mini-Annals of Improbable Research ("mini-AIR")
August 2024, issue number 2024-08. 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: Physics Now, Morbid Soon
03 Preliminary Studies on Meat Balls
04 IG NOBEL PRIZE CEREMONY & WEBCAST
05 Ig Nobel Face-to-Face
06 LIMERICK CHALLENGE: Sausages/Catastrophes
07 Small Penises / Fast Cars Winner
08 MORE IMPROBABLE: Wrong, Yarn, Ig Tribute Drawings
09 Comparative Meatball Mechanics, Friction, Structure
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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: Physics Now, Morbid Soon
The special NON-QUANTUM PHYSICS issue (vol. 30, no. 4) of the magazine continues to enchant every ant and nearly every aunt who reads it. The table of contents and selected articles are at:
improbable.com/annals-of-improbable-research-july-august-2024-vol-30-number-4/
The next issue, the special MORBID issue, 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 Preliminary Studies on Meat Balls
This month's quasi-haphazardly selected research report of the month (QHSRROTM) is:
"Preliminary Studies on the Development of Meat Balls," J.O. Igene, K.S. Akinjobi, and S.E. Evivie, Journal of Applied Sciences and Environmental Management 16, no. 2, 2012, pp. 209-211.
ajol.info/index.php/jasem/article/view/90742
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04 IG NOBEL PRIZE CEREMONY & WEBCAST
The 2024 Ig Nobel Prizes will be awarded at the 34th First Annual Ig Nobel Prize ceremony, on Thursday evening, September 12, 2024, at MIT (The Massachusetts Institute of Technology) in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The ceremony begins at 6:00 pm US eastern time, and will be approx. 90 minutes long.
Ten new Ig Nobel Prizes will be awarded. Each winner (or winning team) has done something that makes people LAUGH, then THINK.
After four pandemic-years in which the ceremony happened only online, this will resume the tradition of doing it with everyone together in a big room with an audience. The ceremony will, as per tradition, also be webcast. There will a separate livestream with Japanese-language captioning.
We are producing the ceremony in collaboration with the MIT Press.
INFO AND WEBCAST:
improbable.com/ig/archive/2024-ceremony/
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05 Ig Nobel Face-to-Face
Two days later — on Saturday afternoon, September 14 — in a public event called “Ig Nobel Face-to-Face“, at the MIT Museum, the new winners will ask each other questions about their work.
The Face-to-Face event will not be livecast.
An edited video version will be webcast later in the year.
Also later in the year, a second live Face-to-Face event at the Miraikan museum in Tokyo, Japan.
INFO ON THIS, TOO:
improbable.com/ig/archive/2024-ceremony/
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06 LIMERICK CHALLENGE: Sausages/Catastrophes
This month's RESEARCH LIMERICK challenge — Devise a pleasing limerick that encapsulates this study:
"Packings, Sausages and Catastrophes," Martin Henk and Jörg M. Wills, Beiträge zur Algebra und Geometrie / Contributions to Algebra and Geometry, vol. 62, 2021, pp. 265-280.
doi.org/10.1007/s13366-020-00502-x
Send your perfrectly formed, perfectly pleasing limerick to:
SAUSAGES/CATASTROPHES LIMERICK COMPETITION
c/o MARC aaattt IMPROBABLE dddooottt COM
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07 Small Penises / Fast Cars Winner
The judges have chosen co-winners in last month's Competition, which asked for a limerick to explain this study [the judges also made note that the great majority of people submitting limericks on this topic were male]:
"Small Penises and Fast Cars: Evidence for a Psychological Link," Daniel C. Richardson, Joseph Devlin, John S. Hogan, and Chuck Thompson, PsyArXiv, January 10, 2023.
psyarxiv.com/uy7ph
Co-winning limerickicist THOMAS STEWART writes:
Because of my miniscule weenie
I bought me a red Lamborghini
(When I’d thought that my schlong
Was girthy and long
I was quite happy driving a Mini.)
Co-winning limerickicist DICK (sic) MAXWELL writes:
Most men we found easy to fool
When discussing the size of their tool.
If they thought it was short
Then their car choice was sport,
At least as a general rule.
This month's take from our LIMERICK LAUREATE, MARTIN EIGER:
The sports car my boyfriend just got,
I love it. I love it a lot.
Then I heard from these guys,
What they said about size.
So I'm torn. Should I keep him or not?
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08 MORE IMPROBABLE: Wrong, Yarn, Ig Tribute Drawings
Recent improbable research bits you may have missed...
BLOG (improbable.com):
• "And as usual, they were wrong"
• Does which yarn matter?
• Becky Moon’s tribute drawings about Ig Nobel Prize winners
• …and much more
WEEKLY COLUMN IN NEW SCIENTIST MAGAZINE:
newscientist.com/author/marc-abrahams/
LUXURIANT FLOWING HAIR CLUB FOR SCIENTISTS (LFHCfS):
improbable.com/category/lfhcfs-hair-club/
PODCAST ARCHIVE:
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 Comparative Meatball Mechanics, Friction, Structure
This month's Other Haphazardly-Selected Research Report (OQHSRROTM) of the month is:
"Meat-, vegetarian-, and Vegan Sausages: Comparison of Mechanics, Friction, and Structure," Marta Ghebremedhin, Mathias Baechle, and Thomas A. Vilgis Physics of Fluids 34, no. 4, 2022.
doi.org/10.1063/5.0083730
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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
· 34TH FIRST ANNUAL IG NOBEL PRIZE CEREMONY, MIT — Sep 12, 2024
· Ig Nobel Face-to-Face, MIT — Sep 14, 2024
· AAAS Annual Meeting, Boston, MA, USA — Feb 2025
· 2025 Ig Nobel EuroTour — Spring 2025
· Balticon, Baltimore, USA — May 23-26, 2025
OTHER EVENTS TBA
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
(c) copyright 2024, Improbable Research
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