mini-AIR November 2018

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

November 2018, issue number 2018-11. ISSN 1076-500X.

<https://www.improbable.com/airchives/miniair/>

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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: Lotsa Medical Surprises

04 Mirrors/Pigs

05 The Next EuroTour is Taking Shape

06 Mirrors/Dogs Contest

07 Rotton on Violence Winner

08 MORE IMPROBABLE: Cheese, Clapping, Eavesdropping

09 Mirrors/Actors

10 IMPROBABLE EVENTS

11 — Subscribe to the Actual Magazine! (*)

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

12 — Contact Info (*)

14 — Standard Gobbledegook (*)

Items marked (*) are reprinted in every issue.

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02 Imminent Events

"Science Friday" Ig Nobel Broadcast — Nov 23, 2018.

Specially edited radio/webcast presentation of

the 28th First Annual Ig Nobel Prize ceremony. <https://www.sciencefriday.com/>

DETAILS, and full schedule: <http://www.improbable.com/improbable-research-shows/complete-schedule/>

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03 IN THE MAGAZINE ITSELF: Lotsa Medical Surprises

WHAT YOU ARE READING AT THIS MOMENT

is just our tiny, little, wee

monthly newsletter, called "mini-AIR."

Our best stuff goes into the actual magazine:

"Annals of Improbable Research" (AIR).

Please subscribe to the magazine!

The special MEDICAL SURPRISES issue of the magazine (vol. 24, no. 5) is available: <https://bit.ly/2KkCJ8M>.

The next issue — this year's special IG NOBEL issue — will be out in late December.

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 Mirrors/Pigs

This month's research spotlight reflects on pigs:

"Lack of Mirror Use by Pigs to Locate Food," Elise T. Gieling, Elco Mijdam, F. Josef van der Staay, and Rebecca E. Nordquist, Applied Animal Behaviour Science, vol.154 2014, pp. 22-29. https://bit.ly/2Q6QI7D The authors, at Utrecht University and the University of Applied Sciences, The Netherlands, explain:

We take this observation as evidence that the pigs did not understand what the mirror image represents, and… that not all pigs are capable of using mirrors under all circumstances."

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05 The Next EuroTour is Taking Shape

The 2019 Ig Nobel EuroTour is taking, yes, shape,

for March and early April 2019.

A very partial schedule is at <https://is.gd/fGOYzz>.

If your institution, department, or group would like to host an event, please get in touch with us!

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06 Mirrors/Dogs Contest

This month's RESEARCH LIMERICK challenge — Devise a pleasing limerick that encapsulates this study:

"Do Dogs Use a Mirror to Find Hidden Food?" Tiffani J. Howell, Samia Toukhsati, Russell Conduit, and Pauleen Bennett, Journal of Veterinary Behavior: Clinical Applications and Research, vol. 8, no. 6, 2013, pp. 425-430. <https://bit.ly/2Bog5cL> The authors, at Monash University and La Trobe University, Australia, report:

"The aim of this study was to explore whether dogs couldﬁnd food that was visible only via a mirror at the beginning of the experiment.... [Our experiment] suggests that, although dogs’ food-searching behavior can be triggered by the mirror’s visual cues to locate food, some dogs used other cues that we were unable to control."

Submit your perfectly formed, delightfully enlightening limerick to:

MIRRORS/DOGS LIMERICK COMPETITION

c/o <MARC aaattt IMPROBABLE dddooottt COM>

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07 Rotton on Violence Winner

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

"Outdoor Temperature, Climate Control, and Criminal Assault: The Spatial and Temporal Ecology of Violence," James Rotton and Ellen G. Cohn, Environment and Behavior, vol. 36, no. 2, 2004, pp. 276-306. <https://is.gd/L53xzy>

INVESTIGATOR ALLISON BROWN writes:

When high temperatures make you irate

And your neighbors you rush to berate:

To dial down the aggro,

Just turn up the air co!

And watch all the rage dissipate.

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

Summer's oppressively hot.

Air conditioning helps, though, a lot.

Without it, I will

Assault, maim and kill.

But with it, perhaps I will not.

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08 MORE IMPROBABLE: Cheese, Clapping, Eavesdropping

Recent improbable research bits you may have missed...

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

<> Another cheese vibration experiment—this one with music

<> A bra that falls off when you clap your hands (new patent)

<> Psychologists Eavesdropping Under the Bed

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

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

<> New member Christian Steven Hoggard

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

TWITTER: @ImprobResearch, @MarcAbrahams, #IgNobel

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09 Mirrors/Actors

"Eating Imaginary Raisins: Theatre's Role in the Making of Mirror-Neurons," Tiffany Watt Smith, Studies in Theatre and Performance, vol. 36, no. 1, 2016, pp. 17-20. <https://bit.ly/2OROFQ9> The authors explain:

"The emergence of mirror neuron theory in the 1990s has been of great interest to theatre and performance scholars. But are we condemned to merely incorporate and absorb the grander discoveries of our scientific counterparts? ... Whether it is experimenters pantomiming scenes in the lab or studying the movement of blood in the brain cells of actors whilst they recite verse in fMRI scanners, theatrical labour is part of the conditions that make new knowledge about the brain possible – not least of all, in the field of mirror neurons."

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10 IMPROBABLE EVENTS

"Science Friday" Ig Nobel Broadcast — Nov 23, 2018

Arisia, Boston — Jan 2019

Harvard Club, New York City — Jan 22, 2019

NIST, Gaithersburg, MD — Feb 14, 2019

AAAS meeting, Washington, DC — Feb 16, 2019

Ig Nobel EuroTour — Mar/Apr 2019

Ig Nobel TICKETS go on sale — Jul 2019

Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony — Sep 2019

For details and additional events, see

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

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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)