Mini-AIR

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

July 2017, issue number 2017-07. ISSN 1076-500X.

----------

Research that makes people LAUGH, then THINK.

—————————

01 TABLE OF CONTENTS

02 In the Magazine Itself: Lotsa Fears, Tears Research

03 Kid Sucks, Mom Drinks

04 Ig Nobel — Tickets Go On Sale Thursday, July 20

05 The High-Amplitude Sucking Quest [LIMERICK CONTEST]

06 Swallowing-Sound

07 MORE IMPROBABLE: Mouse Scratching Acoustics, Coffee

08 High Amplitude Sucking Procedure

09 IMPROBABLE EVENTS

10 — How to Get The Magazine (*)

11 — How to start or stop receiving mini-AIR (*)

12 — Contact Info (*)

13 — Standard Gobbledegook (*)

Items marked (*) are reprinted in every issue.

—————————

02 In the Magazine Itself: Lotsa Fears, Tears Research

The special FEARS AND TEARS issue (vol. 23, no. 3) is downloadable. It and most other previous issues await you:

SUBSCRIPTIONS & SINGLE ISSUES:

<https://gumroad.com/improbable>

Tables of Contents: <http://www.improbable.com/magazine/>

—————————

03 Kid Sucks, Mom Drinks

This month's research spotlight shines on kids and moms:

"Sucking Frequency and Amplitude in Newborns As a Function of Maternal Drinking and Smoking," D. C. Martin, J.C. Martin, A.P. Streissguth, and C.A. Lund, Currents in Alcoholism, vol. 5, 1978, pp. 359-366. <https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/755637>

—————————

04 Ig Nobel — Tickets Go On Sale Thursday, July 20

Tickets for the 27th First Annual Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony go on sale July 20 — at NOON (US eastern time),

exclusively from the Harvard Box Office.

TICKETS: <https://is.gd/FgfmO4>

This year's theme: UNCERTAINTY.

This year' ceremony will include a new mini-opera, "The Incompetence Opera". It celebrates the Dunning-Kruger Effect and the Peter Principle.

DETAILS: <http://www.improbable.com/ig/2017>

—————————

05 The High-Amplitude Sucking Quest [LIMERICK CONTEST]

This month's challenge —

Devise a pleasing limerick that encapsulates this study:

"High-Amplitude Sucking and Newborns: The Quest for Underlying Mechanisms," Caroline Floccia, Anne Christophe, and Josiane Bertoncini, Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, vol. 64, no. 2, 1997, pp. 175-198. <https://is.gd/EPFwou> The authors, at CNRS-EHESS, Paris, France and University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland, report:

"Experiment 2 showed that an increase in sucking rates could be obtained after a stimulus change, when sounds were presented contingently, but not when sounds were presented noncontingently."

Submit your perfectly formed, delightfully enlightening limerick to:

SUCKING LIMERICK COMPETITION

c/o <MARC aaattt IMPROBABLE dddooottt COM>

—————————

06 Swallowing-Sound

The judges have chosen a winner in last month's Competition, which asked for a limerick to explain this study:

"Characterization of Swallowing Sound: Preliminary Investigation of Normal Subjects," Tsuyoshi Honda, Takuro Baba, Keiko Fujimoto, Takaharu Goto, Kan Nagao, Masafumi Harada, Eiichi Honda, and Tetsuo Ichikawa, PLoS ONE, vol. 11, no. 12, 2016, e0168187. <https://is.gd/aRYXvh>

The winner is INVESTIGATOR KEITH ELWOOD, who wrote:

Acoustical researchers found

Concerning our swallowing sound:

Their principal thought is

The larynx and glottis

And hyoid bone bouncing around.

The word from our LIMERICK LAUREATE, MARTIN EIGER:

The cavities, cavernous, hollow,

That drinks that we drink have to follow —

Let them go, let them flow,

Let fluoroscopy show

All the sources of sound as we swallow.

—————————

07 MORE IMPROBABLE: Mouse Scratching Acoustics, Coffee

Recent improbable research bits you may have missed...

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

<> Automated Acoustic Detection of Mouse Scratching

<> A Visit to the World of the Ig Nobel Prizes

<> Six Cups of Coffee Goes to Your Head, for Surgical Guidance

FACEBOOK: <http://www.facebook.com/improbableresearch>

TWITTER: @ImprobResearch, @MarcAbrahams, #IgNobel

—————————

08 High Amplitude Sucking Procedure

"High Amplitude Sucking Procedure," K. Byers-Heinlein, in P.J. Brooks, and V. Kempe, [Eds.], Encyclopaedia of Language Development, Sage Publications, 2014, pp. 263-264. <https://is.gd/xzitSp> The authors report:

Infants are offered a sterilized pacifier, which is connected to a pressure transducer. The pacifier is held in place either by the experimenter or by a mechanical arm. The pressure transducer relays information to an adjacent computer about the frequency and intensity of the infants’ sucking."

—————————

09 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

—————————

10 — 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)

—————————

11 — 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>

—————————

12— CONTACT INFO (*)