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

JULY 2012, issue number 2012-07. 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/2012/mini2012-07.htm>

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

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2012-07-01 TABLE OF CONTENTS

2012-07-02 Imminent Events

2012-07-03 Projectiles (magazine)

2012-07-04 RESEARCH SPOTLIGHT: Human Cow-Output Dependence

2012-07-05 Ig Nobel Tickets Go on Sale AUGUST 1

2012-07-06 Guar Gum Fermentation Limerick Competition

2012-07-07 Defoaming Intestinal Gas Poet

2012-07-08 Coming Soon... The New Improbable Book

2012-07-09 MORE IMPROBABLE: Long Lost Pen, Diapers, Veg

2012-07-10 MAY WE RECOMMEND: Biosorption and Me

2012-07-11 Improbable Research Events

2012-07-12 -- How to Subscribe to the Magazine (*)

2012-07-13 -- Our Address (*)

2012-07-14 -- Please Forward/Post This Issue! (*)

2012-07-15 -- How to Receive mini-AIR, etc. (*)

Items marked (*) are reprinted in every issue.

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2012-07-02 Imminent Events

Ig Nobel TICKETS go on sale — Aug 1

Science Friday (NPR) — Aug 10

Publication Day: the new Improbable Book — Sep 16

Full schedule at <http://goo.gl/tzwJt>

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2012-07-03 Projectiles (magazine)

The special "Projectiles" issue of the magazine will soon whiz its way to the printer.

Read a low-res version of the previous issue online at <http://www.improbable.com/airchives/paperair/volume18/v18i3/v18i3.html>. Read other back issues online (including the special Ig Nobel issue), too, and/or subscribe to the fully tangible paper version, at: <http://www.improbable.com/magazine/>.

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2012-07-04 RESEARCH SPOTLIGHT: Human Cow-Output Dependence

This month's research spotlight focuses on a particular human weakness:

"Cow Dung Ingestion and Inhalation Dependence: A Case Report,"

Praveen Khairkar, Prashant Tiple and Govind Bang, International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction, vol. 7, no. 3, July, 2009, pp. 488-91. <http://goo.gl/7xKxD> (Thanks to Mike Singh for bringing this to our attention.) The authors, at Datta Meghe Institute of Medical Sciences, Wardha, Maharashtra, India, report:

"Although abuse of several unusual inhalants had been documented, addiction to cow dung fumes or their ashes has not been reported in medical literature as yet. We are reporting a case of cow dung dependence in ingestion and inhalational form."

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2012-07-05 Ig Nobel Tickets Go on Sale AUGUST 1

Tickets for the Twenty-Second 1st Annual Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony will go on sale WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 1, 2012, at NOON (US eastern time).

ALL the tickets will go on sale at once. We expect that this year's tickets will (as usual) get snapped up very quickly.

The Harvard Box Office handles all ticket sales.

In Person: The physical ticket office, in Holyoke Center, is open some (but not all!) days from noon to 6 pm.

Online: <https://www.boxoffice.harvard.edu/Online/>

Telephone: (+1) 617-496-2222.

CEREMONY DETAILS:

The Ceremony will happen on THURSDAY NIGHT, SEPTEMBER 20, at Sanders

Theater. This year's theme: The Universe.

<www.improbable.com/ig/2012/>

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DUTCH NOTE: There will be an overnight Ig Nobel Night event in Leiden, The Netherlands, with live appearances by Dutch Ig Nobel winners, a spectacular group viewing of the ceremony webcast, and then a light breakfast. DETAILS: <http://www.ignobelnight.nl/>

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2012-07-06 Guar Gum Fermentation Limerick Competition

Guar gum inspires this month's limerick competition. To enter, compose an original limerick that illuminates the nature of this report:

"Faecal Fermentation of Partially Hydrolyzed Guar Gum," Yuji Ohashi, Keisuke Harada, Makoto Tokunaga, Noriyuki Ishihara, Tsutomu Okubo, Yutaka Ogasawara, Lekh Raj Juneja, Tomohiko Fujisawa, Journal of Functional Foods, Volume 4, Issue 1, January 2012, pp. 398–402. (Thanks to Dany Adams for bringing this to our attention.) <http://goo.gl/XPJWY> The authors, at Nippon Veterinary and Life Science University and at Taiyo Kagaku Co. Ltd., Japan, report:

"Partially hydrolyzed guar gum (PHGG) remains undigested in the upper gastrointestinal tract, but is fermented by bacteria in the large intestine to stimulate short-chain fatty acids, particularly butyric acid. In this study, the bacterial composition in the in vitro faecal fermentation of PHGG was analyzed by real-time PCR to identify the bacteria contributing to the stimulation of butyric acid production."

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

GUAR GUM FERMENTATION LIMERICK COMPETITION

c/o <marca@improbable.com>

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2012-07-07 Defoaming Intestinal Gas Poet

The judges have chosen co-winners in the Defoaming Intestinal Gas Limerick Competition, which asked for a limerick to honor the study "Experience With the Use of a Defoaming Agent in The Treatment of Gastrointestinal Gas," J. Alfred Rider, Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, vol. 150, February 1968, pp 170–7.

