mini-Annals of Improbable Research ("mini-AIR")
October 2020, issue number 2021-10. 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 IN THE MAGAZINE ITSELF: Ducks, Ducks, Ducks
03 Unsafe Sex in James Bond Films
04 Talking About Writing About Unusual Science (webcast)
05 The 2021 Ig Informal Lectures (Expanded Release Schedule)
06 The 2022 Ig Nobel Euro (and Brexitannia) Tour: Germination
07 Limerick Challenge: Laurel and Hardy Movie Eye-Poking
08 Worm Robot Blobs Winner
09 MORE IMPROBABLE: Evil Math, Diapers, Bag Man
10 Movie Murder Mayhem
20 SOME IMPROBABLE EVENTS
30 — Subscribe to the Actual Magazine! (*)
31 — How to start or stop receiving this little newsletter (*)
32 — Contact Info (*)
33 — Standard Gobbledegook (*)
Items marked (*) are reprinted in every issue.
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02 IN THE MAGAZINE ITSELF: Ducks, Ducks, Ducks
What you are reading at the moment (mini-AIR)
is overflow detritus from
the magazine Annals of Improbable Research (AIR).
The special DUCKS issue (vol. 27, no. 4) of the magazine is aloft:
<https://www.improbable.com/airchives/paperair/volume27/v27i4/v27i4.php> Some of the duck-centric articles:
Uranium for Ducks, Please
The Turducken Experiment
Ducks and Walking
Steaming and Dabbling
Ducks and Water
May We Recommend: Duck Death by Spaghetti
Duck or Not Duck?
Ducks’ Body Parts
Duck Droppings
The subsequent issue—the special CHILDREN issue—is in prep.
SUBSCRIBE to the MAGAZINE,
or get BACK ISSUES (there are more than 150 of them!):
<https://gumroad.com/improbable>
Tables of Contents: <http://www.improbable.com/magazine/>
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03 Unsafe Sex in James Bond Films
This month's maybe-random research item:
"(Un)safe Sex in James Bond Films: What Chance for Sex Education?" Lara D.A. Zegers and Richard H.C. Zegers, Scottish Medical Journal, vol. 63, no. 4, November 2018, pp. 113-118.
< https://doi.org/10.1177%2F0036933018809601>
The authors report:
"All 24 Bond films were watched together by the authors and the following data were recorded: if the women had sex with 007, whether the women consumed any alcohol before they had sex, whether contraceptives were mentioned and/or used by 007 or the women and whether the women survived the film. Bond had sexual relations with a total of 58 different women. Twenty-two percent of the women had consumed alcohol. In none of the films was any type of contraception mentioned or used. A total of 28% women did not survive the film."
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04 Talking About Writing About Unusual Science (webcast)
Marc Abrahams, Cara Giaimo, and Jessica Boddy and will discuss "Reporting Weird Science—from fluorescent wombats to the Ig Nobel Prizes", in New York City (NYC).
The event, for students in the Science, Health & Environmental Reporting program (SHERP) at New York University (NYU), is part of a series called the Kavli Conversations on Science Communication (KCOSC) at NYU. The talkers, together with SHERP students, will be gathered in pandemically fairly safe conditions at Caveat NYC, a spacious cabaret-style speakeasy theater thought to be 75% resistant to acronyms.
This event will be livestreamed at <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ao8czBZduY0>
It happens Tuesday, October 19, 2021, from 6:30—8:00 pm. (U.S. eastern time).
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05 The 2021 Ig Informal Lectures (Expanded Release Schedule)
In the Ig Informal Lectures, the new winners explain, if they can, what they did and why they did it.
Normally the lectures happen at MIT, two days after the Ig Nobel Prize ceremony (this year's ceremony happened on September 9). But in this pandemic year, the lectures are happening entirely online:
<https://www.improbable.com/2021-ceremony/#lectures>
Here is the release schedule (expanded from what we announced last month:
Thurs, Sept 16, 2021. PEACE Prize Ig Informal Lecture
Thurs, Sept 23, 2021. BIOLOGY Ig Informal Lecture
Thurs, Sept 30, 2021. TRANSPORTATION Prize Ig Informal Lecture
Thurs, Oct 21, 2021. ECONOMICS Prize Ig Informal Lecture
Thurs, Oct 28, 2021. ECOLOGY Prize Ig Informal Lecture
Thurs, Nov 4, 2021. PHYSICS Prize Ig Informal Lecture
Thurs, Nov 11, 2021. KINETICS Prize Ig Informal Lecture
OTHERS to be announced
A reminder: The winners, and their achievements, are listed at <https://www.improbable.com/winners/#ig2021>
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06 The 2022 Ig Nobel Euro (and Brexitannia) Tour: Germination
With optimism about the taming of the COVID-19 pandemic, we tentatively plan to resume the annual Ig Nobel Euro (and Brexitannia) Tour, with events in several nations. Here is a wee glimpse into the schedule:
April 26, 2022, UNIVERSITY OF AARHUS, DENMARK
If your institution would like to host an event, please email marc ATTTTT improbable DOTTTTT com
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07 Limerick Challenge: Laurel and Hardy Movie Eye-Poking
This month's RESEARCH LIMERICK challenge — Devise a pleasing limerick that encapsulates this study:
"Eye Trauma in Laurel and Hardy Movies – Another Nice Mess," Lara D.A. Zegers and Richard H.C. Zegers, Scottish Medical Journal, vol. 61, no. 4, 2016, pp. 207-212. <https://doi.org/10.1177%2F0036933016680160>
The authors, at Gerrit Rietveld College and Diakonessenhuis Utrecht/Zeist, explain:
"One of the characteristics in Laurel and Hardy films is a lot of physical violence. The present study examines the occurrence of eye trauma in Laurel and Hardy movies and discusses the impact they could have been had if the films were set in reality. All 92 movies starring Laurel and Hardy as a pair in leading roles were watched together by the authors and were scored for any eye trauma. Eighty-eight eye traumas happened, of which 48% were directed at Hardy. The eye poke was the most frequently occurring eye trauma and the traumatic corneal abrasion was very likely the most frequently occurring injury. Among the most serious causes of eye trauma were the pin of a door handle, a stick, a champagne cork, a tree branch and tacks."
