mini-Annals of Improbable Research ("mini-AIR")
January 2014, issue number 2015-01. ISSN 1076-500X.
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The monthly wee little tiny mini update/alert from Improbable Research
Archive at <http://improbable.com/airchives/miniair>
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2015-01-01 TABLE OF CONTENTS
2015-01-02 Imminent Events
2015-01-03 In the Magazine: Special Ig Nobel Issue
2015-01-04 RESEARCH SPOTLIGHT: Huh's Hub-Hole Crack-Punching Prediction
2015-01-05 LFHCfS Woman and Man of the Year
2015-01-06 Hole and Crack Limerick Competition
2015-01-07 de Snoo's in-Pat Abundance Analysis Poets
2015-01-08 MORE IMPROBABLE: Coffee Droplets, Incompetence, Danger
2015-01-09 MAY WE RECOMMEND: From a Crack to Infinity
2015-01-10 Improbable Research Events
2015-01-11 — How to Get the Magazine (*)
2015-01-12 — Our Address (*)
2015-01-13 — Please Forward/Post This Issue! (*)
2015-01-14 — How to start or stop receiving this newsletter (*)
Items marked (*) are reprinted in every issue.
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2015-01-02 Imminent Events
á Arisia, Boston, MA, USA — Jan 17, 2015
(Dramatic Improbable Readings from bizarre studies)
á University of Vienna, Austria — Jan 29, 2015
á Vienna Ball of Sciences, Austria — Jan 31, 2015
á Nuevea School, San Matteo, CA, USA — Feb 12, 2015
á AAAS Annual Meeting, San Jose, CA, USA — Feb 14, 2015
DETAILS: <http://www.wissenschaftsball.at/ball/programm>
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2015-01-03 In the Magazine: Special Ig Nobel Issue
The special IG NOBEL issue of the magazine is out, on the loose.
See the table of contents, and read the article "The Ig Nobel Acceptance speeches", at <http://goo.gl/eLEruh>
Download a FREE E-BOOK ISSUE <http://goo.gl/BMzMw>
Links to all issues: <http://www.improbable.com/magazine>
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2015-01-04 RESEARCH SPOTLIGHT: Huh's Hub-Hole Crack-Punching Prediction
This month's spotlight focuses on Huh, and on Huh's hub-hole crack-punching prediction:
"Development of the technique for prediction of the hub-hole crack with the punching effect," J.S. Lee, Y.K. Ko, H. Huh, H.K. Kim, and S.H. Park, 2005. <http://goo.gl/CHd7mO>
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2015-01-05 LFHCfS Woman and Man of the Year
The Luxuriant Flowing Hair Club for Scientists (LFHCfS) proudly announces its Woman and Man Of The Year for 2015. The two terrifically-tressed scientists are, respectively, an American researcher who studies microbes that live in paper wasp bodies and nests, and a British researcher who plumbs the mysteries of critical illnesses.
WOMAN OF THE YEAR: DR. ANNE A. MADDEN, LFHCFS
Dr. Madden is a microbial ecologist who specializes in microorganisms associated with wasps. She is a Sloan Foundation Microbiology of the Built Environment Postdoctoral Research Fellow, at North Carolina State University and Colorado University, having received her Ph.D from Tufts University in Massachusetts.
MAN OF THE YEAR: DR. ALEX DYSON, LFHCFS
Dr. Dyson is a Clinical Physiologist at University College London, studying the mechanisms underlying critical illness states (such as ischaemia/reperfusion injury). He is currently working to develop a drug that will hopefully prevent chronic heart failure following acute myocardial infarction (heart attack).
Admire them and their hair, and get pointers to their work, at <http://goo.gl/7VINRJ>
See the past year's new LFHCfS members, at <http://goo.gl/46pzgk>
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2015-01-06 Hole and Crack Limerick Competition
Holes, and also cracks, inspire this month's limerick competition. To enter, compose an original limerick that clarifies the nature of this study:
"Study on the Element with the Hole and Crack," Qiang Xu, Jian-yun Chen, Jing Li, Gang Xu, Acta Mechanica, July 2014, vol. 225, no. 7, pp 1915-1930. <http://goo.gl/PuEhVA> (Thanks to investigator Tom Gill for bringing this to our attention.) The authors, mostly at Dalian University of Technology, write:
"A new element is proposed for describing a discontinuous medium, such as holes and cracks, inside the region of the element. The underlying idea is to construct numerically the base functions of the discontinuous region by capturing the results calculated by fine finite elements in small-scale and then to construct the element in macro-scale with the crack and hole based on the theories of the multi-scale finite element method and the extended finite element method."
