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

November 2009, issue number 2009-11. ISSN 1076-500X.

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Monthly mini update/alert from the Annals of Improbable Research

This issue is at

<http://www.improbable.com/airchives/miniair/2009/mini2009-11.htm>

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

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

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2009-11-01 TABLE OF CONTENTS

2009-11-02 Imminent Events

2009-11-03 The Magazine: Special Ig Issue

2009-11-04 Discovery: Hands Off the Hand Sanitizer

2009-11-05 Drug as Doggerel

2009-11-06 Ig Highlights on Science Friday Friday

2009-11-07 RESEARCH SPOTLIGHT: Because He Was Covered With Paint

2009-11-08 Triple Zech Poets

2009-11-09 Plasma Blobs Competition

2009-11-10 MORE IMPROBABLE: Pluck a Duck, FucU, Genius

2009-11-11 MAY WE RECOMMEND: Pigs, Sweets, Vegetation, Teachers

2009-11-12 Improbable Research Events

2009-11-13 -- How to Subscribe to AIR (*)

2009-11-14 -- Our Address (*)

2009-11-15 -- Please Forward/Post This Issue! (*)

2009-11-16 -- 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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2009-11-02 Imminent Events

NPR "Science Friday" Ig Nobel broadcast Fri, Nov 27

Details: see section 2009-11-06 below, or

<http://www.sciencefriday.com/>

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2009-11-03 The Magazine: Special Ig Issue

The next issue (vol. 15, no. 6) of the Annals of Improbable

Research is the special Ig Nobel issue. It will emerge in late

December. (And see preprint info in 2009-11-04 below)

Many back issues, including the Helmets & Lost Planets issue, are

online at <http://www.improbable.com/magazine/>. Subscribe to the

paper version, or to the hi-res PDF version, or read the free PDF

version.

HOLIDAY REMINDER: a subscription to AIR is the best gift

you can give to anyone who loves regular doses (six a year!) of

improbable research. <http://improbable.com/subscribe>

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2009-11-04 Discovery: Hands Off the Hand Sanitizer

Most patients - and most medical personnel, too - disregard

instructions to use a hand-sanitizer station, despite fears of

the flu.

So reports John Trinkaus in a new study, the first in a wide-

ranging series of new surveys he is publishing in the Annals of

Improbable Research.

This study - available in a special preprint - examined the hand-

sanitizing behavior of patients and medical professionals who

entered a New York-area medical building.

Professor Trinkaus won the 2003 Ig Nobel Prize in literature for

meticulously collecting data and publishing more than 80 detailed

academic reports about things that annoyed him.

Preprint of the study (PDF): <http://bit.ly/51IHNl>

An appreciation of Professor Trinkaus: <http://bit.ly/4V7IBX>

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2009-11-05 Drug as Doggerel

Clopidogrel. A new study says heavy advertising did not improve

sales of this drug. But maybe consumers revolted against buying

and taking something with so hideous a name? Clopidogrel.

Clopidogrel. Clopidogrel.

The study is: "Costs and Consequences of Direct-to-Consumer

Advertising for Clopidogrel in Medicaid," Michael R. Law, Stephen

Soumerai, Alyce S. Adams and Sumit Majumdar, Archives of

Internal Medicine, vol. 169, no. 21, 2009, pp. 1969-74.

<http://bit.ly/91BCox>

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2009-11-06 Ig Highlights on Science Friday Friday

This Friday, November 27, the day after Thanksgiving, "Science

Friday" will reveal its 2009 Ig Nobel Ceremony highlights radio

special. It's on NPR stations and on the web. Broadcast times

vary (in many US east coast cities, the broadcast begins at 2

pm), so check with your station. (Science Friday is a two-hour

program; the Ig will be the first of those hours.)

Listen at: <http://www.sciencefriday.com/about/listen>

Archives from previous years: <http://bit.ly/7W8DhV>

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2009-11-07 RESEARCH SPOTLIGHT: Because He Was Covered With Paint

This month's specially selected study is:

"Managing the Blue Man: Multiple Traumas Involving a Paint-

Carrying Truck," Asli Feride Kaptanoglu, Nazmiye Koyuncu, Evren

Tayanc, and Ozgur Karcioglum,Mount Sinai Journal of Medicine,

vol. 73, no. 7, November 2006, pp. 1052-4. The authors, at

Bayindir Hospital, Ankara, Turkey, explain:

"This report describes the difficulty in evaluating a patient

with multiple traumas because he was covered with paint poured

from a truck in a car accident.... A 29-year-old male patient was

admitted to the emergency department following the collision of

his car with a paint-carrying truck. His head, face, neck and

hands were covered with a cyan-blue oil paint... The patient's

scalp, face and neck were cleaned with paint thinner (60%

toluene). The patient was then diagnosed as having a

maxillofacial fracture and underwent surgery for open reduction

and rigid fixation by plastic and reconstructive surgeons."

