Mini-AIR

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

June 2018, issue number 2018-06. ISSN 1076-500X.

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Research that makes people LAUGH, then THINK.

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01 TABLE OF CONTENTS

02 Imminent Events

03 IN THE MAGAZINE ITSELF: Music, With Noise Approaching

04 They'll Be Dammed

05 What It Means to Be Dammed

06 Beertax-and-Sex Triumph

07 MORE IMPROBABLE: Arguing, Pop-Up Poster, Carcass Kabooms

08 Progress Be Dammed

09 IMPROBABLE EVENTS

10 — Subscribe to the Actual Magazine! (*)

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

12 — Contact Info (*)

13 — Standard Gobbledegook (*)

Items marked (*) are reprinted in every issue.

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02 Imminent Events

DEAD DUCK DAY celebration, Rotterdam, The Netherlands.

Commemorates the incident documented in the study "Homosexual Necrophilia in the Mallard Duck."

TUESDAY, JUNE 5, 2018

<https://is.gd/OiTNuC>

IG NOBEL TICKETS go on sale.

TUESDAY, JULY 10, 2018

<https://www.improbable.com/ig/2018/#tickets>

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03 IN THE MAGAZINE ITSELF: Music, With Noise Approaching

The special MUSIC issue of the magazine (vol. 24, no. 2) is available: <https://is.gd/rMI9AO>. The special NOISE issue is, quietly, in prep.

Feast on improbable Research magazines:

MAGAZINE SINGLE ISSUES & SUBSCRIPTIONS:

<https://gumroad.com/improbable>

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

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04 They'll Be Dammed

This month's research spotlight shines on damming and the dammed:

"They'll Be Dammed: The Sustainability Implications of the Sarawak Corridor of Renewable Energy (SCORE) in Malaysia," Benjamin K. Sovacool and L.C. Bulan, Sustainability Science, vol. 8, no. 1, 2013, pp. 121-133. <https://is.gd/qvIVBI>

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05 What It Means to Be Dammed

This month's RESEARCH LIMERICK challenge —

Devise a pleasing limerick that encapsulates this study:

"What It Means to Be Dammed: The Anthropology of Large-Scale Development Projects in the Tropics and Subtropics," Thayer Scudder, Engineering and Science, vol. 44, no. 4, 1981, pp. 9-15. <https://is.gd/C6sNWB> The author explains:

"I have been studying what it means to local residents to adjust to the effects of the damming of the rivers whose banks have been their ancestral homes and whose waters have provided much of their families' livelihoods."

Submit your perfectly formed, delightfully enlightening limerick to:

BE-DAMMED LIMERICK COMPETITION

c/o <MARC aaattt IMPROBABLE dddooottt COM>

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06 Beertax-and-Sex Triumph

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

"Sex Under the Influence: The Effect of Alcohol Policy on Sexually Transmitted Disease Rates in the United States," Harrell Chesson, Paul Harrison and William J. Kassler, The Journal of Law and Economics, vol. 43, no. 1, April 2000, pp. 215-238. <https://is.gd/pBILza>

The winner is INVESTIGATOR BARRY CLARK, who writes:

[With apologies to Ogden Nash.]

When feeling explosively randy,

Then gifting your loved one is dandy,

But the taxes on liquor

Encourage the picker

To more chaste submission of candy.

This month's take from our LIMERICK LAUREATE, MARTIN EIGER:

When younger, I'd do what I please.

In so doing, I caught STDs.

If alcohol were

Less available, sure,

I'd have waited to catch each disease.

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07 MORE IMPROBABLE: Arguing, Pop-Up Poster, Carcass Kabooms

Recent improbable research bits you may have missed...

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

<> Using Big Words to Argue That You Are Right and Other People Are Wrong

<> Oregon's Exploding Whale, and Other Carcass Demolition

<> A Look Back at the Penises-of-the-Animal-Kingdom Poster

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

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

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

TWITTER: @ImprobResearch, @MarcAbrahams, #IgNobel

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08 Progress Be Dammed

"Progress Be Dammed: The Eighth Circuit Limits Section 408 of the Rivers and Harbors Act to In Rem Recovery, Aggravating Crumbling Infrastructure on Inland Water Shipping Routes," Yen T. Mai, Tulane Maritime Law Journal, vol. 40, 2016, pp. 531-573. <https://is.gd/zpeRKt>

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09 IMPROBABLE EVENTS

For details and additional events, see

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

Dead Duck Day — Jun 5, 2018

Ig Nobel tickets go on sale — Jul 10, 2018

28th First Annual Ig Nobel Ceremony — Sep 13, 2018

Ig Informal Lectures — Sep 15, 2018

Japan — Sep, 2018

FSTech, Orlando, FL — Oct 3, 2018

Harvard University — Oct 4, 2018

Hartford County Medical Assn, CT — Oct 10, 2018

Ig Nobel Autumn EuroTour — Nov, 2018

"Science Friday" Ig Nobel Broadcast — Nov 22, 2018

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10 — 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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11 — 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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12 — CONTACT INFO (*)

Annals of Improbable Research (AIR)