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The mini-Annals of Improbable Research ("mini-AIR")
October 2009, Issue number 2009-10. 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/mini2009-10.htm>
Archive at <http://improbable.com/airchives/miniair/>
Key words: improbable research, science humor, Ig Nobel, AIR, the
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2009-10-01 TABLE OF CONTENTS
2009-10-02 Imminent Events
2009-10-03 In the Magazine: Helmets & Lost Planets
2009-10-04 The 2009 Ig Nobel Prize Winners
2009-10-05 High School Knowledge Block
2009-10-06 Ig Nobel Prize scandal
2009-10-07 Ig Nobel Minimovie
2009-10-08 RESEARCH SPOTLIGHT: Brick/Carpenter Confusion
2009-10-09 Severed Gecko's Tail Poet
2009-10-10 Triple Zech Competition
2009-10-11 MORE IMPROBABLE: Monster Crash, Man of Mushrooms
2009-10-12 MAY WE RECOMMEND: Zenos Paradox, Unwasteful Waddling
2009-10-13 Improbable Research Events
2009-10-14 -- How to Subscribe to AIR (*)
2009-10-15 -- Our Address (*)
2009-10-16 -- Please Forward/Post This Issue! (*)
2009-10-17 -- 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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2009-10-02 Imminent Events
Oct 10, Pariscience Festival, Paris, France
Oct 24, Genoa Science Festival, Genoa, Italy
For details, see section 2009-10-13 or
<http://improbable.com/improbable-research-shows/complete-schedule>
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2009-10-03 In the Magazine: Helmets & Lost Planets
The next issue (vol. 15, no. 5) of the Annals of Improbable
Research is the special Helmets & Lost Planets issue.
It's at the printers now, to emerge soon....
Many back issues, including the Instructions & Executions 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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2009-10-04 The 2009 Ig Nobel Prize Winners
The 2009 Ig Nobel Prizes were awarded on October 1, at the 19th
First Annual Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony, at Harvard's Sanders
Theatre. Nine Nobel laureates were on hand, physically presenting
the Ig Nobel prizes. Here are the winners:
VETERINARY MEDICINE PRIZE: Catherine Douglas and Peter Rowlinson
of Newcastle University, Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, UK, for showing
that cows who have names give more milk than cows that are
nameless.
WHO ATTENDED THE CEREMONY: Peter Rowlinson. Catherine Douglas was
unable to travel because she recently gave birth; she sent a
photo that showed herself, her new daughter dressed in a cow
suit, and a cow.
PEACE PRIZE: Stephan Bolliger, Steffen Ross, Lars Oesterhelweg,
Michael Thali and Beat Kneubuehl of the University of Bern,
Switzerland, for determining — by experiment — whether it is
better to be smashed over the head with a full bottle of beer or
with an empty bottle.
WHO ATTENDED THE CEREMONY: Stephan Bolliger
ECONOMICS PRIZE: The directors, executives, and auditors of four
Icelandic banks — Kaupthing Bank, Landsbanki, Glitnir Bank, and
Central Bank of Iceland — for demonstrating that tiny banks can
be rapidly transformed into huge banks, and vice versa — and for
demonstrating that similar things can be done to an entire
national economy.
CHEMISTRY PRIZE: Javier Morales, Miguel Ap‡tiga, and Victor M.
Casta–o of Universidad Nacional Aut—noma de Mˇxico, for creating
diamonds from liquid — specifically from tequila.
WHO ATTENDED THE CEREMONY: Javier Morales and Miguel Ap‡tiga
MEDICINE PRIZE: Donald L. Unger, of Thousand Oaks, California,
USA, for investigating a possible cause of arthritis of the
fingers, by diligently cracking the knuckles of his left hand —
but never cracking the knuckles of his right hand — every day for
more than sixty (60) years.
