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

September 2024, issue number 2024-09. 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: The Special MORBID Issue

03 Python Intestinal Flexibility

04 The 2024 Ig Nobel Prize Winners

05 Double Ig Nobel Face-to-Face (in Cambridge, and Soon in Tokyo)

06 LIMERICK CHALLENGE: Python Farming Flexibility

07 Sausages/Catastrophes Winner

08 MORE IMPROBABLE: Coffee, Prey, Raw Broccoli

09 Python Computing Flexibility

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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: The Special MORBID Issue

 

The special MORBID issue (vol. 30, no. 5) 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-september-october-2024-vol-30-number-5/

 

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 Python Intestinal Flexibility

 

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

 

"Structural Flexibility of the Intestine of Burmese Python in Response to Feeding," J. Matthias Starck and Kathleen Beese, Journal of Experimental Biology, vol. 204, no. 2 2001, pp. 325-335.

doi.org/10.1242/jeb.204.2.325

 

The authors report that by and large "The small intestine of Burmese pythons, Python molurus bivittatus, undergoes a remarkable size increase shortly after feeding."

 

 

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04 The 2024 Ig Nobel Prize Winners

 

Ten new Ig Nobel Prizes were awarded at the 34th First Annual Ig Nobel Prize ceremony, on Thursday evening, September 12, 2024, at MIT (The Massachusetts Institute of Technology). We produced the ceremony in collaboration with the MIT Press.

 

Info, and a recording of the webcast, are at

improbable.com/ig/archive/2024-ceremony/

The November/December issue of the magazine will include copious details.

 

Each winner (or winning team) has done something that makes people LAUGH, then THINK. Here are the new winners;

 

PEACE PRIZE [USA]

B.F. Skinner, for experiments to see the feasibility of housing live pigeons inside missiles to guide the flight paths of the missiles.

REFERENCE: “Pigeons in a Pelican”, B.F. Skinner, American Psychologist, vol 15, no. 1, 1960, pp. 28-37.

psycnet.apa.org/doi/10.1037/h0045345

WHO CAME TO THE CEREMONY: B.F. Skinner’s daughter, Julie Skinner Vargas

 

BOTANY PRIZE [GERMANY, BRAZIL, USA]

Jacob White and Felipe Yamashita, for finding evidence that some real plants imitate the shapes of neighboring artificial plastic plants.

REFERENCE: “Boquila trifoliolata Mimics Leaves of an Artificial Plastic Host Plant,” Jacob White and Felipe Yamashita, Plant Signaling and Behavior, vol. 17, no. 1, 2022.

doi.org/10.1080%2F15592324.2021.1977530

WHO CAME TO THE CEREMONY: Felipe Yamashita

 

ANATOMY  PRIZE [FRANCE, CHILE]

Marjolaine Willems, Quentin Hennocq, Sara Tunon de Lara, Nicolas Kogane, Vincent Fleury, Romy Rayssiguier, Juan José Cortés Santander, Roberto Requena, Julien Stirnemann, and Roman Hossein Khonsari, for studying whether the hair on the heads of most people in the northern hemisphere swirls in the same direction (clockwise or counter-clockwise?) as hair on the heads of most people in the southern hemisphere.

REFERENCE: “Genetic Determinism and Hemispheric Influence in Hair Whorl Formation,” Marjolaine Willems, Quentin Hennocq, Sara Tunon de Lara, Nicolas Kogane, Vincent Fleury, Romy Rayssiguier, Juan José Cortés Santander, Roberto Requena, Julien Stirnemann, and Roman Hossein Khonsari, Journal of Stomatology, Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, vol. 125, no. 2, April 2024, article 101664. doi.org/10.1016/j.jormas.2023.101664

WHO CAME TO THE CEREMONY: Marjolaine Willems and Roman Khonsari

 

MEDICINE PRIZE [SWITZERLAND, GERMANY, BELGIUM]

Lieven A. Schenk, Tahmine Fadai, and Christian Büchel, for demonstrating that fake medicine that causes painful side-effects can be more effective than fake medicine that does not cause painful side-effects.

