mini-Annals of Improbable Research ("mini-AIR")
October 2025, issue number 2025-10. 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 CONTENTMENT
02 IN THE MAGAZINE ITSELF: Motion, With Ig Impending
03 Topographical Index of Hiding Places (1)
04 Events with Ig Nobel Winners in Several Countries
05 LIMERICK CHALLENGE: Topographical Index of Hiding Places (2)
06 Amphibianists Winner
07 MORE IMPROBABLE: Smartphones, Hemorrhoids, Standards
08 Topographical Index of Hiding Places (3)
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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.
This little newsletter 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: Motion, With Ig Impending
The special MOTION issue (vol. 31, no. 5) has gone out to subscribers, some of whom are deeply moved by the articles therein.
See the TOC and several articles online at
improbable.com/annals-of-improbable-research-september-october-2025-vol-31-number-5/
The special IG NOBEL (31:6) 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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SUBSCRIBERS PLEASE NOTE:
The company we have long been using to process subscriptions has become very unreliable. We are in the process of switching to a more reliable processor (one that has human beings, rather than AI, doing its programming and customer service). We hope the transition will be accomplished by early 2026.
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03 Topographical Index of Hiding Places (1)
This month's quasi-haphazardly selected research report of the month (QHSRROTM) is:
"A Topographical Index of Hiding Places," Michael Hodgetts, British Catholic History, vol. 16 , no. 2 , October 1982 , pp. 146-216.
doi.org/10.1017/S0034193200005161
The author explains:
"This index is an appendix to my series of articles in Recusant History (1972-77) and a supplement to Granville Squiers, Secret Hiding-Places (1933). The 177 houses listed below can therefore be divided into three groups. Twenty-eight, of which twenty-two were in Squiers, have been discussed before in Recusant History and are only dealt with briefly here. Another thirty-four are houses where Squiers now needs correcting or amplifying."
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04 Events with Ig Nobel Winners in Several Countries
Ig Nobel Face-to-Face events will happen in several countries over the next few months.
• Royal Institution, London, UK — Oct 31, 2025
• Falling Walls Science Summit, Berlin, GERMANY — Nov 6, 2025
• Paris, FRANCE (details TBA) — Dec 2025
• Perugia, ITALY (details TBA) — Dec 2025
• Miraikan Museum, Tokyo, JAPAN, Jan 2026
Details (which we will update as details coalesce) are on our Upcoming Events page:
https://improbable.com/upcoming-events/
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05 LIMERICK CHALLENGE: Topographical Index of Hiding Places (2)
This month's RESEARCH LIMERICK challenge — Devise a pleasing limerick that encapsulates this study:
"A Topographical Index of Hiding-Places, II," Michael Hodgetts, British Catholic History, vol. 24, no. 1, 1998, pp. 1-54.
https://doi.org/10.1017/S0034193200005835
The author explains:
"Part I of this Index was published in Recusant History fifteen years ago, in October 1982.... Part II of the Index now lists another 123 houses (making a total of 300), of which 83 were in Squiers and 40 not."
Send your perfictly formed, perfectly pleasing limerick to:
HIDING PLACES LIMERICK COMPETITION
c/o MARC aaattt IMPROBABLE dddooottt COM
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06 Amphibianists Winner
The judges have chosen a winner in last month's Competition, which asked for a limerick to explain this study:
"Tolerance of Amphibians in Slovakian People: A Comparison of Pond Owners and Non-Owners," Pavol Prokop and Jana Fančovičová, Anthrozoos: A Multidisciplinary Journal of The Interactions of People and Animals, vol. 25, no. 3, September 2012 , pp. 277-288.
doi.org/10.2752/175303712X13403555186136
Winning limerickicist EDNA SELVAGE writes:
They live in the water and air!
It's a thought I can barely bear.
It's a fact that, though trusted,
Makes me feel disgusted
Enough to go tear out my hair.
This month's take from our LIMERICK LAUREATE, MARTIN EIGER:
For amphibians, I have a plan
To guide them as they deal with man.
Their survival's at stake,
So the action to take
Is to kill all the people they can.
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07 MORE IMPROBABLE: Smartphones, Hemorrhoids, Standards
Recent improbable research bits you may have missed...
BLOG (improbable.com):
• The Combined Happy Allure of Smartphones and Hemorrhoids
• The Adventures of Tom Lum at the Igs
• World Standards Day, and World Standards Day
• …and much more
SUBSTACK: (improbablestuff.substack.com)
MASTODON: @MarcAbrahams@mstdn.science
FACEBOOK: facebook.com/improbableresearch
PATREON: patreon.com/ImprobableResearch
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08 Topographical Index of Hiding Places (3)
This month's Other Haphazardly-Selected Research Report (OQHSRROTM) of the month is:
"A Topographical Index of Hiding-Places, III," Michael Hodgetts, British Catholic History, vol. 27, no. 4, 2005, pp. 473-520.
https://doi.org/10.1017/S0034193200031630
The author explains:
"This is the third and (barring further significant discoveries) the final part of my index, the first and second parts of which were published in Recusant History in October 1982 (nos. 1–177) and May 1998 (nos. 178–300). In Part II, for reasons of space and cost, I omitted, unless there was more to report on them, houses mentioned in my Secret Hiding-Places (1989) but not included in Part I."
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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, London, UK — Oct 31, 2025
· Falling Walls, Berlin, GERMANY — Nov 6, 8 2025
· Monell Center, Philadelphia, PA, USA — Nov 12, 2025
· Royal Society Club, London, UK — Nov 27, 2025
· Science Friday Ig Radio Special — Nov 28, 2025
· Ig Nobel Face-to-Face, Paris, France — Dec 2025
· Ig Nobel Face-to-Face, Perugia, Italy — Dec, 2025
· Ig Nobel Face-to-Face, Tokyo, JAPAN, Jan 2026
· Arisia, Cambridge, MA, USA — Jan 2026
· AAAS Annual Meeting, Phoenix, USA — Feb 13, 2026
· 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 quasi-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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