mini-Annals of Improbable Research ("mini-AIR")
January 2025, issue number 2025-01. 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: Delicious Foods?
03 Very: Birth Order and Being a Beautician
04 Lots of New (and Some Old) Improbable Stuff Coming, on Substack
05 LIMERICK CHALLENGE: (Very) Birth Order Nunsuchness
06 Diet-of-Worms Winner
07 February Show at AAAS in Boston, March/April Shows in Europ
08 MORE IMPROBABLE: Two Deaths, Jarring Jars, Usage Query
09 Very: Birth Order and Choosing the Law
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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: Delicious Foods?
The special DELICIOUS FOODS? issue (vol. 31, no. 1) of the magazine will be sent to subscribers some time in the next few days. It serves delicious bits of research about many kinds of possibly desirable edible stuffs.
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 Very: Birth Order and Being a Beautician
This month's quasi-haphazardly selected research report of the month (QHSRROTM) is:
"Relation between Birth Order and Being a Beautician," Philip S. Very and Joseph A. Zannini, Journal of Applied Psychology, vol. 53, no. 2, 1969, pp. 149-151. doi.org/10.1037/h0027094
The authors explain: "The basic premise of the study is that birth order as described by Konig is a factor which greatly influences personality, and that personality in turn is an important factor in vocational choice. Konig describes the second born as being easygoing, seeking harmony and the like; beauticians were chosen as a vocation typifying these traits. Of the 210 [subjects], a statistically significant number were second born."
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04 Lots of New (and Some Old) Improbable Stuff Coming, on Substack
I (Marc) have begun a Substack to publish a mix of (1) new stuff and (2) other stuff that’s new to most people.
It’s called "Marc’s Improbable Stuff".
Subscribe at: https://improbablestuff.substack.com/
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Here's what you will find there:
Many of the things there will be related to the kind of stuff that’s in the magazine (Annals of Improbable Research) and here in mini-AIR — but that seem to clamor for a different setting.
Most items are non-fiction about our actual universe. Some other items are fiction, and are marked as being fiction, mostly. The very first item is something that only a few, very long-time readers may remember: “Feline Reactions to Bearded Men“, which I wrote under a team of pen names in the early 1990’s.
The new stuff will include several distinct series of items.
One series presents fictional mystery stories (from the unpublished book Tiny Tomes of Terror) that turn on real scientific research papers (some of which won Ig Nobel Prizes).
Another series, from the unpublished and ever-growing book Techniques of Successful Con Men, offers non-fictional, cheery-helpful-info tiny nuggets that anyone can use to make sense of what is happening now (and always) in the daily news.
Another series dips into the somewhat-suppressed, still unpublished book Improbable Sex (which sprouted from the column of that name in the magazine).
And there will be many other kinds of things, including appreciations of Ig Nobel Prize winners, of Ig Nobel-winning research, and of other researchers and research that are fully as surprising.
Also: favorite items from the now-forgotten columns that I wrote, way back when, in other magazines and newspapers.
All of this stuff is designed to make people LAUGH, then THINK. Please give it a look!
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05 LIMERICK CHALLENGE: (Very) Birth Order Nunsuchness
This month's RESEARCH LIMERICK challenge — Devise a pleasing limerick that encapsulates this study:
"Birth Order, Personality Development, and Vocational Choice of Becoming a Carmelite Nun," Philip S. Very, Robert B. Goldblatt, and Vincent Monacelli, The Journal of Psychology, vol. 85, no. 1, 1973, pp. 75-80. doi.org/10.1080/00223980.1973.9923863
The authors explain: "The data were obtained by sending a letter to the prioress in each of 63 monasteries, together with the appropriate number of questionnaires and a return-addressed stamped envelope.... The results obtained tend to support the theory that there is a relation- ship between birth order and personality traits affecting vocational choice. The personality characteristics of Carmelite nuns appear to be most similar to those of third born individuals..."
