mini-AIR November 2011

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

November 2011, issue number 2011-11. 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/2011/mini2011-11.htm>

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

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2011-11-01 TABLE OF CONTENTS

2011-11-02 Imminent Event

2011-11-03 The Magazine: Ig Nobel Issue A-coming

2011-11-04 Annual SciFri Broadcast

2011-11-05 RESEARCH SPOTLIGHT: Oh, Yes, Ohno Praises Peptide P-dromes

2011-11-06 Double (2!) Stare/Walk Experiment Competition

2011-11-07 Incompleteness & Unsolvable Halting Poet

2011-11-08 MORE IMPROBABLE: Why Nairobi Needs Traffic Jams

2011-11-09 MAY WE RECOMMEND: Wanker on Drugs

2011-11-10 Improbable Research Events

2011-11-11 -- How to Subscribe to the Magazine (*)

2011-11-12 -- Our Address (*)

2011-11-13 -- Please Forward/Post This Issue! (*)

2011-11-14 -- How to Receive mini-AIR, etc. (*)

Items marked (*) are reprinted in every issue.

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2011-11-02 Imminent Event

NPR's "Science Friday" Ig Nobel broadcast — Fri, Nov 25

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2011-11-03 The Magazine: Ig Nobel Issue A-coming

The special Ig Nobel issue of the magazine will soon be meandering its way to the printer, thence to speed onwards to subscribers here, there, and other places.

Read back issues online (including the special Animal Oddities issue) and/or subscribe to the fully tangible paper version, at: <http://www.improbable.com/magazine/>.

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2011-11-04 Annual SciFri Broadcast

Gather the family (or flee from it, if that's appropriate) and listen to the annual day-after-Thanksgiving broadcast — a specially edited version of the year's Ig Nobel Prize ceremony. It will be the first hour of the two-hour "Science Friday" program. In most — but not all! — American cities this will be from 2:00-3:00 p.m. (Some NPR stations schedule it at other times.)

No matter where you are, if you've an Internet connection you can listen in. Many radio stations stream the broadcast online: <http://www.sciencefriday.com/about/listen/>

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2011-11-05 RESEARCH SPOTLIGHT: Oh, Yes, Ohno Praises Peptide P-dromes

This month's research spotlight focuses on peptides:

"A Song in Praise of Peptide Palindromes," Susumo Ohno, Leukemia, vol. 7, supplement 2, August 1993, pp. S157-9. <http://bit.ly/vIaPTN> The author, at Beckman Research Institute of the City of Hope, Duarte, California, writes:

"Peptide palindromes are invariably found in all proteins, and long palindromes exceeding 10 residues in length are not rare. They are particularly abundant in DNA-binding proteins such as H1 histone.... The simultaneous musical transformation of both strands of mouse H1 histone variety-1 DNA enable us to appreciate the symmetrical beauty of successive palindromes appearing in both H1 histone and its complementary protein."

BONUS: Bye, Bye, Ohno: <http://lat.ms/s12L1P>

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2011-11-06 Double Stare/Walk Experiment Competition

Walking and staring inspire this month's limerick competition. To enter, compose a COUPLED-PAIR OF ORIGINAL LIMERICKS that illuminates the nature of this report:

"Effects of Facial Expression and Stare Duration on Walking Speed: Two Field Experiments," D. Elman, D.C. Schulte, and A. Bukoff, Environmental Psychology and Nonverbal Behavior, vol. 2, 1977, pp. 93–99. <http://bit.ly/u8hFPs> The authors, at Kent State University, explain:

"Experiment 1, conducted at a traffic intersection, failed to replicate a previous finding that being stared at leads to faster walking speed.... In Experiment 2, conducted at a library elevator, duration of staring was systematically varied — either 2 seconds or more than 15 seconds.... subjects increased walking speed after a long stare but decreased it after a short stare. In both experiments a smile coupled with a stare appeared to neutralize the effects of a stare alone."

==> NOTE: Yes, to enter this competition, prepare TWO limericks.

PRIZE: The winning poet will receive (if we manage to send it to the correct address) a free, possibly intimidating, hi-res PDF issue of the Annals of Improbable Research. Send your limerick to:

DOUBLE STARE/WALK EXPERIMENT LIMERICKS COMPETITION

c/o <marca@improbable.com>

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2011-11-07 Incompleteness & Unsolvable Halting Poet

The judges have chosen a winner in the Incompleteness & Unsolvable Halting Limerick Competition, which asked for a limerick to honor the study "What Does the Incompleteness Theorem Add to the Unsolvability of the Halting Problem?" Torkel Franzen, Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol. 3988, 2006, p. 198. <http://bit.ly/oeoTDw>

Here's the winning limerick, by INVESTIGATOR WARD SILVER: