NOBEL PRIZE CEREMONY --
OCT 2, 2008
IG INFORMAL LECTURES --
OCT 4, 2008
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2007-11-13 -- 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
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2007-11-14 -- 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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2007-11-15 -- Please Forward/Post This Issue! (*)
Please distribute copies of mini-AIR (or excerpts!)
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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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2007-11-16 -- 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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