Submit your perfectly formed, delightfully enlightening limerick to:
LAUREL/HARDY EYE-POKING LIMERICK COMPETITION
c/o <MARC aaattt IMPROBABLE dddooottt COM>
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08 Worm Robot Blobs Winner
The judges have chosen a winner in last month's Competition, which asked for a limerick to explain this study:
"Collective Dynamics in Entangled Worm and Robot Blobs," Yasemin Ozkan-Aydin, Daniel I. Goldman, and M. Saad Bhamla, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 188, no. 6, February 9, 2021, e2010542118. <https://www.pnas.org/content/118/6/e2010542118>
Winning limericist LAURA PEEBLES writes:
The Army wants robots designed.
The natural world could be mined!
Blackworms tight in a blob
Just might do the job
If the prototypes can be refined.
This month's take from our LIMERICK LAUREATE, MARTIN EIGER:
When researchers' interests aligned,
What wondrous things could they find?
They did a great job,
Like worms in a blob,
These three, when their minds intertwined.
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09 MORE IMPROBABLE: Evil Math, Diapers, Bag Man
Recent improbable research bits you may have missed...
BLOG: <http://www.improbable.com/>:
* Evil: The New Math
* Data poetry: Ode to The General Index
* Recycling Used Disposable Diapers
*…and much more
LUXURIANT FLOWING HAIR CLUB FOR SCIENTISTS (LFHCfS)
<https://www.improbable.com/category/lfhcfs-hair-club/>
New Member: Alissa Clear
PODCAST:
<https://www.improbable.com/category/the-weekly-improbable-research-podcast/>:
* Episode #1082: "The Man in the Black Bag"
FACEBOOK: <http://www.facebook.com/improbableresearch>
TWITTER: @ImprobResearch, @MarcAbrahams, #IgNobel
INSTAGRAM: <https://www.instagram.com/improbable_research/>
PATREON: <www.patreon.com/ImprobableResearch>
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10 Movie Murder Mayhem
"Murder and Mayhem at the Movies," Wes Shipley, and Gray Cavender, Journal of Criminal Justice and Popular Culture, vol. 9, no. 1, 2001. <https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.498.5740&rep=rep1&type=pdf> The authors report:
"Politicians and the public alike blame an array of social problems on movies, which they claim are increasingly violent and graphically violent. In this paper, we analyze the five top-grossing films in a one year period in each of the past four decades (i.e., 1964, 1974, 1984, and 1994). Our analysis, which is based on a careful coding of these films, focuses on acts of violence, graphic violence, and death. We find that violence, graphic violence, and death increases across the four decades, although not in a perfectly linear trend. We also find that the violence is limited to particular genres."
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TREAT YOURSELF TO (MUCH) MORE IMPROBABLE STUFF.
SUBCRIBE TO THE (PDF) MAGAZINE!
<www.improbable.com/magazine/>
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20 SOME IMPROBABLE EVENTS
NYU, New York City (livestream) Oct 19, 2021
Ig Nobel Exhibition, Fukuoka, Japan Sep 9-Nov 3, 2021
2021 Ig Informal Lectures (online) Sep/Oct/Nov 2021
Arisia, Boston, MA, USA Jan 2021
Ig Nobel Euro (& Brexitannia) Tour Mar/Apr 2022
32nd First Annual Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony Sep 2022
[All live events in 2021-2 are subject to pandemical constraints and adventures.]
For details and additional events, see
<http://www.improbable.com/improbable-research-shows/complete-schedule/>
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30 — Subscribe to the Actual Magazine! (*)
The Annals of Improbable Research is a 6-issues-per-year magazine,
in PDF form.
It's packed with research that makes people laugh, then think.
<www.improbable.com/magazine/>
SUBSCRIPTIONS ($25, for six issues)
BACK ISSUES ($5 each)
(mini-AIR, the thing you are reading at this moment, is but a tiny, free-floating appendix to the actual magazine.)
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31 — 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:
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32 — CONTACT INFO (*)
Annals of Improbable Research (AIR)
EDITORIAL: <MARC aaattt IMPROBABLE dddooottt COM>
SUBSCRIPTION QUESTIONS: <subscriptions AT improbable.com>
Cambridge, MA, USA
Twitter: @ImprobResearch
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33 — Standard Gobbledegook (*)
EDITOR: Marc Abrahams
CO-CONSPIRATORS: Kees Moeliker, Alice Shirrell Kaswell, Gary Dryfoos, Nan Swift, Stephen Drew
PROOFREADER: Ambient Happenstance
AUTHORITY FIGURES: Nobel Laureates Dudley Herschbach, Sheldon Glashow, Richard Roberts
Key words: improbable research, science humor, Ig Nobel, AIR, the
(c) copyright 2021, Annals of Improbable Research
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