Mini-AIR

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

September 2023, issue number 2023-09. ISSN 1076-500X.

improbable.com/publications/newsletter-mini-air/

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Research that makes people LAUGH, then THINK.

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01 TABLE OF CONTENTS

02 IN THE MAGAZINE ITSELF: Gulls, Crows, Pigeons, Woodpeckers

03 Removing Cockroaches from the Auditory Canal (1980)

04 The 2023 Ig Nobel Prize Winners

05 Lots More Improbable Events

06 LIMERICK CHALLENGE: Removing Cockroaches from the Auditory 07 Emotional Surgeons Cutting Limerick Winners

08 MORE IMPROBABLE: Lifts, Knots, Texas Glass-Banner

09 Removing Cockroaches from the Auditory Canal (1986)

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.

What you are reading at the moment (mini-AIR) is overflow detritus from the magazine Annals of Improbable Research (AIR).

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02 IN THE MAGAZINE ITSELF: Gulls, Crows, Pigeons, Woodpeckers

The special GULLS, CROWS, PIGEONS, WOODPECKERS issue (vol. 29, no. 5) of the magazine is filled with stuff about formulas and recipes. The table of contents and selected articles are at:

improbable.com/annals-of-improbable-research-september-october-2023-vol-29-number-5/

The special Ig Nobel issue (vol. 29, no. 6) is in prep.

SUBSCRIBE to the MAGAZINE, or get BACK ISSUES (there are more than 150 of them!): gumroad.com/improbable

Tables of Contents: improbable.com/magazine-2/

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03 Removing Cockroaches from the Auditory Canal (1980)

This month's quasi-haphazardly selected research report of the month (QHSRROTM) is:

"Insect in the External Auditory Canal — A New Way Out," A. Sсhјttеk, Journal of the American Medical Association, vol. 243, 1980, p. 331.

doi.org/10.1001/jama.1980.03300300013007

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04 The 2023 Ig Nobel Prize Winners

The 2023 Ig Nobel Prizes were awarded on September 14.

Video and details of the ceremony are at improbable.com/ig/2023-ceremony

Here are the new winners.

For details, links, etc., see improbable.com/ig/winners/#ig2023

CHEMISTRY and GEOLOGY PRIZE [POLAND, UK]

Jan Zalasiewicz, for explaining why many scientists like to lick rocks.

LITERATURE PRIZE [FRANCE, UK, MALAYSIA, FINLAND]

Chris Moulin, Nicole Bell, Merita Turunen, Arina Baharin, and Akira O’Connor for studying the sensations people feel when they repeat a single word many, many, many, many, many, many, many times.

MECHANICAL ENGINEERING PRIZE [INDIA, CHINA, MALAYSIA, USA]

Te Faye Yap, Zhen Liu, Anoop Rajappan, Trevor Shimokusu, and Daniel Preston, for re-animating dead spiders to use as mechanical gripping tools.

PUBLIC HEALTH PRIZE [SOUTH KOREA, USA] Seung-min Park, for inventing the Stanford Toilet, a device that uses a variety of technologies — including a urinalysis dipstick test strip, a computer vision system for defecation analysis, an anal-print sensor paired with an identification camera, and a telecommunications link — to monitor and quickly analyze the substances that humans excrete.

COMMUNICATION PRIZE [ARGENTINA, SPAIN, COLOMBIA, CHILE, CHINA, USA]

María José Torres-Prioris, Diana López-Barroso, Estela Càmara, Sol Fittipaldi, Lucas Sedeño, Agustín Ibáñez, Marcelo Berthier, and Adolfo García, for studying the mental activities of people who are expert at speaking backward.

MEDICINE PRIZE [USA, CANADA, MACEDONIA, IRAN, VIETNAM]

Christine Pham, Bobak Hedayati, Kiana Hashemi, Ella Csuka, Tiana Mamaghani, Margit Juhasz, Jamie Wikenheiser, and Natasha Mesinkovska, for using cadavers to explore whether there is an equal number of hairs in each of a person's two nostrils.

NUTRITION PRIZE [JAPAN]

Homei Miyashita and Hiromi Nakamura, for experiments to determine how electrified chopsticks and drinking straws can change the taste of food.

EDUCATION PRIZE [CHINA, CANADA, UK, THE NETHERLANDS, IRELAND, USA, JAPAN]

Katy Tam, Cyanea Poon, Victoria Hui, Wijnand van Tilburg, Christy Wong, Vivian Kwong, Gigi Yuen, and Christian Chan, for methodically studying the boredom of teachers and students.

PSYCHOLOGY PRIZE [USA]

Stanley Milgram, Leonard Bickman, and Lawrence Berkowitz for experiments on a city street to see how many passersby stop to look upward when they see strangers looking upward

PHYSICS PRIZE [SPAIN, GALICIA, SWITZERLAND, FRANCE, UK]

Bieito Fernández Castro, Marian Peña, Enrique Nogueira, Miguel Gilcoto, Esperanza Broullón, Antonio Comesaña, Damien Bouffard, Alberto C. Naveira Garabato, and Beatriz Mouriño-Carballido, for measuring the extent to which ocean-water mixing is affected by the sexual activity of anchovies.

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05 Lots More Improbable Events

In the wake of the Ig Nobel ceremony, much is happening.

Here are some highlights.