Send your perfictly formed, perfectly pleasing limerick to:
BIRTH ORDER NUNSUCHNESS LIMERICK COMPETITION
c/o MARC aaattt IMPROBABLE dddooottt COM
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06 Diet-of-Worms Winner
The judges have chosen a winner in last month's Competition, which asked for a limerick to explain this study:
"Can Foraging for Earthworms Significantly Reduce Global Famine in a Catastrophe?." Henry Miller, James Mulhall, Lou Aino Pfau, Rachel Palm, and David C. Denkenberger, Biomass, vol. 4, no. 3, 2024, pp. 765-783. doi.org/10.3390/biomass4030043
Winning limerickicist DOT BOGBLEUTH writes:
If push comes to shove, in a pinch,
I once believed, it was a cinch
that 'worms are the stuff'.
But... there just aren't enough!
That turn of thought caused me to flinch.
This month's take from our LIMERICK LAUREATE, MARTIN EIGER:
If the sun's blotted out from the sky,
a large number of people could die.
The authors conclude,
Don't use earthworms for food,
because foraging costs are too high.
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07 Shows at AAAS in Boston, and on the Ig Nobel EuroTour
Details of the fantabulous AAAS Annual Meeting show (in Boston on February 14) are at improbable.com/upcoming-events/
It will include several Ig Nobel Prize winners, The Science of the Museum of Bad Art (MOBA), some Ig Nobel Opera songs, and Tom Lehrer's "The Elements". And other stuff.
On that same page ( improbable.com/upcoming-events/ ) you'll find a partial listing of events in the 2025 Ig Nobel EuroTour (March/April). If your institution wants to host an event, please get in touch with us ASAP!
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08 MORE IMPROBABLE: Two Deaths, Jarring Jars, Usage Query
Recent improbable research bits you may have missed...
BLOG (improbable.com):
• Beloved Ig Winners (Karen Pryor and Eleanor Maguire) Died the Same Day
• Jarring Jars Mismatch in Iran
• How Are You Using Frozen Dog Sperm?
• …and much more
LUXURIANT FLOWING HAIR CLUB FOR SCIENTISTS (LFHCfS):
improbable.com/category/lfhcfs-hair-club/
SUBSTACK: improbablestuff.substack.com
MASTODON: @MarcAbrahams@mstdn.science
FACEBOOK: facebook.com/improbableresearch
INSTAGRAM: instagram.com/improbable_research/
PATREON: patreon.com/ImprobableResearch
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09 Very: Birth Order and Choosing the Law
This month's Other Haphazardly-Selected Research Report (OQHSRROTM) of the month is:
"Birth Order, Personality Development, and the Choice of Law As a Profession," Philip S. Very and Richard W. Prull, The Journal of Genetic Psychology, vol. 116, no. 2, 1970, pp. 219-221. doi.org/10.1080/00221325.1970.10533922
The authors explain: "The sample consisted of 100 lawyers from the Greater Boston area whose age and birth order were determined by telephone.... T h e results obtained tend to support the theory that there is a relationship between birth order and personality traits. T h e personality characteristics of lawyers appear to parallel those of firstborn individuals, and the results have shown that with respect to the sample studied a significantly greater number of lawyers are in fact firstborn."
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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
· Arisia, Boston, MA, USA — Jan 17, 2025
· AAAS Annual Meeting, Boston, MA, USA — Feb 14, 2025
· Ig Nobel EuroTour — EPFL, Lausanne, Mar 31, 2025
· Ig Nobel EuroTour — Univ of Zurich (Irchel Campus,) Apr 1, 2025
· Ig Nobel EuroTour — Royal Society, London, Apr 4, 2025
· Ig Nobel EuroTour — other events TBA
· Balticon, Baltimore, USA — May 23-26, 2025
· Cosmos Club, Washington DC, USA — May 28, 2025
· 35th First Annual Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony — Sep 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.
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 2025, Improbable Research
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