Mini-AIR

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

May 2019, issue number 2019-05. 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: Habits, Animals, and Exciting Delays

04 Pictures 'Upside-Down' at an Exhibition

05 A New Round of Improbable Research Table Talks

06 Ravens Flying Upside-Down Challenge

07 Net Gun Owls Mid-Flight Copter Winner

08 MORE IMPROBABLE: Frog/Salad, Hidden Shoes, Tamagotchi

09 Bottle Upside-Down-Turner Machine

10 IMPROBABLE EVENTS

11 — Subscribe to the Actual Magazine! (*)

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

13 — Contact Info (*)

14 — Standard Gobbledegook (*)

Items marked (*) are reprinted in every issue.

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02 Imminent Events

<> Dead Duck Day celebration, June 5, commemorating the incident documented in the Ig Nobel Prize-winning study "The First Case of Homosexual Necrophilia in the Mallard Duck"

<> Tickets to the 29th First Annual Ig Nobel Prize ceremony will go on sale in July.

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

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03 IN THE MAGAZINE ITSELF: Habits, Animals, and Exciting Delays

WHAT YOU ARE READING AT THIS MOMENT

is just our monthly newsletter, (mini-AIR).

Our best stuff goes into the actual magazine:

Annals of Improbable Research (AIR).

The special Habits & Tricks issue (vol. 25, no. 2) and the special Animals issue (vol. 25. no. 3) of the magazine are both in prep. We have been having exciting production adventures! While we are getting the machinery back on track, savor some back issues, as you gird your curiosity for the new stuff that will arrive when these soon-to-be-unclogged-and-released magazine issues are unclogged and released.

SUBSCRIBE to the MAGAZINE

or get SINGLE ISSUES:

<https://gumroad.com/improbable>

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

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04 Pictures 'Upside-Down' at an Exhibition

This month's Research illuminates the art of looking at art:

"The Experience of 'Upright' and 'Upside-Down' in Looking at Pictures," Robert H. Thouless, in Miscellanea psychologica Albert Michotte, Oxford, England: Librairie Philosophique, 1947, pp. 130-137.

<http://psycnet.apa.org/record/1949-04008-019> The author explains:

"One characteristic of the anisotropy of phenomenal space is that for the civilized adult there is only one position in which a picture can be placed to be seen satisfactorily." This is in the upright position. The author poses the question: does this superiority of the upright position depend on the orientation of the picture with respect to the head or with respect to the objects of the outside world? The answer is found by inverting the head (looking between the legs) and looking at material consisting of a picture similar to picture puzzles, in which one face is seen if the picture is held one way up and another face is seen if the picture is held the other way up. The results indicated that in the majority of cases perceptual organization is determined by head position and the phenomenal upright by geographical position. The striking feature of the whole experiment was the indication of exceptions to the rule rather than the rule which was stated above."

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05 A New Round of Improbable Research Table Talks

We are planning a new series of Improbable Research Table Talks—cozy, informal discussions about improbable, real research studies—and we want your advice about when to schedule them!

These events will happen at Toscanini’s Ice Cream, in Cambridge Massachusetts, continuing the series we began last summer.

DETAILS: <https://tinyurl.com/yxcemfzo>

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06 Ravens Flying Upside-Down Challenge

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

"Ravens Flying Upside-Down," Å. Vedel Tåning, Nature, vol. 127, no. 3214, 1931, p. 856. <https://www.nature.com/articles/127856c0>. The author reports:

"IN NATURE of Dec. 20, 1930, p. 956, Mr. Sydney Evershed has described an observation relating to ravens flying upside-down. From this note one gets the impression that the habit is rather rare; from my observations, however, this is not the case. I have seen about a hundred of these birds performing evolutions in the air round favourite resting places, and here it is a rather common appearance to see the birds flying upside-down in the manner described, though I do not think I have seen them flying for so long a distance as 1000 metres, as recorded by Mr. Evershed."

Submit your perfectly formed, delightfully enlightening limerick to:

RAVENS UPSIDE-DOWN LIMERICK COMPETITION

c/o <MARC aaattt IMPROBABLE dddooottt COM>

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07 Net Gun Owls Mid-Flight Copter Winner

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

"Use of a Net Gun to Safely Capture Short-eared Owls in Mid-flight from a Helicopter," Travis L. Booms, Lincoln S. Parrett, and Mark A. Keech, Journal of Raptor Research, vol. 46, no. 2, 2012, pp. 208-211. <https://bit.ly/2VtN7zR>

INVESTIGATOR FRED BETHKE writes:

Boom! goes Booms' gun from the chopper.

"Yahoo!" he yells out. "That'll stop her."

But owls are quite clever,

And the netting endeavor

Snags thin air, and thus comes a cropper.

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

With a net gun and whirlybird I

Set out to catch owls while they fly.

But something went wrong.

The birds' ears were too long.

I failed, and I'm claiming that's why.

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08 MORE IMPROBABLE: Frog/Salad, Hidden Shoes, Tamagotchi

Recent improbable research bits you may have missed...

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

* There's a Frog in My Salad

* Shoe Concealments of Yore – A Recent Study

* The Triumphal Return of Tiny (Ig Nobel Prize-winning) Tamagotchi

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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09 Bottle Upside-Down-Turner Machine

"Machine Adapted to Turn Bottles, Flasks and the Like Articles Upside Down," U.S. Patent 3,208,579, issued to Rene Perrier and Gerard Perrier, September 28, 1965.

<https://patents.google.com/patent/US3208579A/en> The document begins:

"Certain operations require the turning upside down of bottles and flasks..."

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10 IMPROBABLE EVENTS

Dead Duck Day celebration —Jun 5, 2019

Ig Nobel TICKETS go on sale —Jul 2019

Readercon, Quincy, MA, USA —Jul 2019

Mount Sinai Hospital, NYC, USA —date TBA

Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony —Sep 12, 2019

Ig Informal Lectures —Sep 14, 2019

Ottawa, Canada —Sep 23, 2019

Lubbock, TX —Oct 25, 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)