WHO ATTENDED THE CEREMONY: Donald Unger
PHYSICS PRIZE: Katherine K. Whitcome of the University of
Cincinnati, USA, Daniel E. Lieberman of Harvard University, USA,
and Liza J. Shapiro of the University of Texas, USA, for
analytically determining why pregnant women don't tip over.
WHO ATTENDED THE CEREMONY: Katherine Whitcome and Daniel
Lieberman
LITERATURE PRIZE: Ireland's police service (An Garda Siochana),
for writing and presenting more than fifty traffic tickets to the
most frequent driving offender in the country — Prawo Jazdy —
whose name in Polish means "Driving License".
WHO ATTENDED THE CEREMONY: [Karolina Lewestam, a Polish citizen
and holder of a Polish driver's license, speaking on behalf of
all her fellow Polish licensed drivers, expressed her good wishes
to the Irish police service.]
PUBLIC HEALTH PRIZE: Elena N. Bodnar, Raphael C. Lee, and Sandra
Marijan of Chicago, Illinois, USA, for inventing a brassiere
that, in an emergency, can be quickly converted into a pair of
protective face masks, one for the brassiere wearer and one to be
given to some needy bystander.
WHO ATTENDED THE CEREMONY: Elena Bodnar.
MATHEMATICS PRIZE: Gideon Gono, governor of Zimbabwe's Reserve
Bank, for giving people a simple, everyday way to cope with a
wide range of numbers — from very small to very big — by having
his bank print bank notes with denominations ranging from one
cent ($.01) to one hundred trillion dollars
($100,000,000,000,000).
BIOLOGY PRIZE: Fumiaki Taguchi, Song Guofu, and Zhang Guanglei of
Kitasato University Graduate School of Medical Sciences in
Sagamihara, Japan, for demonstrating that kitchen refuse can be
reduced more than 90% in mass by using bacteria extracted from
the feces of giant pandas.
WHO ATTENDED THE CEREMONY: Fumiaki Taguchi
Winner details and links: <http://improbable.com/ig/winners>
Ceremony details: <http://improbable.com/ig/2009>
Video of the ceremony is (or soon will be) online at:
<http://improbable.com/ig/2009/webcast>
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2009-10-05 High School Knowledge Block
After the ceremony, several high school teachers told us that
most of their fellow teachers, and most high school students, are
not aware of the Ig Nobel Prizes.
If you have any practical, good suggestion for how to remedy
that, we would love to hear from you.
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2009-10-06 Ig Nobel Prize scandal
Somebody — somebody who is not an Ig Nobel Prize winner — walked
off with an Ig Nobel Prize last week at the 19th First Annual Ig
Nobel Prize ceremony last week, at Harvard's Sanders Theatre.
If you are that somebody, please return it. It will be quietly
accepted, no questions asked.
A photo of the prize:
<http://improbable.com/2009/10/06/ig-nobel-prize-scandal/>
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2009-10-07 Ig Nobel Minimovie
Filmmaker Bahram Sadeghi made a six-episode minimovie documentary
about Ig Nobel Prize winners. We are showcase one episode a day
here on the web site. Watch it that way, or see the entire thing
at:
<http://www.minimovies.org/documentaires/view/ignoble>
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2009-10-08 RESEARCH SPOTLIGHT: Brick/Carpenter Confusion
This month's specially selected study features an ambiguous title
by a Brick and a Carpenter:
"The Identification of Alcohol Intoxication by Police,"
J. Brick and J. A. Carpenter, Alcoholism: Clinical
Experimentation and Research, June 2001, vol. 25, no. 6,
pp. 850–5. <http://tinyurl.com/yd9rv4r>
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2009-10-09 Severed Gecko's Tail Poet
The judges have chosen a winner in the Severed Gecko's Tail
Limerick Competition, which asked for a limerick to honor the
study "Flip, Flop and Fly: Modulated Motor Control and Highly
Variable Movement Patterns of Autotomized Gecko Tails," Timothy
E. Higham and Anthony P. Russell, Biology Letters, 2009.
<http://tinyurl.com/y99qbua>
The winner is INVESTIGATOR DON DAVIS, who wrote:
The lizard's tail drops to the ground
Then continues to flop all around
For thirty-odd minutes.
