Mini-AIR

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

December 2023, issue number 2023-12. 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: 2023 Ig Nobel Report With Juicy Details

03 Death by Compaction in a Trash Compactor

04 LIMERICK CHALLENGE: Death by Compaction (Truck or Dumpster)

05 Management Fads Limerick Winners

06 MORE IMPROBABLE: Cold case, Eating at CERN, Professor's price

07 Death by Debris in Compact Groups?

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: 2023 Ig Nobel Report With Juicy Details

The special IG NOBEL issue (vol. 29, no. 6) of the magazine has been sent to subscribers. The table of contents and selected articles are at:

https://improbable.com/annals-of-improbable-research-november-december-2023-vol-29-number-6/

The special Riddles & Puzzles issue (vol. 30, no. 1) 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 Death by Compaction in a Trash Compactor

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

"Unusual Accidental Asphyxial Deaths," Cheryl Loewe and Francisco Diaz, Forensic Examiner, vol. 18, no. 4, 2009, pp. 38-41. proquest.com/docview/347588309?sourcetype=Scholarly%20Journals

The authors explain:

"We present seven unusual cases of accidental asphyxiation in adults, autopsied over a five-year period at the Wayne County Medical Examiner’s Office (WCMEO) in Detroit, Michigan. The underlying causes and manners of each death are similar in these cases, but the circumstances surrounding death are unique. These seven avenues to accidental asphyxiation include... a case of traumatic asphyxia in an individual 'squeezed to death' in a trash compactor."

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04 LIMERICK CHALLENGE: Death by Compaction (Truck or Dumpster)

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

"Death by Compaction in a Garbage Truck," Paul N. Staats, Mary I. Jumbelic, and Caroline R. Dignan, Journal of Forensic Sciences, vol. 47, no. 5, 2002, pp. 1065-1066.

doi.org/10.1520/JFS15517J

"Death by Compaction in a Robotic Dumpster," Maria-Valeria Karakasi, Ioannis Nikolaidis, Pavlos Pavlidis, Journal of Forensic Sciences, vol. 68, no. 4, July 2023, pp. 1386-1392.

doi.org/10.1111/1556-4029.15264

Submit your perfectly formed, delightfully enlightening limerick to:

DEATH BY COMPACTION LIMERICK COMPETITION

c/o MARC aaattt IMPROBABLE dddooottt COM

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05 Management Fads Limerick Winners

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

"The Life Cycle of Academic Management Fads," Robert Birnbaum, The Journal of Higher Education, vol. 71, no. 1, 2000, pp. 1-16.

doi.org/10.1080/00221546.2000.11780813

Winning limerickicist DOT BONDELEVITCH writes:

Yes, every institute now

Each year tried to hire somehow

Some expert who had

Produced some new fad.

In public relations terms: "Wow!"

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

Every process that businesses do,

Academics adopt and do, too.

Every fad, every trend,

Becomes, in the end,

One less thing that they have to think through.

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06 MORE IMPROBABLE: Cold case, Eating at CERN, Professor's price

Recent improbable research bits you may have missed...

BLOG: www.improbable.com:

• CSI Very Cold (Millions of Years) Case Triumph

• Scientific Dining Review: Eating at CERN

• Assessment of the value in a professor’s testimony

• …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 ARCHIVE:

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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07 Death by Debris in Compact Groups?

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

"Star Formation Quenching in Hickson Compact Groups: Death by Debris?" Michelle E. Cluver, P. Appleton, J. Rasmussen, U. Lisenfeld, P. Guillard, P. Ogle, L. Verdes-Montenegro et al., in American Astronomical Society Meeting Abstracts# 218, vol. 218, pp. 119-05. 2011.

https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2011AAS...21811905C/abstract

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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

· Ig Nobel Face-to-Face, Miraikan, Tokyo, Japan — Dec 17, 2023

· Arisia, Boston, MA, USA — Jan 12, 2024

· Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna, Austria — Jan 26, 2024

· Ball of the Sciences, Vienna, Austria — Jan 27, 2024

· Boskone, Boston, MA, USA — February, 2024

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

· 2024 IG NOBEL EURO-TOUR:

· U Aarhus, Denmark — Apr 9, 2024

· Copenhagen, Denmark — Apr 10, 2024

· EPFL, Lausanne, Switzerland — Apr 2024

· Rome Science Festival, Italy — April 2024

· Oxford, UK — date TBA

· Other EuroTour events TBA

· 34th First Annual Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony — Sep 2024

· Balticon, Baltimore, USA — May 23-26, 2025

OTHER EVENTS TBA

[All live events in 2023-2024 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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