REFERENCE: “How Side Effects Can Improve Treatment Efficacy: A Randomized Trial,” Lieven A. Schenk, Tahmine Fadai, and Christian Büchel, Brain, vol. 147, no. 8, August 2024, pp. 2643–2651.

doi.org/10.1093/brain/awae132

WHO CAME TO THE CEREMONY: Lieven Schenk.

 

PHYSICS PRIZE [USA]

James C. Liao, for demonstrating and explaining the swimming abilities of a dead trout.

REFERENCE: “Neuromuscular Control of Trout Swimming in a Vortex Street: Implications for Energy Economy During the Kármán Gait,” James C. Liao, The Journal of Experimental Biology, vol. 207, 2004, pp. 3495-3506.

doi.org/10.1242/jeb.01125

REFERENCE: “Passive Propulsion in Vortex Wakes,” David N. Beal, Franz S. Hover, Michael S. Triantafyllou, James C. Liao, and George V. Lauder, Journal of Fluid Mechanics, vol. 549, 2006, pp. 385-402.

WHO CAME TO THE CEREMONY: James C. (“Jimmy”) Liao

 

PHYSIOLOGY PRIZE [JAPAN, USA]

Ryo Okabe, Toyofumi F. Chen-Yoshikawa, Yosuke Yoneyama, Yuhei Yokoyama, Satona Tanaka, Akihiko Yoshizawa, Wendy L. Thompson, Gokul Kannan, Eiji Kobayashi, Hiroshi Date, and Takanori Takebe, for discovering that many mammals are capable of breathing through their anus.

REFERENCE: “Mammalian Enteral Ventilation Ameliorates Respiratory Failure,” Ryo Okabe, Toyofumi F. Chen-Yoshikawa, Yosuke Yoneyama, Yuhei Yokoyama, Satona Tanaka, Akihiko Yoshizawa, Wendy L. Thompson, Gokul Kannan, Eiji Kobayashi, Hiroshi Date, and Takanori Takebe, Med, vol. 2, June 11, 2021, pp. 1-11.

doi.org/10.1016/j.medj.2021.04.004

WHO CAME TO THE CEREMONY: Takanori Takebe, Toyofumi Chen-Yoshikawa, Ryo Okabe, Eiji Kobayashi, Yosuke Yoneyama, Yuhei Yokoyama

 

PROBABILITY PRIZE [THE NETHERLANDS, SWITZERLAND, BELGIUM, FRANCE, GERMANY, HUNGARY, CZECH REPUBLIC]

František Bartoš, Eric-Jan Wagenmakers, Alexandra Sarafoglou, Henrik Godmann, and many colleagues, for showing, both in theory and by 350,757 experiments, that when you flip a coin, it tends to land on the same side as it started.

REFERENCE: “Fair Coins Tend to Land on the Same Side They Started: Evidence from 350,757 Flips,” František Bartoš, et al., arXiv 2310.04153, 2023.

doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2310.04153

WHO CAME TO THE CEREMONY: Frantisek Bartos, and Eric-Jan Wagenmakers

 

CHEMISTRY PRIZE [THE NETHERLANDS, FRANCE]

Tess Heeremans, Antoine Deblais, Daniel Bonn, and Sander Woutersen, for using chromatography to separate drunk and sober worms.

REFERENCE: “Chromatographic Separation of Active Polymer–Like Worm Mixtures by Contour Length and Activity,” Tess Heeremans, Antoine Deblais, Daniel Bonn, and Sander Woutersen, Science Advances, vol. 8, no. 23, 2022, article eabj7918.

doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.abj7918

WHO CAME TO THE CEREMONY: Tess Heeremans, Antoine Deblais, Daniel Bonn, Sander Woutersen

 

DEMOGRAPHY PRIZE [AUSTRALIA, UK]

Saul Justin Newman, for detective work to discover that many of the people famous for having the longest lives lived in places that had lousy birth-and-death recordkeeping.

