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The mini-Annals of Improbable Research
("mini-AIR")
Issue number 2007-12
December 2007
ISSN 1076-500X
Key words: improbable research, science humor, Ig Nobel,
AIR, the
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A free newsletter of tidbits too tiny to fit in
Annals of Improbable Research (AIR)
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2007-12-01 TABLE OF CONTENTS
2007-12-02 Big Happy News About the Magazine
2007-12-03 The Rupziyat? Bppum Challenge
2007-12-04 Host an Ig UK Tour Event?
2007-12-05 Baker's Honey Conundrum
2007-12-06 Adventures in Genetics: Behind
2007-12-07 Sandcastle Stability Poet Triumph
2007-12-08 Less-Strange Nit-Picker Nit-Picker
2007-12-09 Bjork-Shiley Convexo-Concave Valves
Competition
2007-12-10 RESEARCH SPOTLIGHT: Sopranos Last Longer
2007-12-11 BLOGLIGHTS: Tim-ness, Bob-ness, Turkeys
2007-12-12 AAAS Improbable Performers
2007-12-13 MAY WE RECOMMEND: Tick, Tick, Tick, Pee Pee
Pee
2007-12-14 Improbable Research Events
2007-12-15 -- How to Subscribe to AIR (*)
2007-12-16 -- Our Address (*)
2007-12-17 -- Please Forward/Post This Issue! (*)
2007-12-18 -- How to Receive mini-AIR, etc. (*)
Items
marked (*) are reprinted in every issue.
mini-AIR
is
a
free monthly *e-supplement* to the print magazine
Annals
of Improbable Research
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2007-12-02 Big Happy News About the Magazine
Welcome to the grand Improbable Research experiment. We
are
putting the entire magazine online for free.
*
* *
Here are the details:
Beginning with the current issue -- vol. 13, no. 6,
November/December 2007, the special Ig Nobel issue -- the
Annals
of Improbable Research will be available online in three
forms:
1. In HTML (with low-res images and minimal formatting).
Free.
2. A low-res PDF file (with low-res images but nice
formatting).
Free.
3. A high-res PDF file (with splendid images and nice
formatting). You can download it for a small fee.
Fear not. The magazine will also continue to be available
in the
best of all possible forms: traditional
on-the-toilet-readable
paper-and-ink. This will be snail-mailed to subscribers,
for the
same subscription fee as currently charged.
We have also put the most recent three years' issues
online in
both PDF formats.
See it all at <http://www.improbable.com/magazine/>
Please help us spread the word!
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2007-12-03 The Rupziyat? Bppum Challenge
In 1916, a researcher named G. English, at Cornell
University,
conducted an experiment to find out what people would
assumed
about a person with a strange name. She concocted a list
of 50
nonsense names. Our challenge to you is: How many of
those names
are not just inventions -- how many of those names belong
to
real, live (or even real, dead) persons?
Here are the 50 names: Cherin; Poisher; Kilom; Koikert;
Vazal;
Dawfisp; Zoque; Spren; Dawtho; Rupzoiyat; Blag; Lisrix;
Thaspkuwhin; Kird'faumish; Genras; Thacho; Brob; Zoitu;
Koldak;
Murbix; Chermtgawkonv; Boppum; Vushap; Grib; Watshoiquol;
Moiki;
Hoxzauwhuk; Gawthu; Ze'the; Gowsu; Deznep; Witaw;
Thobonf;
Mavquawpunt; Stisk; Towbant; Taquu; Skamth; Quajnumeth;
Bunoy;
Drup; Guklal; Pofmoj; Spux; Jikzel; Snemth;
Thubtawkarnth;
Linrewex; Gronch and Tupjoz.
This is a purely curiosity-driven challenge -- we do not
know
what the answer is. If you find more than five names that
correspond to real persons -- and can demonstrate that
they do --
please send your list of NoNonsense Name Persons to:
NO-NONSENSE
NAME PERSONS CHALLENGE
c/o
<marca@chem2.harvard.edu>
If you have URLs that point to evidence of the persons'
existence, please include them.
For background info about G. English's study, see
<http://tinyurl.com/2w7q55>. The study itself is:
"On the Psychological Response to Unknown Proper
Names,"
G. English, American Journal of Psychology, vol. 27, no.
3, July
1916, pp. 430-34. <http://tinyurl.com/3yns8e>
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2007-12-04 Host an Ig UK Tour Event?
The sixth annual Ig Nobel Tour of the UK (for National
Science &
Engineering Week) will happen in early March 2008. If
your
institution would like to host an event, please get in
touch with
us ASAP.
See
<http://improbable.com/improbable-research-shows/ig-uk-tour/>
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2007-12-05 Baker's Honey Conundrum
Intrigued or alarmed by a citation in last month's
mini-AIR,
Investigator Oliver Baker poses a question.
