mini-Annals of Improbable Research (“mini-AIR”)
May 2022, issue number 2022-05. ISSN 1076-500X
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Research that makes people LAUGH, then THINK.
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01 TABLE OF CONTENTS
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02 IN THE MAGAZINE ITSELF: Women, then Men
03 Erratic Licking Pebbles
04 Limerick Challenge: Licking Rock
05 Crab Flaunting Winner
06 MORE IMPROBABLE: Sunflowers, Saws, and Scared
07 Licking Meaning
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: Women, then Men
What you are reading at the moment (mini-AIR) is overflow detritus from the magazine Annals of Improbable Research (AIR).
The special WOMEN (AND MEN) issue (vol. 28, no. 3) is out, continuing to infect the populace. See the table of contents and selected articles at: <https://improbable.com/publications/magazine/annals-of-improbable-research-may-jun-volume-28-number-3/>
The special MEN (AND WOMEN) issue (vol. 28, no. 4) 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 Erratic Licking Pebbles
This month’s possibly-randomly-selected research study of the month is:
“Erratic Pebbles in the Licking Valley,” G.H. Squier, Science, vol. 34, 1883, pp. 436-436. <https://doi.org/10.1126/science.ns-2.34.436.c>
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04 Licking Rock
This month’s RESEARCH LIMERICK challenge — Devise a pleasing limerick that encapsulates this study:
“Eating Fossils,” Jan Zalasiewicz, The Paleontological Association Newsletter, no. 96, November 2017. <https://www.palass.org/publications/newsletter/eating-fossils>
The author, at the University of Leicester, explains:
“Licking the rock, of course, is part of the geologist’s and palaeontologist’s armoury of tried-and-much-tested techniques used to help survive in the field. Wetting the surface allows fossil and mineral textures to stand out sharply, rather than being lost in the blur of intersecting micro-reflections and micro-refractions that come out of a dry surface. On that day, it brought out the handsome nummulites a treat. The taste, now, was likely merely registered as generically-slightly-dusty and then instantly forgotten; I had always thought it entirely superfluous to identification. But perhaps not so. As we contemporary types develop capabilities in one direction, we might be entirely losing them in another. Go right back to the beginnings of our science, and our ancestors, and their senses, were attuned to different settings. One could then, it seems, literally develop a taste for stratigraphy.”
Submit your perfectly formed, delightfully enlightening limerick to:
LICKING ROCK LIMERICK COMPETITION
c/o <MARC aaattt IMPROBABLE dddooottt COM>
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05 Crab Flaunting Winner
The judges have chosen a winner in last month’s Competition, which asked for a limerick to explain this study:
“Why Signal If You Are Not Attractive? Courtship Synchrony in a Fiddler Crab,” Lauren M Harrison, Gabriela C Melo, Daniela M Perez, and Patricia R.Y. Backwell, Behavioral Ecology, arab088, 2021.
<https://doi.org/10.1093/beheco/arab088>
Winning limerickicist T.D. WILSON writes:
The fiddler crab waves to attract
A mate for a sexual pact
The followers behind
Don’t really mind
They still can get in on the act.
This month’s take from our LIMERICK LAUREATE, MARTIN EIGER:
I’m a failure, a slow non-succeeder,
A dateless and mateless non-breeder.
But I’ve got a slick move
So my chances improve.
When girls look, I play follow the leader.
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06 MORE IMPROBABLE: Sunflowers, Saws, and Scared
Recent improbable research bits you may have missed…
BLOG: :
Sunflower Orientation, Solar Panels, and the Sun
New Cutting-Edge Research About Old Saws
An Insect Photographer Who Is Scared of Insects
…and much more
LUXURIANT FLOWING HAIR CLUB FOR SCIENTISTS (LFHCfS)
<https://www.improbable.com/category/lfhcfs-hair-club/>
New Member:
* Sinuhé Perea-Puente
PODCAST:
<https://www.improbable.com/category/the-weekly-improbable-research-podcast/>:
* Episode 1094: “Can You Navigate in a Crowd, While Distracted by Your Mobile Phone?”
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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07 Licking Meaning
This month’s slightly-less-randomly selected research report is:
“John Davis and the Meanings of Licking,” Appetite, G.P. Smith, vol. 36, no. 1 (2001): 84-92. <https://doi.org/10.1006/appe.2000.0371>
The author explains:
“This paper reviews the contribution of John Davis to understanding how meal size is organized and controlled in the rat.”
TREAT YOURSELF TO (MUCH) MORE IMPROBABLE STUFF. SUBCRIBE TO THE (PDF) MAGAZINE!
<www.improbable.com/magazine/>
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20 SOME IMPROBABLE EVENTS
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.)
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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, see the links at the end of this email.
ARCHIVES: <https://improbable.com/publications/newsletter-mini-air/>
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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
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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, themi