It may even spin. Its
Autotomized antics abound.
TONY RUSSELL, co-author of the gecko tail study, sent in this
limerick:
A pert female gecko called Fay
Encountered a hungry male Jay
Who pecked at her head.
Her tail flew off instead.
He was duped by gymnastic display!
Here's the offering from LIMERICK LAUREATE MARTIN EIGER:
Higham and Russell expound
On autotomy. Here's what they found:
The tail of a lizard,
When severed or scissored,
Goes flipping and flopping around.
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2009-10-10 Triple Zech Competition
A study written by Zech, Zech and Zech is the subject of this
month's limerick competition. To enter, compose an original
limerick that illuminates the nature of this report (suggested by
Tom Gill):
"Late Quaternary Environmental Changes in Misiones, Subtropical NE
Argentina, Deduced From Multi-Proxy Geochemical Analyses in a
Palaeosol-Sediment Sequence," Michael Zech, Roland Zech, Hˇctor Morr‡s,
Lucas Moretti, Bruno Glaser and Wolfgang Zech, Quaternary
International, vol. 196, nos. 1-2, March 2009, pp. 121-36.
DOI:10.1016/j.quaint.2008.06.006. <http://tinyurl.com/pz7duf>
NOTE: Also see the unrelated book Triple Zeck, by Rex Stout
<http://tinyurl.com/r8wwav>
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 Zechular, high-res PDF
issue of the Annals of Improbable Research. Send entries (one
entry per entrant) to:
TRIPLE ZECH LIMERICK COMPETITION
c/o <marca AT chem2.harvard.edu>
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2009-10-11 MORE IMPROBABLE: Monster Crash, Man of Mushrooms
BLOG <http://improbable.com/>
<> The monster crash
<> Ig highlights (bottles, cows, domo, bra)
<> M. Cubitt Cooke, man of mushrooms and complex family life
<> Unitary flying cow
And many more...
NEWSPAPER <http://improbable.com/category/newspaper-column>
<> Check the marijuana in your muffins
<> Sleight of Food (frog? bird? both?)
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2009-10-12 MAY WE RECOMMEND: Zenos Paradox, Unwasteful Waddling
ZENOS PARADOX: FOOD FOR FOOD FOR THOUGHT
"Thinking about Thinking about 'Thinking about Thinking':
Neurobiology as the Background for Brain and Mind,"
Zenos M. Linnell, Psychoanalytic Study of the Child, vol. 57,
2002, pp. 93-117. <http://tinyurl.com/yd9kmrk> The author
reports:
"This paper presents details of the development of recursive
thought from early infancy to early childhood."
THE UNWASTEFULNESS OF WADDLING
"Biomechanics: Penguin Waddling is Not Wasteful," Timothy M.
Griffin and Rodger Kram, Nature, vol. 408, December 21, 2000, p.
929. <http://tinyurl.com/yaflexj> The authors explain their work:
"Here we show that waddling actually conserves mechanical energy
and suggest instead that walking is expensive for penguins
because their short legs require them to generate muscular force
rapidly."
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2009-10-13 Improbable Research Events
For details and additional events, see
<http://improbable.com/improbable-research-shows/complete-schedule>
Pariscience Festival, Paris, France — Oct 10, 2009
Genoa Science Festival, Genoa, Italy — Oct 24, 2009
AAAS, San Diego — Feb 2010
UK Tour — Mar 2010
UKSG, Edinburgh — Apr 2010
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2009-10-14 -- 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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617-491-4437 FAX:617-661-0927 <air AT improbable.com>
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2009-10-15 -- 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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2009-10-16 -- 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-
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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 2009, Annals of Improbable Research
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2009-10-17 -- 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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