Mini-AIR

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

July 2025, issue number 2025-07. 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: Digestion or Indigestion?

03 Students Sometimes Drink at Graduation Parties

04 Ig Nobel TICKETS go on sale AUGUST 4

05 LIMERICK CHALLENGE: Alcohol, and Ski Injuries

06 Gum Chewing Winner

07 MORE IMPROBABLE: Tom Lehrer, Cats, Goats

08 Mystical Experience and Reasons for Drinking

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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: Digestion or Indigestion?

The special DIGESTION OR INDIGESTION issue (vol. 31, no. 4) in the hands or whatever of subscribers, who presumably are digesting the contents.

See the TOC and several articles online at

improbable.com/annals-of-improbable-research-july-august-2025-vol-31-number-4/

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 Students Sometimes Drink at Graduation Parties

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

"Alcohol and Other Drug Use at School Leavers' Celebrations," Tina Lam, Wenbin Liang, Tanya Chikritzhs, and Steve Allsop. Journal of Public Health, vol. 36, no. 3, 2014, pp. 408-416. (Thanks to Alan Echt for bringing this to our attention.)

doi.org/10.1093/pubmed/fdt087

The authors, at Curtin University, Australia, explain:

"Background A significant proportion of adolescents who attend celebratory events often engage in substantial alcohol and other drug use. We examined patterns, influences and impacts of drug consumption at an end of schooling life celebration.

Methods Seventeen- to 18-year-old Australians who intended to attend (n = 541) and who attended the celebration (n = 405), respectively, completed pre- and post-event surveys....

Conclusions The use of alcohol and other drugs at this celebratory event appears to be reflective of the greater than usual number of drinking hours that are available to participants."

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04 Ig Nobel TICKETS go on sale AUGUST 4

TICKETS TICKETS TICKETS

for the

The 35th First Annual Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony

will go on sale on MONDAY, AUGUST 4, at the improbable web site.

improbable.com/the-35th-first-annual-ig-nobel-prize-ceremony/

The ceremony will happen on THURSDAY EVENING, SEPTEMBER 18, at Boston University in Boston, Massachusetts. Ten new Ig Nobel Prizes will be awarded for things that make people LAUGH, then THINK.

TICKETS WILL GO ON SALE IN JULY. The ceremony also will be livecast.

A related event, Ig Nobel Face-to-Face, will happen on SATURDAY AFTERNOON, SEPTEMBER 20, 2025, at the MIT Museum in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA. The new Ig Nobel Prize winners ask each other questions about their work.

Then in OCTOBER AND NOVEMBER, 2025, Ig Nobel Face-to-Face events will happen in Japan, the UK, and other countries. Details TBA.

CEREMONY WEB PAGE:

improbable.com/the-35th-first-annual-ig-nobel-prize-ceremony/

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05 LIMERICK CHALLENGE: Alcohol, and Ski Injuries

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

"Alcohol Consumption, Sensation Seeking and Ski Injury: A Case-Control Study," Cheryl J. Cherpitel, Allan R. Meyers, M.W. Perrine, Journal of Studies on Alcohol, vol. 59, 1998, pp. 216-221. (Thanks to Tim Chapman for bringing this to our attention.)

doi.org/10.15288/jsa.1998.59.216

The authors report:

"The data suggest that, while drinking within 24 hours is positively associated with sensation seeking, drinking and not sensation seeking is positively predictive of injury."

Send your perfictly formed, perfectly pleasing limerick to:

Alcohol & Skiing LIMERICK COMPETITION

c/o MARC aaattt IMPROBABLE dddooottt COM

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06 Gum Chewing Winner

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

"The Singing Voice is Special: Persistence of Superior Memory for Vocal Melodies Despite Vocal-Motor Distractions," Michael W. Weiss, Anne-Marie Bissonnette, and Isabelle Peretz, Cognition, vol. 213, 2021, article 104514. doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2020.104514.

The study says" "Vocal melodies sung without lyrics (la la) are remembered better than instrumental melodies. What causes the advantage?"

Winning limerickicist A.S. KASWELL writes:

That word, oh that word, it is the

only word I can think of, that "la".

It is very strange,

is my mental arrange-

-ment! Oh! Ha ha ha! Ha ha ha! Ha!"

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

If you're hoping to learn a new song,

Using words like "la la," sing along.

What else can you do?

You can tap, but don't chew.

If you do, you'll remember it wrong.

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07 MORE IMPROBABLE: Tom Lehrer, Cats, Goats

Recent improbable research bits you may have missed...

BLOG (improbable.com):

• Tom Lehrer Is Gone

• Touchscreen Tasks for Cognitive Testing in Domestic Goats

• The Impracticality of Panting at Other Frequencies

• …and much more

SUBSTACK: (improbablestuff.substack.com)

• Insects As Cat Toys

• Feral Cats Steal Milk from Northern Elephant Seals

• The Case of the Neighbor's Cat Causing Complications

• …and much more

MASTODON: @MarcAbrahams@mstdn.science

FACEBOOK: facebook.com/improbableresearch

PATREON: patreon.com/ImprobableResearch

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08 Mystical Experience and Reasons for Drinking

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

"Mystical Experience, Drinking Behavior and the Reasons for Drinking," A.A. Sorensen and H.S. Cutter, Journal of Studies on Alcohol, vol. 43, no. 5, May 1982, pp. 588-92.

doi.org/10.15288/jsa.1982.43.588

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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

· Worldcon, Seattle, USA — Aug 13, 2025

· 35th First Annual Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony, Boston, USA — Sep 18, 2025

· Ig Nobel Face-to-Face, Cambridge, USA — Sep 20, 2025

· Ig Nobel Face-to-Face, JAPAN, UK, and elsewhere — Oct & Nov 2025

· Falling Walls, Berlin, GERMANY — Nov 2025

· Monell Center, Philadelphia, PA, USA — Nov 12, 2025

· Royal Society Club, London, UK — Nov 27, 2025

· Ig Nobel EuroTour — Spring 2026

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 ($40 for six issues)

BACK ISSUES ($8 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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