mini-Annals of Improbable Research ("mini-AIR")
May 2017, issue number 2017-05. ISSN 1076-500X.
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Research that makes people LAUGH, then THINK.
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01 TABLE OF CONTENTS
02 In the Magazine Itself: Faces Before Fears and Tears
03 SPOTLIGHT: Burger on a Milkshake
04 LIMERICK CONTEST: Cigarettes in a Milkshake
05 RESEARCH POET: Bread With Coffee As an Ingredient
06 MORE IMPROBABLE: Bug Leg, Baby Boom Bust, Jaw-Drop Rise
07 MAY WE RECOMMEND: The Milkshake & the Micturition Drive
08 IMPROBABLE EVENTS
09 — How to Get The Magazine (*)
10 — How to start or stop receiving mini-AIR (*)
11 — Contact Info (*)
12 — Standard Gobbledegook (*)
Items marked (*) are reprinted in every issue.
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02 In the Magazine Itself: Faces Before Fears and Tears
The special FEARS AND TEARS issue (vol. 23, no. 3) of the magazine is in prep. The special FACES issue and most other previous issues await you:
SUBSCRIPTIONS & SINGLE ISSUES: <https://gumroad.com/improbable>
Tables of Contents: <http://www.improbable.com/magazine/>
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03 SPOTLIGHT: Burger on a Milkshake
This month's research spotlight shines on Burger who shines a light on a milkshake:
"Frequent Ice Cream Consumption Is Associated With Reduced Striatal Response to Receipt of an Ice Cream–Based Milkshake," Kyle S. Burger and Eric Stice, American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, vol. 95, no. 4, April 2012, pp. 810-817. <http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/95/4/810.long> (Thanks to Gus Rancatore for bringing this to our attention.) The authors, the Oregon Research Institute, report:
"Design: Healthy-weight adolescents underwent fMRI during receipt of a milkshake and during receipt of a tasteless solution....
"Results: Milkshake receipt robustly activated the striatal regions, yet frequent ice cream consumption was associated with a reduced response to milkshake receipt in these reward-related brain regions."
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04 LIMERICK CONTEST: Cigarettes in a Milkshake
This month's challenge —
Devise a pleasing limerick that encapsulates this study:
"The Smoking Milkshake," Jennifer Thomas and Paul E. Luebbers, American Journal of Health Education, vol. 40, no. 6 (2009, pp. 322-328. <http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ871129.pdf> The authors, at Emporia State University, explain:
"Cigarettes can have many ingredients. Philip Morris, the nations largest cigarette manufacturer, uses over 200 ingredients in the production of their cigarettes (Figure 1). Distribute the Cigarette Ingredients/Effects Worksheet (Figure 3), and explain that using several of the listed ingredients, they, as a class, will assist the teacher in making a 'Smoking Milkshake.' "
Submit your perfectly formed, delightfully enlightening limerick to:
CIGARETTES-IN-A-MILKSHAKE LIMERICK COMPETITION
c/o <MARC aaattt IMPROBABLE dddooottt COM>
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05 RESEARCH POET: Bread With Coffee As an Ingredient
The judges have chosen a winner in last month's Limerick Competition, which asked for a limerick to explain this study:
"Wheat Bread Enriched With Green Coffee – In Vitro Bioaccessibility and Bioavailability of Phenolics and Antioxidant Activity," Michal Świeca, Urszula Gawlik-Dziki, Dariusz Dziki, and Barbara Baraniak, Food Chemistry Food Chemistry, vol. 221, 2017, pp. 1451–1457.
The winner is INVESTIGATOR DAVID MARPLES, who wrote:
Making bread with some green coffee flour
Should give antioxidant power.
Pass it through a glass gut;
YouÕll get phenols out, but
With the taste, youÕll not want to devour!
The word from our LIMERICK LAUREATE, MARTIN EIGER:
One of the wonders of bread
Is where leading-edge research has led.
When baking whole wheat,
Add green coffee. Don't eat,
But digest it in vitro instead.
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06 MORE IMPROBABLE: Bug Leg, Baby Boom Bust, Jaw-Drop Rise
Recent improbable research bits you may have missed...
The blog <http://www.improbable.com/>:
<> One-Legged Mosquitoes Get the Job Done
<> No Baby Boom Following Fifty Shades of Grey
<> The Rise of "Jaw-Dropping"
FACEBOOK: <http://www.facebook.com/improbableresearch>
TWITTER: @ImprobResearch, @MarcAbrahams, #IgNobel
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07 MAY WE RECOMMEND: The Milkshake & the Micturition Drive
"Micturition Drive is Associated with Decreased Brain Response to Palatable Milkshake in the Human Anterior Insular Cortex," Xiao Gao, Xue Sun, Maria G. Veldhuizen, Yuko Nakamura, Nils B. Kroemer, and Dana Small, Chemosensory Perception, vol. 9, no. 4, 2016, pp. 174-181. <https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12078-016-9215-1> The authors, at Southwest University, China, Technische UniversitŠt Dresden, Germany, and Yale University, USA, report:
"Most functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies of taste deliver small quantities of liquids over roughly 45 min to repeatedly sample brain response to tastants. Within this time participants frequently report that their need to urinate increases.... [Our] finding demonstrates that micturition drive influences insular response to milkshake."
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08 IMPROBABLE EVENTS
For details and additional events, see
<http://www.improbable.com/improbable-research-shows/complete-schedule/>
Ig Nobel Ceremony TICKETS go on sale — Jul 20, 2017
2017 Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony — Sep 14, 2017
Ig Informal Lectures — Sep 16, 2017
Ig Nobel Fall EuroTour
U Manchester, UK — Nov 29, 2017
EMBL, Heidelberg, Germany — Dec 4, 2017
SLAS Conference, San Diego — Feb 7, 2018
AAAS Annual Meeting, Austin, TX — Feb 2018
Ig Nobel Spring EuroTour — Mar 2018
Northwest Rheumatism Society,
Portland, OR — Apr 26, 2018
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09 — How to Get The Magazine (*)
The Annals of Improbable Research is a 6-issues-per-year magazine, published in PDF form. It's packed with research that makes people laugh, then think. (mini-AIR, the thing you are reading at this moment, is but a tiny, free-floating appendix to the actual magazine.)
<www.improbable.com/magazine/>
SUBSCRIPTIONS ($25, for six issues)
SINGLE ISSUES ($5 each)
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10 — How to start or stop receiving mini-AIR (*)
Mini-AIR is a (free!) tiny monthly *supplement*
to the big, bold six-times-a-year magazine AIR.
To SUBSCRIBE or UNSUBSCRIBE to mini-AIR:
<http://five.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/mini-air>
ARCHIVES: <http://improbable.com/airchives/miniair>
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11 — CONTACT INFO (*)
Annals of Improbable Research (AIR)
EDITORIAL: <MARC aaattt IMPROBABLE dddooottt COM>
SUBSCRIPTION QUESTIONS: <subscriptions AT improbable.com>
Cambridge, MA 02138 USA, (+1) 617-491-4437
Twitter: @ImprobResearch
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12 — Standard Gobbledegook (*)
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 2017, Annals of Improbable Research
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