REFERENCE: “Supercentenarians and the Oldest-Old Are Concentrated into Regions with No Birth Certificates and Short Lifespans,” Saul Justin Newman, BioRxiv, 704080, 2019. <doi.org/10.1101/704080>

REFERENCE: “Supercentenarian and Remarkable Age Records Exhibit Patterns Indicative of Clerical Errors and Pension Fraud,” Saul Justin Newman, BioRxiv, 2024.

doi.org/10.1101/704080

WHO CAME TO THE CEREMONY: Saul Justin Newman

 

BIOLOGY PRIZE [USA]

Fordyce Ely and William E. Petersen, for exploding a paper bag next to a cat that’s standing on the back of a cow, to explore how and when cows spew their milk.

REFERENCE: “Factors Involved in the Ejection of Milk,” Fordyce Ely and W.E. Petersen, Journal of Dairy Science, vol. 3, 1941, pp. 211- 23.

doi.org/10.1093/ansci/1939.1.80

WHO CAME TO THE CEREMONY: Fordyce Ely’s daughter Jane Ely Wells and grandson Matt Wells

 

We're collecting some of the more entertaining and enlightening press clippings, at improbable.com/press-clips/

 

 

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05 Double Ig Nobel Face-to-Face (in Cambridge, and Soon in Tokyo)

 

Two days later after the ceremony, in a public event called “Ig Nobel Face-to-Face“, at the MIT Museum, most of the new winners gathered to ask each other questions about their work.

 

An edited video recording of that 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.

 

 

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06 LIMERICK CHALLENGE: Python Farming Flexibility

 

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

 

"Python Farming as a Flexible and Efficient Form of Agricultural Food Security," D. Natusch, P. W. Aust, C. Caraguel, P. L. Taggart, V. T. Ngo, G. J. Alexander, R. Shine, and T. Coulson, Scientific Reports, vol. 14, 2024, article 5419.

doi.org/10.1038/s41598-024-54874-4

 

The authors report:

 

"Mean food conversion rate for dressed carcasses was 4.1%, with useable products (dressed carcass, skin, fat, gall bladder) comprising 82% of the mass of live animals. In terms of food and protein conversion ratios, pythons outperform all mainstream agricultural species studied to date. The ability of fasting pythons to regulate metabolic processes and maintain body condition enhances food security in volatile environments, suggesting that python farming may offer a flexible and efficient response to global food insecurity."

 

Send your perfictly formed, perfectly pleasing limerick to:

 

            PYTHON FARMING LIMERICK COMPETITION

            c/o MARC aaattt IMPROBABLE dddooottt COM

 

 

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07 Sausages/Catastrophes Winner

 

The judges have chosen a winner in last month's Competition, which asked for a limerick to explain 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

 

Winning limerickicist Alice Kaswell writes:

 

If pondering immensities

Is one of your propensities,

  Don't read this study closely

  'Cause it seems to yammer mostly

About parametric densities.

 

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

 

The sausages aren't meaty links.

Catastrophes are not a jinx.

  The title you're reading

  Is rather misleading.

They're metaphors, not what one thinks.

 

 

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08 MORE IMPROBABLE: Coffee, Prey, Raw Broccoli

 

Recent improbable research bits you may have missed...

 

BLOG (improbable.com):

 

• Coffee and the Brains of Rats

• Bifurcation, Predators, Prey, and Taxis

• Raw Broccoli

•           …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 Python Computing Flexibility

 

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

 

"General Purpose Optimization Library (GPOL): a Flexible and Efficient Multi-Purpose Optimization Library in Python," Illya Bakurov, Marco Buzzelli, Mauro Castelli, Leonardo Vanneschi, and Raimondo Schettini, Applied Sciences, vol. 11, no. 11, 2021, article  4774.

doi.org/10.3390/app11114774

 

The authors report, unpoetically:

 

"In this paper, we propose... a flexible and efficient multipurpose optimization library that covers a wide range of stochastic iterative search algorithms, through which flexible and modular implementation can allow for solving many different problem types from the fields of continuous and combinatorial optimization and supervised machine learning problem solving."

 

 

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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 — November [exact date TBA], 2024

•      AAAS Annual Meeting, Boston, MA, USA — Feb 2025

•      2025 Ig Nobel EuroTour — Spring 2025

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

 

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

 

If your institution would like to host an event,

please get in touch with us at:

MARC aaattt IMPROBABLE dddooottt COM

 

 

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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.

 

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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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