Submit your perfectly formed limerick to:
HOLE AND CRACK LIMERICK COMPETITION
c/o <MARC aaattt IMPROBABLE dddooottt COM>
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2015-01-07 de Snoo's in-Pat Abundance Analysis Poets
The judges have chosen co-winners in last month's de Snoo's in-Pat Abundance Analysis Limerick Competition, which asked for a limerick to honor this study:
"Insect Abundance in Cow Dung Pats of Different Farming Systems," Flavia Geiger, Sophie CTM van der Lubbe, Arend M.H. Brunsting, and Geert R. de Snoo, Entomologische Berichten, vol. 70, no. 4, 2010, pp. 106-110. <http://goo.gl/06KrFh>
The judges, either feuding or colluding, settled on three co-winners. Look on their works, ye mighty readers, and do not despair:
INVESTIGATOR CAROL DANSEREAU:
Dairy cows raised different ways
Leave cow pies wherever they graze.
Scientists found
That insects abound,
When ranchers don't mow or use sprays.
INVESTIGATOR BARRY CLARK:
You insects can work yourselves franic.
The risk to your lives is gigantic.
If you live in cow's dung
You are sure to die young
Unless the said cow is organic.
INVESTIGATOR TONY HARKER:
This team faced, with no trace of panic,
Enough crap to float the Titanic.
They searched every pat,
And so they found that
ThereÕs more bugs in dung thatÕs organic.
Here's the offering from our LIMERICK LAUREATE, MARTIN EIGER:
Farmers worldwide ought to know,
To adjust how they farm, graze, and mow,
For numbers, among
The cows and their dung,
Of insects too high or too low.
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2015-01-08 MORE IMPROBABLE: Coffee Droplets, Incompetence, Danger
Recent improbable bits you maybe missed:
IMPROBABLE BLOG:
á "Cup-of-coffee micro-droplets surface physics, poetically" <http://goo.gl/oabdTv>
á "Cleese opines to great effect on Dunning and on Kruger" <http://goo.gl/UnKeRX>
á "The medical hazard, for him, of being beneath her" <http://goo.gl/Q2PUAJ>
New members of the Luxuriant Flowing Hair Clubs for Scientists (LFHCfS):
á Corbin Covault <http://goo.gl/8qCzkC>
á Jimmy <http://goo.gl/kZzzpz>
á Nicholas Galitzki <http://goo.gl/5EHeg9>
...AND MORE, IN ABUNDANCE, AT <WWW.IMPROBABLE.COM>
twitter: @ImprobResearch, @MarcAbrahams, #IgNobel
facebook: <http://www.facebook.com/improbableresearch>
books: <http://goo.gl/rHMb3t>
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2015-01-09 MAY WE RECOMMEND: From a Crack to Infinity
"Green's function for a crack emanating from a circular hole in an infinite sheet," V. Shivakumar and R.G. Forman, International Journal of Fracture, vol. 16, no. 4, 1980, pp. 305-316. <http://goo.gl/NzrnFR>
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2015-01-10 Improbable Research Events
For details and additional events, see
<http://improbable.com/improbable-research-shows/complete-schedule>
Arisia, Boston, MA, USA — Jan 17, 2015
University of Vienna, Austria — Jan 29, 2015
Vienna Ball of Sciences, Austria — Jan 31, 2015
Nueva School, San Mateo, CA — Feb 12, 2015
AAAS Annual Meeting, San Jose, CA, USA — Feb 14, 2015
Ig Nobel Tour of Europe — Mar, 2015
Ig Nobel Events in Japan — Jun, 2015
25th First Annual Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony — Sep 17, 2015
Ig Informal Lectures — Sep 19, 2015
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2015-01-11 — How to Get the Magazine (*)
The Annals of Improbable Research is a 6-issues-per-year magazine. (It's much bigger and better than the little bits in this newsletter.)
We produce each issue as an e-book, as well as on traditional paper.
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2015-01-12 — Our Address (*)
Annals of Improbable Research (AIR)
PO Box 380853, Cambridge, MA 02238 USA
(+1) 617-491-4437, FAX: (+1) 617-661-0927
EDITORIAL: <MARC aaattt IMPROBABLE dddooottt COM>
PRINT SUBSCRIPTIONS: <subscriptions AT improbable.com>
Web Site and blog: <http://www.improbable.com>
Twitter: @ImprobResearch
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2015-01-13 — 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
CO-CONSPIRATORS: Kees Moeliker, Alice Shirrell Kaswell, Gary Dryfoos, Ernest Ersatz, Stephen Drew
PROOFREADER: Ambient Happenstance
AUTHORITY FIGURES: Nobel Laureates Dudley Herschbach, Sheldon Glashow, Richard Roberts
Key words: improbable research, science humor, Ig Nobel, AIR, the
(c) copyright 2015, Annals of Improbable Research
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2015-01-14 — How to start or stop receiving this newsletter (*)
Mini-AIR is a (free!) teeny-tiny monthly *supplement* to the actual six-times-a-year magazine AIR.
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