Mini-AIR

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

January 2026, issue number 2026-001. 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: Childhood Very Soon

03 This and That 2013

04 Events at AAAS in Phoenix, and in Europe

05 LIMERICK CHALLENGE: This and That Revisited

06 Sea Snot Winner

07 MORE IMPROBABLE: Yakking, Hair, Laughing, Thinking

08 This and That Revisited

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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: Childhood Very Soon

The special CHILDHOOD issue (32:1) will go out any day now.

MAGZINE SUBSCRIBERS PLEASE NOTE:

We are taking a little extra time to send out the CHILDHOOD issue, because THIS WILL BE THE FIRST ISSUE SENT USING THE NEW SUBSCRIPTION-PROCESSING SERVICE. The subscription-processing company we had been using for many years has ALAS degenerated into purely AI-driven crap, with no human beings available to solve even minor problems or to make contact in any way. The service we are switching to has actual human beings!

The special IG NOBEL (31:6) issue meandered its way to subscribers a few weeks ago.

See the TOC and several articles online at

improbable.com/annals-of-improbable-research-november-december-2025-vol-31-number-6/

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 This and That 2013

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

"This and That: A Procedural Analysis," Kate Scott, Lingua, vol. 131, 2013, pp. 49-65. doi.org/10.1016/j.lingua.2013.03.008

This author explains that:

"In this paper I present a reanalysis of the English demonstrative determiners this and that.... [I focus on an] aspect of their use and interpretation has been largely overlooked by previous analyses."

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04 Events at AAAS in Phoenix, and in Europe

This year's Ig Nobel show at the AAAS [American Association for the Advancement of Science] Annual Meeting will happen on

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 13, at 7:00 pm,

at the HYATT REGENCY PHOENIX, in the Regency Ballroom, Phoenix, Arizona.

aaas.confex.com/aaas/2026/meetingapp.cgi/Session/37449

The Improbable Research show is open to the public, free. It features:

Marc Abrahams (founder of the Ig Nobel Prize ceremony)

Julie Mennella (2025 Ig Nobel Pediatrics Prize winner, for studying what a nursing baby experiences when the baby’s mother eats garlic)

Paul Bosland (1999 Ig Nobel Biology Prize winner, for breeding a spiceless jalapeno chile pepper)

Improbable Dramatic Readings (read aloud by probably dramatic readers) of very brief extracts from surprising research studies

* * *

And coming in April and May:

This year's Ig Nobel EuroTour will include events in GERMANY, SWEDEN, SWITZERLAND, THE NETHERLANDS, ITALY, and perhaps elsewhere.

Details, sort of, are on our events listing page

improbable.com/upcoming-events

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05 LIMERICK CHALLENGE: This and That Revisited

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

"This and That Revisited: A Social and Multimodal Approach to Spatial Demonstratives," David Peeters and Aslı Özyürek, Frontiers in Psychology, vol. 7, no. 2016, p. 222. doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.00222

These authors explain that:

"Both observational and experimental findings on the production and comprehension of spatial demonstratives suggest that it is now time to move away from an egocentric perspective on spatial demonstrative reference."

Send your perfictly formed, perfectly pleasing limerick to:

THIS AND THAT LIMERICK COMPETITION

c/o MARC aaattt IMPROBABLE dddooottt COM

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06 Sea Snot Winner

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

"Analysis of Water Quality in Sea Waters After The Sea Snot Occurrence in Bima Bay West Nusa Tenggara," S. Kasim, N. A. Pratiwi, H. Natsir, S. Liong, and I. W. Sutapa International Journal of Acta Material, vol. 1, no. 2, 2025, pp. 91-100.

doi.org/10.62749/ijactmat.v1i2.12

Winning limerickicist JACK SWAYDOH ULTCH writes:

Cease not to see what the sea

Delivereth up unto thee.

Is it sea snot... or not?

You're not sure what you've got?

Then please send a sample to me.

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

There's an incident. What could it be?

So DO, BOD, COD --

They examine the lot

To find out what they've got.

It's a hot lot of Sea Snot they see.

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07 MORE IMPROBABLE: Yakking, Hair, Laughing, Thinking

Recent improbable research bits you may have missed...

BLOG (improbable.com):

• Alan Alda and Marc Abrahams talk about the Ig Nobel Prizes

• Anna Anandina, Joshua Bamford, Nicholas Scarsdale, and Shikhara Bhat Join the LFHCfS (Luxuriant Flowing Hair Club for Scientists)

• Two New Episodes of NHK's "Laugh Then Think" TV Series

• …and much more

SUBSTACK: (improbablestuff.substack.com)

MASTODON: @MarcAbrahams@mstdn.science

FACEBOOK: facebook.com/improbableresearch

PATREON: patreon.com/ImprobableResearch

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08 This and That Revisited

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

These authors explain that:

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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, Tokyo, JAPAN, Jan 10, 2026

· Arisia, Cambridge, MA, USA — Jan 2026

· AAAS Annual Meeting, Phoenix, USA — Feb 13, 2026

· Royal Society Club, London, UK — Feb 26, 2026

Ig Nobel EuroTour — April 2026

· Berlin, Germany — Apr 13, 2026

· U Duesberg-Essen, Germany — Apr 17, 2026

· Lund U, Sweden — Apr 21, 2026

· Malmö, Sweden — Apr 22, 2026

· EPFL, Lausanne, Switzerland — Apr 23, 2026

· others To Be Announced

· Dead Duck Day, Rotterdam, The Netherlands, June 5, 2026

· 36th FIRST ANNUAL IG NOBEL PRIZE CEREMONY — Sep, 2026

· Falling Walls, Berlin, Germany — November 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

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