The citation is: "Effects of Caffeine on Olfactory
and Visual
Learning in the Honey Bee (Apis Mellifera)," A. Si,
S.W. Zhang,
et al., Pharmacology Biochemistry and Behavior, vol. 82,
no. 4,
2005, pp. 664-72.
Baker writes: "Hmmph. How do they say they
controlled for the
buzz?"
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2007-12-06 Adventures in Genetics: Behind
We generally avoid publicizing in-your-face gene names,
because
it has become so easy and fashionable to give goofball
names to
new-found genes. But investigator Daniel Weber alerts us
to one
that seems rather special. It was announced in the study:
"Derrire: a TGF-beta Family Member Required for
Posterior
Development in Xenopus," B.I. Sun, S.M. Bush, L.A.
Collins-Racie,
E.R. LaVallie, E.A. DiBlasio-Smith, N.M. Wolfman, J.M.
McCoy and
H.L. Sive,Development, vol. 126, no. 7, April 1999, pp.
1467-82.
<http://dev.biologists.org/cgi/reprint/126/7/1467>
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2007-12-07 Sandcastle Stability Poet Triumph
The judges have declared a winner for last month's
Sandcastle
Stability Competition, which asked for a limerick to
honor the
study "Maximum Angle of Stability of a Wet Granular
Pile," Sarah
Nowak, Azadeh Samadani, and Arshad Kudrolli, Nature
Physics, vol.
1, August 15, 2005, pp. 50-2.
The winner is INVESTIGATOR BRANT BOUCHER, who created
this
thought:
When building a castle of sand
Keep a bucket of water on hand;
Choose your particle size:
With
the angles be wise,
And maybe your castle will stand.
And here is the assessment from Limerick Laureate MARTIN
EIGER:
I went to the beach on Nantucket
With a shovel, a pail, and a bucket.
I
would have done better
If
the sand had been wetter.
When my castle fell down, I said, "Perhaps the
technical
literature explains this."
NOTE:
Yes, we know that the Limerick Laureate's
limerick
violates technical standards.
This
is the exception that proves nothing.
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2007-12-08 Less-Strange Nit-Picker Nit-Picker
A feud is born. Investigator Tim Poston writes about an
item in
last month's mini-AIR. He says:
***
You wrote that Investigator Tony Harker wrote: "I
realised that
there's an anomaly in the paper being reviewed. Rogers
refers to
the 'hairy dog theorem', whereas the title of Milnor's
paper
contains the phrase 'hairy ball theorem.' Given that the
dog has
at least the connectivity of a torus, unidirectional
combing is
presumably possible -- though it could tickle
unpleasantly."
There is a Hairy Pretzel Theorem too -- a hairy
any-closed-
surface-with-non-zero-Euler-characteristic theorem. The
only
surfaces that can be unidirectionally combed are the
torus and
Klein bottle. Since the mouth to anus passage gives torus
connectivity, it would seem that Investigator Harker has
a dog
with no nose. (So, how does he smell? Terrible?)
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2007-12-09 Bjork-Shiley Convexo-Concave Valves
Competition
Bjork-Shiley Convexo-Concave Valves is the subject of
this
month's limerick competition. To enter, compose an
original
limerick that illuminates the nature of this report:
*
* *
Discrimination in Vitro Between the Acoustic Emissions
from
Bjork-Shiley Convexo-Concave Valves With and Without a
Broken
Minor Strut," Medical and Biological Engineering and
Computing,
D. K. Walker and L. N. Scotten, vol. 29, no. 5, September
1991,
pp. 457-64. <http://tinyurl.com/2cyoqk>
*
* *
RULES: Please make sure your rhymes actually do, and that
your
poem is in classic, trips-off-the-tongue limerick form.
PRIZE: The winning poet will receive a (if we manage to
send it
to the correct address) a free, possibly convexo-concave
issue of
the Annals of Improbable Research. Send entries (one
entry per
entrant) to:
Bjork-Shiley
Convexo-Concave LIMERICK COMPETITION
c/o
<marca AT chem2.harvard.edu>
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2007-12-10 RESEARCH SPOTLIGHT: Sopranos Last Longer
Each month we select for your special attention a
research report
that seems particularly worth a close read. This month's
pick:
"Androgens Shorten the Longevity of Women: Sopranos
Last Longer,"
E. Nieschlag, U. Kramer, S. Nieschlag, Experimental and
Clinical
Endocrinology and Diabetes, vol. 111, no. 4, August 2003, pp.