Here is the winning limerick, from INVESTIGATOR NEIL GREENBERG:

Ingesting of high-fiber grass

Makes gastrointestinal gas

So keep in your home

A can of defoam

And insert it...where? Gullet or ass?

Here's the offering from LIMERICK LAUREATE MARTIN EIGER:

Defoam that uncomfortable mass

Of gastrointestinal gas.

A silicone blob

Can handle the job.

Alternatively, let it pass.

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2012-07-08 Coming Soon... The New Improbable Book

The new Improbable book will be published in September, simultaneously in the UK and the US.

UK: <http://goo.gl/BD0D1>

US: <http://goo.gl/ZtDez>

Here's the lovely cover: <http://goo.gl/jBySm>

The book is called "This Is Improbable".

Lots of our favorite UK-based collaborators will join Marc Abrahams in doing group readings events in the UK, between September 28 and October 5. These will be similar in flavor (and yet curiously different from!) the group readings events we squeezed into the Ig Nobel UK tours these past two years.

If you would like to help organize such an event in your city, please get in touch ASAP with our possibly-superhuman organizer, the Amazing Sid:

Sid Rodrigues <sid.rodrigues@improbable.com>

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2012-07-09 MORE IMPROBABLE: Long Lost Pen, Diapers, Veg

Recent improbable bits you may or may not have missed:

IMPROBABLE BLOG:

<> Write Ho! The Long-Lost, Ingested Pen Turns Up

<http://goo.gl/4340T>

<> Walter Lewin Draws Some Lines

<http://goo.gl/NAkFN>

<> How Academics Face-Pose on the Web

<http://goo.gl/NTBpQ>

IMPROBABLE NEWSPAPER COLUMN:

<> Why my baby is less disgusting than yours

<http://goo.gl/utCCk>

<> Defending pay phones and parking spots

<http://goo.gl/JU9jy>

<> Mincing vegetarians rather than words

<http://goo.gl/eyZcJ>

... and more at <http://improbable.com/category/newspaper-column>

NEWEST LFHCFS (HAIR CLUB) MEMBERS:

<> Yakov Kronrod <http://goo.gl/UumyU>

<> Larissa Unruh <http://goo.gl/EohuV>

blog: <http://www.improbable.com>

twitter: @ImprobResearch, @IgNobel

facebook: "Improbable Research"

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2012-07-10 MAY WE RECOMMEND: Biosorption and Me

"Biosorption and Me," Bohumil Volesky, Water Research, vol. 41, no. 18, October 2007, pp. 4017-29. <http://goo.gl/OkQXT> (Thanks to Tom Gill for bringing this to our attention.)

BONUS (for the avid reader): More of Professor V's biosorption: <http://biosorption.mcgill.ca/publication/index.htm>

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2012-07-11 Improbable Research Events

For details and additional events, see

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

Ig Nobel TICKETS go on sale - Aug 1, 2012

Science Friday (NPR) — Aug 10, 2012

Publication Day: the new Improbable Book — Sep 16, 2012

Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony — Sep 20, 2012

Ig Informal Lectures — Sep 22, 2012

AAAS Annual Meeting, Boston, USA — Feb 2013

Ig Nobel Tour of the UK — Mar 2013

Ig Nobel Tour of Scandinavia — Mar 2013

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2012-07-12 -- How to Subscribe to the Magazine (*)

The Annals of Improbable Research is a 6-issues-per-year magazine. (It's much bigger, and maybe better, than the little bits of overflow material you've been reading in this newsletter.)

To subscribe to the paper-and-ink version, go to <http://improbable.com/subscribe/> or send in this form:

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SUBSCRIPTIONS (6 issues per year):

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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 <subscriptions@improbable.com>

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2012-07-13 -- Our Address (*)

Annals of Improbable Research (AIR)

PO Box 380853, Cambridge, MA 02238 USA

617-491-4437 FAX:617-661-0927

EDITORIAL: marca@improbable.com

SUBSCRIPTIONS: subscriptions@improbable.com

Web Site: <http://www.improbable.com>

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

Twitter: ImprobResearch

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2012-07-14 -- 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

CO-CONSPIRATORS: Kees Moeliker, Alice Shirrell Kaswell, Gary Dryfoos, Ernest Ersatz, Stephen Drew

MAITRE DE COMPUTATION: Jerry Lotto

AUTHORITY FIGURES: Nobel Laureates Dudley Herschbach, Sheldon Glashow, Richard Roberts

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

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2012-07-15 -- How to Receive mini-AIR, etc. (*)

Mini-AIR is a (free!) tiny monthly *supplement* to the bi-monthly print magazine AIR.

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To subscribe or unsubscribe, please visit <http://chem.harvard.edu/mailman/listinfo/mini-air>

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