PDF at <http://bit.ly/6nx3t5>

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2009-11-08 Triple Zech Poets

The judges have chosen a winner in the Triple Zech Limerick

Competition, which asked for a limerick to honor the study

"Late Quaternary Environmental Changes in Misiones, Subtropical

NE Argentina, Deduced From Multi-Proxy Geochemical Analyses in a

Palaeosol-Sediment Sequence," Michael Zech, Roland Zech, Héctor

Morrás, Lucas Moretti, Bruno Glaser and Wolfgang Zech, Quaternary

International. <http://tinyurl.com/pz7duf>

The winner is INVESTIGATOR MILO OREN, who wrote:

"The proxy is multi?" asked Zech,

To which Zech and Zech answered, "Check!"

They found no impediment

To making Sediment

Science go slightly high tech.

Semi-honorable mention goes to INVESTIGATOR ROBIN LEE:

Mike, Roland, and Wolfgang - all Zechs -

Like landscapes that seem quite complex.

To measure old soil

Makes their juices boil.

Me - I only get that from sex.

Here's the offering from LIMERICK LAUREATE MARTIN EIGER:

The stuff in a sediment core

Tells which landscapes existed before.

So the Zech guys assert

As they dig up the dirt.

There were glaciers and grass, trees and more.

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2009-11-09 Plasma Blobs Competition

Colliding Plasma Blobs inspire this month's limerick competition.

To enter, compose an original limerick that illuminates the

nature of this report (suggested by Winnie and Andrew Ducette):

"Cusp Compression of Colliding Plasma Blobs," T. K. Allen, K.

Doble, T. J. L. Jones, R. M. Payne, and I. J. Spalding, Physics

of Fluids, vol. 9, July 1966, pp. 1394-. DOI:10.1063/1.1761859.

<http://bit.ly/5MXKRT> The authors, at Culham Laboratory in

Berkshire, England, begin by saying:

"A plasma formed by colliding two plasma blobs is compressed by a

rising cusp field which reaches 34 kG between the coils in 15

µsec..."

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, only slightly blobby, high-res PDF

issue of the Annals of Improbable Research. Send entries (one

entry per entrant) to:

PLASMA BLOBS LIMERICK COMPETITION

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

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2009-11-10 MORE IMPROBABLE: Pluck a Duck, FucU, Genius

BLOG <http://improbable.com/>

<> Macbethian physics: Things that move uphill

<> The safety of pie, the gravity of gravy

<> Chemistry: FucU (Fucose, Unknown)

<> The problem of the polymaths

<> Pluck a duck

And many more...

NEWSPAPER <http://improbable.com/category/newspaper-column>

<> Early strokes of genius

<> Studying affects grades, maybe

<> The criminal life: Fat chance?

<> Cryptic crosswords threaten justice

<> The handwriting off the wall

<> It's hard: To be a bat

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2009-11-11 MAY WE RECOMMEND: Pigs, Sweets, Vegetation, Teachers

PIGS V. PEOPLE: A MATTER OF TASTE

"Gustatory Responses of Pigs to Sixty Compounds Tasting Sweet to

Humans," Journal of Animal Physiology and Animal Nutrition, C.

Nofre, D. Glaser, J.M. Tinti, and M. Wanner, vol. 86, no. 3-4,

2002, pp. 90-6. (Thanks to Wendy Cooper for bringing this to our

attention.) The authors, at the University of Lyon, France, and

at the University of Zürich-Irchel, Switzerland, report:

"Among the 60 compounds tested 35 are effective in pigs, but with

an effectiveness much lower in pigs than in humans."

PSYCHO-VEGETATIVE TESTS FOR TEACHERS

"Experiences with Psycho-Vegetative Tests in the Study

Difficulties of Student Teachers" [article in German], P.

Fischer, Psychiatrie, Neurologie, und Medizinische Psychologie,

vol. 30, no. 11, November 1978, pp. 683-8. <http://bit.ly/707WMg>

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2009-11-12 Improbable Research Events

For details and additional events, see

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

NPR Science Friday Ig Nobel broadcast - Nov 27, 2009

AAAS, San Diego - Feb 2010

UK Tour - Mar 2010

UKSG, Edinburgh - Apr 14, 2010

Edinburgh Science Festival - Apr 17, 2010

Ig Nobel European Tour - Apr 2010

Ig Nobel Prize ceremony - Sep 30, 2010

Ig Informal Lectures - Oct 2, 2010

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2009-11-13 -- 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

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2009-11-14 -- 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: subscriptions AT improbable.com

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

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2009-11-15 -- 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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2009-11-16 -- 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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