230-1. <http://tinyurl.com/3yth8j>
(Thanks to Ig Nobel Prize winner Richard Wassersug for bringing
this to our attention.) The authors, who are at Institute
of
Reproductive Medicine of the Westphalian
Wilhelms-University,
Munster, Germany, report that:
"Earlier we found that longevity of castrati was
identical to
that of intact singers.... We have now continued our research
into the life expectancy of singers... resulting in the
finding
that sopranos, being more oestrogenised, live
significantly
longer than altos who are more androgenised, while
basses, more
androgenised, show a tendency towards a longer life than
tenors,
who are less androgenised."
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2007-12-11 BLOGLIGHTS: Tim-ness, Bob-ness, Turkeys
Here are some recent topics in our blog:
<> Ten-mile-high-building discoverer announces new
discoveries
<> Fly-by-night (and fly-by-day) couch potato aging
<> Father of Flying Pig (and model monster)
<> The head of your turkey
<> A further small mystery about Matt Talbot
<> The value of a Harvard education
and some from the newspaper column in The Guardian:
<> The Tim-ness of Tim, the Bob-ness of Bob
<> Romance in your veins
...
and others
Read
the blog
every
day at <http://www.improbable.com>
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2007-12-12 AAAS Improbable Performers
If... you are an AIR author or an Ig Nobel Prize winner,
and if
you are coming to the AAAS (American Association for the
Advancement of Science) Annual Meeting in Boston, and if
you
would like to do a little star turn at the annual
Improbable
Research session there, please get in touch with us ASAP.
The
session will be on Friday night, February 15, 2008.
Yes, this year the lineup will include the founder of the
Museum
of Burnt Food.
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2007-12-13 MAY WE RECOMMEND: Tick, Tick, Tick, Pee Pee
Pee
TICK, TICK, TICK: FLUCTUATE
"The Question of Fluctuating Asymmetry in the
Blacklegged Tick
Ixodes scapularis (Acari: Ixodidae)," H. Joel
Hutcheson and James
H. Oliver, Experimental and Applied Acarology, vol. 22,
no. 1,
January 1998.<http://tinyurl.com/33s8le>
PROVOCATIVE TRIPLE-PEE PHENOMENON
"Puzzling Penile Papules," D.S. Cassarino, T.M.
Keahey, J.B.
Stem, International Journal of Dermatology, vol. 42, no.
12,
December 2003, pp. 954-6.
<http://tinyurl.com/3crjtj>
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2007-12-14 Improbable Research Events
For details and additional events, see
<http://improbable.com/improbable-research-shows/complete-schedule>
AAAS ANNUAL MEETING, BOSTON --
FEB 15, 2008
IG NOBEL UK TOUR --
MAR, 2008
CHELTENHAM SCIENCE FESTIVAL, UK -- JUN 7, 2008
DFG ANNUAL ASSEMBLY, BERLIN, GERMANY -- JUL 1, 2008
IG NOBEL PRIZE CEREMONY --
OCT 2, 2008
IG INFORMAL LECTURES --
OCT 4, 2008
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2007-12-15 -- How to Subscribe to AIR (*)
The Annals of Improbable Research is a 6-issues-per-year
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overflow material you've been reading in this
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To subscribe to the paper-and-ink version, go to
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Send payment (US bank check, or international money
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FAX:617-661-0927 <air AT improbable.com>
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2007-12-16 -- Our Address (*)
Annals of Improbable Research (AIR)
PO Box 380853, Cambridge, MA 02238 USA
617-491-4437 FAX:617-661-0927
EDITORIAL: marca AT chem2.harvard.edu
SUBSCRIPTIONS: air AT improbable.com
WEB SITE: <http://www.improbable.com>
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2007-12-17 -- Please Forward/Post This Issue! (*)
Please distribute copies of mini-AIR (or excerpts!)
wherever
appropriate. The only limitations are: A) Please indicate
that
the material comes from mini-AIR. B) You may NOT
distribute mini-
AIR for commercial purposes.
-------------
mini-AIRheads -------------
EDITOR: Marc Abrahams
MINI-PROOFREADER AND PICKER OF NITS (before we introduce
the last
few at the last moment): Wendy Mattson
COMMUTATIVE EDITOR: Stanley Eigen
ASSOCIATIVE EDITOR: Mark Dionne
PSYCHOLOGY EDITOR: Robin Abrahams
CO-CONSPIRATORS: Alice Shirrell Kaswell, Gary Dryfoos,
Ernest
Ersatz, S. Drew
MAITRE DE COMPUTATION: Jerry Lotto
AUTHORITY FIGURES: Nobel Laureates Dudley Herschbach,
Sheldon
Glashow, William Lipscomb, Richard Roberts
(c) copyright 2007, Annals of Improbable Research
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2007-12-18 -- How to Receive mini-AIR, etc. (*)
What you are reading right now is mini-AIR. Mini-AIR is a
(free!)
tiny monthly *supplement* to the bi-monthly print
magazine.
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To subscribe or unsubscribe, please visit
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