Mini-AIR

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

Febuary 2025, issue number 2025-02. 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? Paradoxes imminent.

03 VERY Requirements on Damage Function Formulas

04 LIMERICK CHALLENGE: BEST on the GOOD, the BAD, and the UGLY

05 Birth Order Nunsuchness Winner

06 MORE IMPROBABLE: Pigeons, Dogs, Missiles, Sneezing, Reading

07 The WORST Lens

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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? Paradoxes imminent.

The special DELICIOUS FOODS? issue (vol. 31, no. 1) of the magazine is laden with delicious bits of research about many kinds of possibly desirable edible stuffs. Several of the articles are online at

improbable.com/annals-of-improbable-research-january-february-2025-vol-31-number-1/

The next issue, a special issue on PARADOXES, 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 VERY Requirements on Damage Function Formulas

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

"Requirements on Damage Functions," S. Yazdani, Davis Cope and Kevin Very, Journal of Engineering Mechanics — ASCE, vol. 128, no.1, January 2002, p. 126.

doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)0733-9399(2002)128:1(126)

The authors report: "A thermodynamically consistent constitutive model for brittle solids is presented. It is shown that damage functions, if not appropriately formulated, could lead to internal contradiction manifested in stress reversals."

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04 LIMERICK CHALLENGE: BEST on the GOOD, the BAD, and the UGLY

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

"Biological and Physiological Role of Reactive Oxygen Species – The Good, the Bad and the Ugly," Li Zuo, T. Zhou, B.K. Pannell, A.C. Ziegler, and Thomas M. Best, Acta Physiologica, vol. 214, no. 3, 2015, pp. 329-348.

doi.org/10.1111/apha.12515

Send your perfictly formed, perfectly pleasing limerick to:

BEST GOOD BAD UGLY LIMERICK COMPETITION

c/o MARC aaattt IMPROBABLE dddooottt COM

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05 Birth Order Nunsuchness Winner

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

Winning limerickicist SQUALTA BALLISTER writes:

I suppose it can seem to be fun

to try to discern just which one

of the kiddies I see

— all young (just like me!) —

will in time be a Carmelite nun.

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

My sister was child number one.

My brother, then, was the first son.

My limerick career

Is all wrong, now, I fear.

I should be a Carmelite nun.

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06 MORE IMPROBABLE: Pigeons, Dogs, Missiles, Sneezing, Reading

Recent improbable research bits you may have missed...

BLOG (improbable.com):

• A Quick Video Look at the Pigeon-Guided Missile Research

• Experiments with the ‘Kicking the Barking Dog Effect’

• Tom Lehrer’s “The Elements” and the Joy of Scientists

• …and much more

SUBSTACK: (improbablestuff.substack.com)

• The 1st two articles from the book "Improbable Sex"

• The Mystery of the Blind Detective Who Read Newspapers

• When Dogs Vote by Sneezing

• …and much more

LUXURIANT FLOWING HAIR CLUB FOR SCIENTISTS (LFHCfS):

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

MASTODON: @MarcAbrahams@mstdn.science

FACEBOOK: facebook.com/improbableresearch

PATREON: patreon.com/ImprobableResearch

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07 The WORST Lens

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

"Correction of High Myopia With the Worst Myopia Claw Intraocular Lens," Monika Landesz, Jan GF Worst, Jaap V. Siertsema, and Gabriel van Rij, Journal of Refractive Surgery, vol. 11, no. 1, 1995, pp. 16-67.

doi.org/10.3928/1081-597X-19950101-07

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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 EuroTour — EPFL, Lausanne, Mar 31, 2025

· Ig Nobel EuroTour — Univ of Zurich (Irchel Campus,) Apr 1, 2025

· Ig Nobel EuroTour — Royal Society, London, Apr 6, 2025

· Ig Nobel EuroTour — other events TBA

· CALPACS, Santa Barbara — May, 2025

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

· Cosmos Club, Washington DC, USA — May 28, 2025

· 35th First Annual Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony — Sep 2025

· Falling Walls, Berlin, Germany — Nov 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

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