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The mini-Annals of Improbable Research ("mini-AIR")

July 2009, Issue number 2009-07. ISSN 1076-500X.

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Free monthly update/alert from the Annals of Improbable Research

This issue is at

<http://www.improbable.com/airchives/miniair/2009/mini2009-07.htm>

Archive at <http://improbable.com/airchives/miniair/>

Key words: improbable research, science humor, Ig Nobel, AIR, the

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2009-07-01 TABLE OF CONTENTS

2009-07-02 Imminent Events

2009-07-03 In the Magazine: Instructions and Executions

2009-07-04 RESEARCH SPOTLIGHT: Murphy's Lawn

2009-07-05 Murphy's Bloat

2009-07-06 Murphy's Incompleteness Theorem

2009-07-07 Ig Nobel Tix Go on Sale July 31

2009-07-08 Ambiguous Educational Opportunity

2009-07-09 Spent Mushroom Compost Odorous Component Poet

2009-07-10 Goose Down Train Track Competition

2009-07-11 MORE IMPROBABLE: Orbiting Teapot, Baby Einstein Thesis

2009-07-12 MAY WE RECOMMEND: Melted Cheese, Erotic Tossing

2009-07-13 Improbable Research Events

2009-07-14 -- How to Subscribe to AIR (*)

2009-07-15 -- Our Address (*)

2009-07-16 -- Please Forward/Post This Issue! (*)

2009-07-17 -- How to Receive mini-AIR, etc. (*)

Items marked (*) are reprinted in every issue.

mini-AIR is

but a wee monthly *supplement*

to the bi-monthly magazine Annals of Improbable Research

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2009-07-02 Imminent Events

Jul 31, Ig Nobel tickets go on sale (at noon).

<http://improbable.com/ig/2009/#tickets>

Aug 4, Boston, Temple Israel, 7:00 pm. Free.

"Improbable Research and the Strangeness of Everyday Life"

<http://tinyurl.com/kwno2w>

See section 2009-07-13 below for full schedule.

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2009-07-03 In the Magazine: Instructions and Executions

The next issue (vol. 15, no. 4) of the Annals of Improbable

Research will be a special Instructions & Executions issue. It's

on its way to the printer now, and will be emerging some time in

mid-August, more or less.

Many back issues, including the super-exciting special accounting

issue, are online at <http://www.improbable.com/magazine/>

Subscribe to the paper version, or to the nifty PDF version, or

read the free mostly-nifty PDF version.

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2009-07-04 RESEARCH SPOTLIGHT: Murphy's Lawn

T.R. Murphy describes an aspect of lawn order:

"Impact of Lawn-Care Firm Characteristics on Pesticide

Expenditures," W.J. Florkowski, E.E. Hubbard, G.W. Landry and

T.R. Murphy, Horticultural Science, 1994, vol. 29, no. 9, pp.

1084–6. <http://tinyurl.com/lbt8ck>

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2009-07-05 Murphy's Bloat

E.L. Murphy opts for beans:

"The Effect of Antibiotic Drugs on the Volume and Composition of

Intestinal Gas From Beans," E.L. Murphy and D.H. Calloway,

American Journal of Digestive Diseases, vol. 17, no. 7, July

1972, pp. 639-42. <http://tinyurl.com/ny9eqs> (Thanks to Joachim

Rumigny for bringing this to our attention.) The study begins:

"Healthy men were confined to a metabolic unit and fed bean meals

to stimulate intestinal gas formation while under antibiotic

medication."

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2009-07-06 Murphy's Incompleteness Theorem

R.R. Murphy both seeks and overlooks information:

"Sensor Scheduling in Mobile Robots using Incomplete Information

via Min-Conflict with Happiness," A. Gage and R.R. Murphy, IEEE

Transactions on Systems, Man, And Cybernetics. Part B,

Cybernetics, vol. 34, no. 1, February 2004, pp. 454-67. (Thanks

to David S. Gottfried for bringing this to our attention.)

<http://tinyurl.com/mf3wl8>

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2009-07-07 Ig Nobel Tix Go on Sale July 31

Tickets for the 2009 Ig Nobel Prize ceremony go on sale Friday,

July 31, at noon. Details:

ONLINE: http://boxoffice.harvard.edu/

PHONE: (+1) 617-496-2222

On the ground: Holyoke Center, Harvard Square

The Ig honor achievements that make people LAUGH, then THINK. The

ceremony will happen on Thursday night, October 1, at Harvard's

Sanders Theater. Ten new winners will be announced and (in most

cases) will be present to take a bow and receive rousing cheers.

The Ig Nobel Prizes will be physically handed to them by genuine

Nobel Laureates.

This year's theme: RISK

Keynote speaker: BENOIT MANDELBROT

The ceremony will include the premiere of the mini-opera "The Big

Bank Opera," in which stylish bankers in a swanky Wall Street bar

explain the explosive rise and fall of big banking and big

bankers.

Further details (with more yet to be announced) at:

<http://improbable.com/ig/2009/>

Please help spread the word.

Downloadable PDF poster at:

<http://improbable.com/ig/2009/poster/2009-Ig-POSTER-web.pdf>

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2009-07-08 Ambiguous Educational Opportunity

This month's Ambiguous Title selection may be:

"A Continuing Education Course For Physicians Who Cross Sexual

Boundaries," Anderson Spickard, William H. Swiggart, Ginger

Manley, and David Dodd, Sexual Addiction and Compulsivity: The

Journal of Treatment and Prevention , vol. 9, no. 1, 2002, pp.