SEPTEMBER 29

MIT, CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS, USA

IMPROBABLE DRAMATIC READINGS

INFO: improbable.com/2023/09/05/coming-improbable-dramatic-readings-at-the-cambridge-science-festival/

5 PM SHOW TIX: eventbrite.com/e/improbable-dramatic-readings-tickets-714534541047?aff=oddtdtcreator

7 PM SHOW TIX: eventbrite.com/e/improbable-dramatic-readings-tickets-714530408687?aff=oddtdtcreator

ALSO SEPTEMBER 29

CAGLIARI, CATANIA, L’AQUILA, MACERATA, PAVIA, PERUGIA, ITALY

"IG NOBEL AT SCHOOL / EUROPEAN RESEARCHERS NIGHT"

Workshops/competitions between students and scientists, in which everyone strives to tell clearly stories of some improbable-seeming, real science questions.

DETAILS: sharper-night.it/scuole/ricerca-improbabile/

[MAYBE] NOVEMBER 4

BERLIN SCIENCE WEEK, GERMANY

NOVEMBER 11

THE MIT MUSEUM, CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS, USA

Ig Nobel Face-to-Face,

— The new Ig Nobel Prize winners will gather in a room to ask each other questions about their work.

TIX go on sale soon.

NOVEMBER 12

THE MIT MUSEUM, CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS, USA

Event for journalists (and Ig Nobel Prize winners)

NOVEMBER 18

IMPERIAL COLLEGE LONDON, UK

Ig Nobel Show (and BAHFest, in a double-event day)

TIX: eventbrite.co.uk/e/bahfest-ig-nobel-2023-tickets-713070271377

DECEMBER

TOKYO, JAPAN

Ig Nobel Face-to-Face. Details TBA

2024

ARISIA in BOSTON, USA / VIENNA, AUSTRIA / AAAS in DENVER, USA / AARHUS, DENMARK / Others to be announced.

More detail is on the Upcoming Events page: improbable.com/upcoming-events/

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06 LIMERICK CHALLENGE: Removing Cockroaches from the Auditory Canal (1985)

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

"Removing Cockroaches from the Auditory Canal: Controlled Trial," K. O'Toole, P.M. Paris, R.D. Stewart, and R. Martinez, The New England Journal of Medicine, vol. 312, no. 18, May 2, 1985, p. 1197.

doi.org/10.1056/NEJM198505023121825

Submit your perfectly formed, delightfully enlightening limerick to:

COCKROACH-FROM-THE-EAR LIMERICK COMPETITION

c/o MARC aaattt IMPROBABLE dddooottt COM

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07 Emotional Surgeons Cutting Limerick Winners

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

"Patient Mortality After Surgery on the Surgeon’s Birthday: Observational Study," Hirotaka Kato, Anupam B. Jena, and Yusuke Tsugawa, BMJ, vol. 371, 2020. doi.org/10.1136/bmj.m4381

Winning limerickicist DIANNE O'LEARY writes:

Oh I need a surgeon and fast!
Without one I surely won't last!
But I must check their sign
to be sure stars align,

And check that their birthday is past.

Winning limerickicist JOANNA RIFKIN writes:

It's my birthday - now let's cut the cake!
Oh dear, I have made a mistake.
That's no cake on the table!
But a patient, unable
To survive any errors I make.

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

"Happy birthday, dear surgeon," I said,

"Can we do this tomorrow instead?

If you say it's okay,

We'll delay just one day,

And I probably won't end up dead."

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08 MORE IMPROBABLE: Lifts, Knots, Texas Glass-Banner

Recent improbable research bits you may have missed...

BLOG: www.improbable.com :

* Florida, Cradle of Brazilian Butt-Lift Deaths

* Lots About Knots

* Science celebrity news: Texas Glassware Prohibitor’s Progeny?

*…and much more

WEEKLY COLUMN IN NEW SCIENTIST MAGAZINE:

newscientist.com/author/marc-abrahams/

LUXURIANT FLOWING HAIR CLUB FOR SCIENTISTS (LFHCfS):

www.improbable.com/category/lfhcfs-hair-club/

PODCAST:

www.improbable.com/category/the-weekly-improbable-research-podcast/

FACEBOOK: facebook.com/improbableresearch

MASTODON: @MarcAbrahams@mstdn.science

INSTAGRAM: instagram.com/improbable_research/

PATREON: patreon.com/ImprobableResearch

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09 Removing Cockroaches from the Auditory Canal (1986)

This month's Other Haphazardly-Selected Research Report (OQHSRROTM) of the month is:

"More on Removing Cockroaches from the Auditory Canal," Harry Cantrell, The New England Journal of Medicine, vol. 314, no. 11, 1986, pp. 720-720.

doi.org/10.1056/nejm198603133141123

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TREAT YOURSELF TO (MUCH) MORE IMPROBABLE STUFF.

SUBCRIBE TO THE (PDF) MAGAZINE!

improbable.com/magazine-2/

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20 SOME IMPROBABLE EVENTS

33rd First Annual Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony —Sep 14, 2023

Cambridge (MA) Science Festival — Sep 29, 2023

Berlin Science Festival, Germany — Nov 4, 2023

Ig Nobel Face-to-Face, MIT, Cambridge, MA, USA — Nov 11, 2023

Journalists event — MIT, Cambridge, MA, USA — Nov 12, 2023

Imperial College London, UK Nov 18, 2023

Arisia, Boston, MA, USA — Jan 2024

Vienna, Austria, — Jan 2024

AAAS Annual Meeting, Denver, CO, USA — Feb 17, 2014

U Aarhus, Denmark — Apr 4, 2024

— OTHER EVENTS TBA

[All live events in 2023 are subject to pandemical constraints and adventures.]

For details and additional events, see: improbable.com/upcoming-events/

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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.

improbable.com/publications/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: improbable.com/publications/newsletter-mini-air/

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32 — CONTACT INFO (*)

Annals of Improbable Research (AIR)

improbable.com

EDITORIAL: MARC aaattt IMPROBABLE dddooottt COM

SUBSCRIPTION QUESTIONS: subscriptions AT improbable.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, the

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