Mini-AIR

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

January 2018, issue number 2018-01. ISSN 1076-500X.

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Research that makes people LAUGH, then THINK.

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01 TABLE OF CONTENTS

02 Coming Events: Arisia, Princeton, SD, Austin, Atlanta

03 IN THE MAGAZINE ITSELF: Special Ig Nobel Issue

04 Yellow Taxis Versus Blue Taxis

05 The 100th birthday of Murphy—the Murphy of Murphy’s Law

06 Nano Cobalt Ferrite Doped Dung

07 Czech Managers' Buttons Poetic Void

08 MORE IMPROBABLE: HOOAH, Tapeworms, Dog Deceptionish

09 Purple Haze Event

10 IMPROBABLE EVENTS

11 — Subscribe to the Actual Magazine! (*)

12 — How to start or stop receiving this newsletter (*)

13 — Contact Info (*)

14 — Standard Gobbledegook (*)

Items marked (*) are reprinted in every issue.

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02 Coming Events: Arisia, Princeton, SD, Austin, Atlanta

Improbable events in the near future:

ARISIA, Boston, MA / Princeton /

SLAS Conference, San Diego / Salk Institute, La Jolla /

AAAS Annual Meeting, Austin, TX / Atlanta, GA /

Ig Nobel EuroTour

Details and additional events:

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

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03 IN THE MAGAZINE ITSELF: Special Ig Nobel Issue

The special IG NOBEL issue of the magazine (vol 23, no. 6) is here: <https://is.gd/Fzrc6l>

Gorge yourself on improbable research:

MAGAZINE SINGLE ISSUES & SUBSCRIPTIONS:

<https://gumroad.com/improbable>

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

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04 Yellow Taxis Versus Blue Taxis

This month's research spotlight shines on sleeves:

"Yellow Taxis Have Fewer Accidents Than Blue Taxis Because Yellow Is More Visible Than Blue," Teck-Hua Hoa,b,1, Juin Kuan Chongc, and Xiaoyu Xiad, Proceedings of the National Academies of Science, vol. 114 no. 12, March 21, 2017, pp. 3074–3078. <http://www.pnas.org/content/114/12/3074.short>

(Thanks to Ron Schoonmaker for bringing this to our attention.) The authors, at National University of Singapore, University of California, Berkeley, and Chinese University of Hong Kong Business School, report:

"Yellow taxis had 6.1 fewer accidents per 1,000 taxis per month than blue taxis, a 9% reduction in accident probability. We rule out driver difference as an explanatory variable and empirically show that because yellow taxis are more noticeable than blue taxis—especially when in front of another vehicle, and in street lighting—other drivers can better avoid hitting them, directly reducing the accident rate."

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05 The 100th birthday of Murphy—the Murphy of Murphy’s Law

If our information is not wrong, Thursday, January 11, 2018 is the 100th birthday of Edward A. Murphy, Jr. — the Murphy of Murphy’s Law.

Murphy posthumously shared the 2003 Ig Nobel Prize for engineering. Another Ig Nobel Prize, in 2006, also honored Hurphy's Law.

The claim that Murphy himself coined the phrase “Murphy’s Law” is in dispute, which of course is in accord with Murphy’s Law.

More: <https://is.gd/y1Uqh2>

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06 Nano Cobalt Ferrite Doped Dung

This month's RESEARCH LIMERICK challenge —

Devise a pleasing limerick that encapsulates this study:

"Utilization of Magnetic Nano Cobalt Ferrite Doped Capra Aegagrus Hircus Dung Activated Carbon Composite for the Adsorption of Anionic Dyes," K.S. Thangamani, N. Muthulakshmi Andal, E. Ranjith Kumar, M. Saravanabhavan, Journal of Environmental Chemical Engineering, epub 2017. <https://is.gd/K16fNW> (Thanks to Tom Gill for bringing this to our attention.)

Submit your perfectly formed, delightfully enlightening limerick to:

NANO COBALT DOPED DUNG LIMERICK COMPETITION

c/o <MARC aaattt IMPROBABLE dddooottt COM>

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07 Czech Managers' Buttons Poetic Void

The judges have decided that there is no winner in last month's Competition, which asked for a limerick to explain this study:

"Flaws in the Social Manners of Czech Managers," Soňa Gullová, Central European Business Review, vol. 1, no. 1, July 2012. <https://is.gd/9wCdKv>

The word from our LIMERICK LAUREATE, MARTIN EIGER:

My boss is, like, mad at this dude,

Finds his shoes, shirt, and suit jacket crude.

To avoid his sad fate,

I'll checkmate my Czech mate

When I show up at work in the nude.

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08 MORE IMPROBABLE: HOOAH, Tapeworms, Dog Deceptionish

Recent improbable research bits you may have missed...

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

<> Caution Regarding Shouting "HOOAH"

<> Tapeworms from Vertebrate Bowels of the Earth

<> Deceptive-Like Behaviour in Dogs

Luxuriant Flowing Hair Club for Scientists (LFHCfS) and its sibling clubs:

<https://www.improbable.com/category/lfhcfs-hair-club/>

<> New Honorary Member: Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen

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

TWITTER: @ImprobResearch, @MarcAbrahams, #IgNobel

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09 Purple Haze Event

"A New Type of Haze? The December 2015 Purple (Magenta) Haze Event in Nanjing, China," Duanyang Liu, Xuejun Liu, Hongbin Wang, Yi Li, Zhiming Kang, Lu Cao, Xingna Yu, and Hao Chen, Atmosphere, vol. 8, no. 4, 2017, 76. <http://www.mdpi.com/2073-4433/8/4/76/htm> (Thanks to Tom Gill for bringing this to our attention.) The authors are at the China Meteorological Administration, Jiangsu Meteorological Observatory, China Agricultural University, Colorado State University, and Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology.

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10 IMPROBABLE EVENTS

For details and additional events, see

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

ARISIA, Boston, MA — Jan 12, 2018

Princeton U, USA — Jan 21, 2018

SLAS Conference, San Diego — Feb 7, 2018

Salk Institute, La Jolla — Feb 9, 2018

AAAS Annual Meeting, Austin, TX — Feb 17, 2018

Atlanta, GA — Feb 28, 2018

Ig Nobel EuroTour — Mar-Apr 2018

Northwest Rheumatism Society,

Portland, OR — Apr 26, 2018

28th First Annual Ig Nobel Ceremony — Sep, 2018

Ig Informal Lectures — Sep, 2018

Japan — Oct, 2018

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11 — Subscribe to the Actual 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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12 — How to start or stop receiving this newsletter (*)

This newsletter, Mini-AIR, is just a (free!) tiny monthly *supplement* to the big, bold six-times-a-year magazine Annals of Improbable Research.

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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13— CONTACT INFO (*)

Annals of Improbable Research (AIR)