Mini-AIR

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

July 2018, issue number 2018-07. 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: Noise, Noise, and more Noise

04 Environmental Impact of a Sandwich

05 Sandwich Plate Special Contest

06 Be-Dammed Lack of Triumph

07 NEW SERIES OF EVENTS: Improbable Research Table Talks

08 MORE IMPROBABLE: Exit Troy, Dog Neuromarketing, Uncool

09 Damage Resistance of Sandwich Plates

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 Imminent Events

IG NOBEL TICKETS go on sale

TUESDAY, JULY 10, 2018, at NOON (Boston time):

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

Ceremony details: <https://www.improbable.com/ig/2018/>

IMPROBABLE RESEARCH TABLE TALKS:

See Section 07 below.

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03 IN THE MAGAZINE ITSELF: Noise, Noise, and more Noise

The special NOISE issue of the magazine (vol. 24, no. 3) is available: <https://is.gd/pPkZae>.

Many back issues are available, too.

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 Environmental Impact of a Sandwich

This month's research spotlight shines on sandwiches:

"Understanding the Impact on Climate Change of Convenience Food: Carbon Footprint of Sandwiches," Namy Espinoza-Orias and Adisa Azapagic, Sustainable Production and Consumption, vol. 15, July 2018, pp. 1-15. <https://is.gd/n4FALd> (Thanks to Ron Josephson for bringing this to our attention.) The authors, at the University of Manchester, UK, report:

"The carbon footprint of a ready-made sandwich ranges from 739 g CO2 eq. for egg & cress to 1441 g CO2 eq. for the breakfast option. The carbon footprint of the most popular home-made sandwich (ham & cheese) varies from 399 to 843 g CO2 eq. per serving. The average impact from the home-made option (609 g CO2 eq.) is 2.2 times lower than the impact from the commercial equivalent with the same ingredients (ham, cheese and mayonnaise)."

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05 Sandwich Plate Special Contest

This month's RESEARCH LIMERICK challenge —

Devise a pleasing limerick that encapsulates this study:

"Bending Behavior of Low-Cost Sandwich Plates," Christopher E. Glenn and Michael W. Hyer, Composites Part A: Applied Science and Manufacturing, vol. 36, no. 10, October 2005, pp. 1449-1465. <https://is.gd/c4XOew> (Thanks to Tom Gill for alerting us to the existence of certain varieties of Sandwich Plates.) The authors, at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, report:

"This paper has presented a simple theory to predict the bending deflections of sandwich plates, described the construction of a sandwich plate using low-cost materials, provided the details of an experimental set-up designed to load the sandwich plate with a line load and specific support conditions, and discussed the comparison between the predictions and measurements. The theory is based on three kinematic variables and is an extension of a recently presented beam theory."

Submit your perfectly formed, delightfully enlightening limerick to:

SANDWICH PLATE LIMERICK COMPETITION

c/o <MARC aaattt IMPROBABLE dddooottt COM>

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06 Be-Dammed Lack of Triumph

The judges have declared that there are no winners in last month's Competition, which asked for a limerick to explain 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:

The judges have issued this lament:

Oh, every day we are spammed

By spammers (some peeps, some programmed)!

Our mail these past weeks

Was was clogged by these sneaks,

So most of our judging was dammed.

This month's take — about the study that was supposed to be the basis of the competition — from our LIMERICK LAUREATE, MARTIN EIGER:

Planning dams raises issues systemic.

Central planners ignore needs endemic.

When rivers are jammed,

Local people are damned,

It is argued in Scudder's polemic.

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07 NEW SERIES OF EVENTS: Improbable Research Table Talks

This month, we'll begin doing a new kind of Improbable Research event: Improbable Research Table Talks.

At each Improbable Research Table Talk,

Marc Abrahams (editor of the Annals of Improbable Research, and founder of the Ig Nobel Prize ceremony) will chat about one or another research study that makes people laugh, then think. Some of these studies have won Ig Nobel Prizes; others we have explored in the magazine, in the podcast, etc.

These chats will be cozy, informal, and brief, around a table. Sometimes Marc will bring along a professor, physician, engineer, or other famous or infamous researcher.

Please join us!

The first talks will be at Toscanini's Ice Cream <https://www.tosci.com/> in Cambridge, Massachusetts, this month (July).

We will announce many of these talks on the events schedule <https://www.improbable.com/improbable-research-shows/complete-schedule/>

If you are in the Boston area, and would like to gather a few friends and host an Improbable Research Table Talk at your favorite coffee shop, office, lab, library, school, or other cozy place, please email

<MARC aaattt IMPROBABLE dddooottt COM>.

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08 MORE IMPROBABLE: Exit Troy, Dog Neuromarketing, Uncool

Recent improbable research bits you may have missed...

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

<> Exit, Pursuing a Bear: Farewell Troy Hurtubise

<> Neuromarketing for Dogs

<> What Happens to The Cool Kids, Later In Life

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

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

<> Christopher Moyer [UPDATE]: <https://is.gd/sTUKGG>

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

TWITTER: @ImprobResearch, @MarcAbrahams, #IgNobel

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09 Damage Resistance of Sandwich Plates

"Enhancement of Low Velocity Impact Damage Resistance of Sandwich Plates," Alexander P. Suvorov and George J. Dvorak, International Journal of Solids and Structures, vol. 42, no. 8, April 2005, pp. 2323-2344. <https://is.gd/HsT0Cr> The authors, at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, report:

"Conventionally designed sandwich plates used in marine and ship structures consist of thin, laminated composite face sheets bonded to a relatively thick, compressible structural foam core layer.... Modified designs that protect the foam core by inserting a ductile interlayer under the external face sheet, first proposed in our recent paper, are analyzed here in much greater detail and compared with their conventional counterparts."

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10 IMPROBABLE EVENTS

For details and additional events, see

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

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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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)