mini-Annals of Improbable Research (“mini-AIR”)
August 2022, issue number 2022-08. ISSN 1076-500X.
<https://www.improbable.com/airchives/miniair/>
Research that makes people LAUGH, then THINK.
01 TABLE OF CONTENTS
02 IN THE MAGAZINE ITSELF: Men (and Women)
03 Um, Ah, Not Quite Right
04 IG NOBEL PRIZE CEREMONY & WEBCAST: September 15
05 Limerick Challenge: Stuck-Short-of-Significance Among the 567,758
06 Plates & Countries Testing Winner
07 MORE IMPROBABLE: The, Drops, Puzzles
08 But Not Quite Only If
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.
02 02 IN THE MAGAZINE ITSELF: Rotation & Spinning
What you are reading at the moment (mini-AIR) is overflow detritus from the magazine Annals of Improbable Research (AIR).
The special Rotation & Spinning issue (vol. 28, no. 5) is out. See the table of contents and selected articles at: <https://improbable.com/publications/magazine/annals-of-improbable-research-sept-oct-vol-28-number-5/>
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/>
03 Um, Ah, Not Quite Right
This month’s Haphazardly-Selected Study [HSS] of the month is:
“The Use of Uh and Um by 3-and 4-Year-Old Native English-Speaking Children: Not Quite Right But Not Completely Wrong,” Carla L. Hudson Kam and Nicole A. Edwards, First Language, vol. 28, no. 3, 2008, pp. 313-327. <https://doi.org/10.1177%2F0142723708091149> The authors explain:
“The delay markers (DMs) uh and um are often used by adult English speakers to indicate that an upcoming pause is due to a speech disruption, not the end of a conversational turn…. [It] appears that children must learn how to use DMs appropriately. In the current study we examined DM use in elicited speech samples from 24 3- and 4-year-old children…. Children at this age, then, appear to understand the basic use of DMs, but do not yet differentiate between them.”
04 IG NOBEL PRIZE CEREMONY & WEBCAST: September 15
Don’t forget to not forget that the 32nd First Annual Ig Nobel Prize ceremony will be webcast on Thursday, September 15, 2022.
It will begin at 6 pm U.S. eastern time.
The ceremony web page is at:
<https://improbable.com/ig/2022-ceremony/>
Ten new Ig Nobel Prize winners will receive their prizes, presented to them by eight Nobel laureates, garlanded with paper airplanes thrown internationally. And there is a new mini-opera. And the 24/7 Lectures. And more.
Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, this will be the third year running that event happens online only, rather than in its traditional home in Sanders Theatre at Harvard University.
The ceremony will be streamed in English and Japanese, and maybe in other languages, too.
05 Limerick Challenge: Stuck-Short-of-Significance Among the 567,758
This month’s RESEARCH LIMERICK challenge — Devise a pleasing limerick that encapsulates this study:
“Analysis of 567,758 Randomized Controlled Trials Published Over 30 Years Reveals Trends in Phrases Used to Discuss Results that Do Not Reach Statistical Significance,” Willem M. Otte, Christiaan H. Vinkers, Philippe C. Habets, David G.P. van IJzendoorn, and Joeri K. Tijdink, PLoS Biology, 20, no. 2, 2022, e3001562. (Thanks to Dany Adams for bringing this to our attention.) <https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3001562>
Submit your perfectly formed, delightfully enlightening limerick to:
STUCK-SHORT SIGNIFICANCE LIMERICK COMPETITION
c/o <MARC aaattt IMPROBABLE dddooottt COM>
06 Plates & Countries Testing Winner
The judges have chosen a winner in last month’s Competition, which asked for a limerick to explain this study:
“What Is the Impact of Tectonic Plate Movement on Country Size? A Long-Term Forecast,” by Kamil Maciuk, Michal Apollo, Anita Kukulska-Kozieł, and Paulina Lewińska, Remote Sensing, vol. 13, no. 23, 2021. (Thanks to Tom Gill for bringing this to our attention.) <https://doi.org/10.3390/rs13234872>
Winning limerickicist WILLIAM PECK writes:
Good real estate moguls all know
The continents ebb as they flow.
Build near a volcano,
It is a no-braino.
More houses! Although they might glow.
This month’s take from our LIMERICK LAUREATE, MARTIN EIGER:
Covid infects every cell.
Global warming turns earth into hell.
Earth’s surface keeps shifting
As plates keep on drifting.
My yard’s getting smaller as well.
07 MORE IMPROBABLE: The, Drops, Puzzles
Recent improbable research bits you may have missed…
BLOG: <http://www.improbable.com/>:
What the
A Look at the Looooooooong-Almost-Dripping, Ig Nobel Prize-winning Pitch Drop Experiment
Ig Nobel Prizes in Crossword Puzzles
…and much more
LUXURIANT FLOWING HAIR CLUB FOR SCIENTISTS (LFHCfS)
<https://www.improbable.com/category/lfhcfs-hair-club/>
PODCAST:
<https://www.improbable.com/category/the-weekly-improbable-research-podcast/>:
FACEBOOK: <http://www.facebook.com/improbableresearch>
TWITTER: @ImprobResearch, @MarcAbrahams, #IgNobel
INSTAGRAM: <https://www.instagram.com/improbable_research/>
PATREON: <www.patreon.com/ImprobableResearch>
08 But Not Quite Only If
This month’s Other Haphazardly-Selected Study [OHSS] of the month is:
“On Truth-Conditions for If (But Not Quite Only If),” Anthony S. Gillies, Philosophical Review, vol. 118, no. 3, 2009, pp. 325-349.
<https://doi.org/10.1215/00318108-2009-002>
The author explains, lyrically:
“The real trouble is that indicatives seem to say more than their corresponding horseshoes say, but just what that extra bit is and how they manage to do that is a mystery. Solving that mystery is my real aim; the folklore is a tidy way of making the issues clear….
Even without taking a stand on what happens when such presuppositions are not met, we can see how the charge against strict conditional stories based on the alleged embarrassments of antecedent strengthening and contraposition misses its mark.”
20 SOME IMPROBABLE EVENTS
Ig Nobel Prizes Exhibition, Taipei, Taiwan Jun 25-Sep 11, 2022
Council Bluffs Library, Iowa, USA Aug 18, 2022
Chicon 8, Chicago Sep 1, 2022
Knight Sci Journalism, Cambridge, MA, USA Sep 13, 2022
32ND 1ST ANNUAL IG NOBEL PRIZE CEREMONY Sep 15, 2022
Ig Nobel Prizes Exhibition, Osaka, Japan Oct 1-Nov 13, 2022
Café Scientifique, Muret, France Oct 12, 2022
[All live events in 2021 and 2022 are subject to pandemical constraints and adventures.]
For details and additional events, see
<http://www.improbable.com/improbable-research-shows/complete-schedule/>
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.
<http://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.)
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, see the links at the end of this email.
ARCHIVES: <https://improbable.com/publications/newsletter-mini-air/>
32 — CONTACT INFO (*)
Annals of Improbable Research (AIR)
<http://www.improbable.com>
EDITORIAL: Marc att improbable dottt com
SUBSCRIPTION QUESTIONS: subscriptions att improbable dot com
Cambridge, MA, USA
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