33-42. <http://tinyurl.com/ny2k4j>

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2009-07-09 Spent Mushroom Compost Odorous Component Poet

The judges have chosen a winner in the Spent Mushroom Compost

Odorous Component Competition, which asked for a limerick to

honor the study "Amelioration of Odorous Components in Spent

Mushroom Compost," Russell Bazemore, et al., Journal of

Agricultural and Food Chemistry, vol. 48, no. 8, 2000, pp. 3694-

697. <http://tinyurl.com/mtdbuy>

The winner is INVESTIGATOR AMBER MIERISCH, who wrote:

The stench from an old mushroom pile

Seems better when treated awhile.

I catch a quick whiff

and give it a sniff —

At last, I can breathe with a smile!

Here's the offering from LIMERICK LAUREATE MARTIN EIGER:

That fetor, that stench ... what the hell?

Is it feces from cows? How to tell?

Mushroom compost that's spent

Could be causing the scent.

Powdered carbon would lessen the smell.

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2009-07-10 Goose Down Train Track Competition

Goose down-inspired train track is the subject of this month's

limerick competition. To enter, compose an original limerick that

illuminates the nature of this report:

"From Red Cells to Snowboarding: A New Concept for a Train

Track," Qianhong Wu, Yiannis Andreopoulos, and Sheldon Weinbaum,

Physical Review Letters, vol. 93, no. 194501, November 5, 2004.

(Thanks to Richard Wakeford for bringing this to our attention.)

<http://tinyurl.com/lvkh57> The authors explain that:

"Feng and Weinbaum have shown that there is a remarkable dynamic

similarity between a red cell gliding on the endothelial surface

glycocalyx and a human snowboarding on fresh powder although they

differ in mass by 1015. The lift forces in each case are 4 orders

of magnitude greater than classical lubrication theory. Herein we

... show a feasibility of designing a train that can glide on a

track whose permeability and elastic properties are similar to

goose down."

RULES: Please make sure that: (1) your rhymes actually do; and

(2) your poem is in classic, trills-off-the-tongue limerick form.

PRIZE: The winning poet will receive (if we manage to send it to

the correct address) a free, possibly downy, high-res PDF issue

of the Annals of Improbable Research. Send entries (one entry per

entrant) to:

GOOSE DOWN TRAIN TRACK LIMERICK COMPETITION

c/o <marca AT chem2.harvard.edu>

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2009-07-11 MORE IMPROBABLE: Orbiting Teapot, Baby Einstein Thesis

New Improbable Video:

<> Coming in mid-August: Collection #119, which we hesitate to

describe.

Blog items <http://improbable.com/>

<> Philpott's orbiting teapot

<> Fractions divide a town

<> Cecil D. Bykerk, sevenfold actuary

<> Farts in folk tales

<> The spider and the 747

And many more...

Newspaper columns <http://tinyurl.com/6o348d>

<> The Baby Einstein thesis

<> Hair length in Florida theme parks

<> How to be a science journal celebrity

<> When disco fever hit academia

New LFHCfS (Luxuriant Flowing Hair Club for Scientists) members:

<http://improbable.com/category/lfhcfs-hair-club/>

<> Molly Maleckar

<> Fintan Nagle

<> Noah Gray

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2009-07-12 MAY WE RECOMMEND: Melted Cheese, Erotic Tossing

TEST FOR MEASURING THE STRETCHABILITY OF MELTED CHEESE

"Test for Measuring the Stretchability of Melted Cheese," R.L.

Fife, D.J. McMahon and C.J. Oberg, Journal of Dairy Science,

December 2002, vol. 85, no. 12, pp. 3539–45. The authors are at

Utah State University and at Weber State University in Ogden,

Utah. <http://tinyurl.com/mwa28r>

ORTHOGONAL CONCEPTS

"Erotic Vomiting," R.J. Stoller, Archives of Sexual Behavior,

vol. 11, no. 4, August 1982, pp. 361-5. (Thanks to Chris McManus

for bringing this to our attention.) <http://tinyurl.com/m8f5jw>

The author is at the University of California, Los Angeles.

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2009-07-13 Improbable Research Events

For details and additional events, see

<http://improbable.com/improbable-research-shows/complete-schedule>

Ig Nobel Ceremony Tickets go on sale — Jul 31, 2009

Temple Israel, Boston — Aug 4, 2009

7:00 pm. Free to all. <http://tinyurl.com/kwno2w>

Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony, Harvard Univ — Oct 1, 2009

Ig Informal Lectures, MIT — Oct 3, 2009

Genoa Science Festival — Oct 24, 2009

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2009-07-14 -- How to Subscribe to AIR (*)

The Annals of Improbable Research is a 6-issues-per-year

magazine. (It's bigger and better than the little bits of

overflow material you've been reading in this newsletter). The

online version is at <http://www.improbable.com/magazine/>.

To subscribe to the paper-and-ink version, go to

<http://improbable.com/subscribe/> or send in this form:

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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 <air AT improbable.com>

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2009-07-15 -- 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: subscriptions AT improbable.com

WEB SITE: <http://www.improbable.com>

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2009-07-16 -- 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 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

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2009-07-17 -- 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 magazine.

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