[mini-AIR] mini-AIR: Hash, Podcast debut, Ig Nobel Eurotour schedule
Marc Abrahams
marc at improbable.com
Sun Mar 8 12:47:24 EDT 2015
mini-Annals of Improbable Research ("mini-AIR")
March 2015, issue number 2015-03. ISSN 1076-500X.
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The monthly wee little tiny mini update/alert from Improbable Research
Archive at <http://improbable.com/airchives/miniair>
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2015-03-01 TABLE OF CONTENTS
2015-03-02 Imminent Events
2015-03-03 In the Magazine: Teeth, Teeth, Teeth, Teeth, Teeth
2015-03-04 RESEARCH SPOTLIGHT: Recipe for a Sort of Hash
2015-03-05 Improbable Research Podcast #1: The Duck, of Course
2015-03-06 Ig Nobel Eurotour (March 2015) Details
2015-03-07 Hash on Not-Very-Spicy Vegetable Limerick Competition
2015-03-08 Orange Juice Fraud Spectroscopy Poet
2015-03-09 MORE IMPROBABLE: Sound of flavor; Sheep; Comparison.
2015-03-10 MAY WE RECOMMEND: Hash for Defeating Downy Mildew
2015-03-12 — Improbable Research Events
2015-03-13 — How to Get the Magazine (*)
2015-03-14 — Our Address (*)
2015-03-15 — Please Forward/Post This Issue! (*)
2015-03-16 — How to start or stop receiving this newsletter (*)
Items marked (*) are reprinted in every issue.
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2015-03-02 Imminent Events
· Premiere of Improbable Research weekly podcast — Mar 5, 2015
· UK, Belgium, Denmark, Sweden — Mar 12-30, 2015
DETAILS: <http://goo.gl/SEMgnw>
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2015-03-03 In the Magazine: Teeth, Teeth, Teeth, Teeth, Teeth
The special TEETH issue is out.
Read three of its articles online, at <http://goo.gl/tV4TuK>:
· Journeys of Toothbrushes
· Improbable Research Review
· Improbable Sex
Download a FREE E-BOOK ISSUE <http://goo.gl/BMzMw>
Links to all issues: <http://www.improbable.com/magazine>
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2015-03-04 RESEARCH SPOTLIGHT: Recipe for a Sort of Hash
This month's spotlight shines on a sort of Hash:
"Hash Sort: A Linear Time Complexity Mulitiple-Dimensional Sort Algorithm Originally Entitled 'Making a Hash of Sorts' " William F. Gilreath, arXiv preprint cs/0408040 (2004). <http://arxiv.org/pdf/cs/0408040.pdf>
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2015-03-05 Improbable Research Podcast #1: The Duck, of Course
The weekly IMPROBABLE RESEARCH PODCAST premiered on Wednesday, March 4.
It's all about research that makes people LAUGH, then THINK — research about anything and everything, from everywhere — research that's good or bad, important or trivial, valuable or worthless.
CBS is distributing the Improbable Research podcast, both on the new CBS Play.it web site, and on iTunes.
LISTEN:
Play.it: <http://www1.play.it/audio/improbable-research>
iTunes: <http://goo.gl/tDnUFW>
Podcast #1 delves into these things:
· Homosexual necrophilia in the mallard duck
· The karaoke pandemic
· Artists' suicides (especially Kurt Cobain's) as economic boons
· Wascally wabbit wrapping
· Dr. Alias, the hair man
· The mind of the waiter
· Combing through the hair data
EXTRA INFO/LINKS for each week's podcast: <http://goo.gl/GqUW6i>
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2015-03-06 Ig Nobel Eurotour (March 2015) Details
Please join us on the Ig Nobel Eurotour.
Details and links: <http://goo.gl/SZpJ4P>
Here's the schedule:
• Thursday, March 12 LONDON, Brunel Univ
• Monday, March 16 PORTSMOUTH: Univ of Portsmouth
• Wednesday, March 18 NOTTINGHAM: Nottingham Trent Univ
• Friday, March 20 LONDON, Imperial College London (*)
• Monday, March 23 BRUSSELS, Free Univ of Brussels
• Wednesday, March 25 AARHUS: University of Aarhus (*)
• Thursday, March 26 AARHUS. University of Aarhus (*)
• Friday, March 26 COPENHAGEN, Copenhagen University (*)
• Monday, March 30 STOCKHOLM: Karolinska Institute (*)
• Monday, March 30 STOCKHOLM: Boulevardteatern (*)
Events marked with a star (*) will include an appearance by Dr. NakaMats. Here's a profile of Dr. NakaMats: <http://goo.gl/P18oZ5>
Among the participants (in various shows):
• MARC ABRAHAMS (editor of the magazine Annals of Improbable Research, father of the Ig Nobel Prize ceremony) [Marc will be master of ceremonies at all the tour events.]
• MINNA LYONS (Ig winner — Relation between night owls & psychopathy)
• DR. NAKAMATS (Ig winner — photographing every meal he's consumed)
• HYNEK BURDA, SABINE BEGALL and PASCAL MALKEMPER (Ig winners — when dogs defecate and urinate, they prefer to align their body axis with Earth’s north-south geomagnetic field lines)
• JAROSLAV FLEGR (Ig winner — Is it mentally hazardous for a human to own a cat?)
• EIGEL REIMERS (Ig winner — How reindeer react to seeing humans who are disguised as polar bears)
• ANDREA RAPISARDA (Ig winner — organizations would become more efficient if they promoted people at random)
• RAY GOLDSTEIN (Ig winner — physics of ponytails)
• DAVID DUNSTAN (effectiveness of throwing snails over garden walls)
• RICHARD STEPHENS (Ig winner — swearing as a response to pain)
• JAMES HARKIN, DAN SCHREIBER and STEVYN COLGAN (researchers who dig up info for QI, Museum of Curiosity, and No Such Thing As a Fish)
• ANDREW GEORGE (scholar of the bad poetry of William Topaz McGonagall)
• A tribute to JOHN HOYLAND, father of Nominative Determinism
• ALEX DYSON (Luxuriant Flowing Hair Club for Scientists Man-of-the-Year)
• CHRIS McMANUS (Ig winner — Scrotal asymmetry in Sculpture & man)
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2015-03-07 Hash on Not-Very-Spicy Vegetable Limerick Competition
Not-very-spicy vegetable recipes inspire this month's limerick competition. To enter, compose an original limerick that clarifies the nature of this study:
"Why Vegetable Recipes are Not Very Spicy," Paul W. Sherman, and Geoffrey A. Hash, Evolution and Human Behavior, vol. 22, no. 3, 2001, pp. 147-163. <http://goo.gl/4kqH33> The authors write:
"A critical prediction of the antimicrobial hypothesis is that spices should be used less in preparing vegetables than meat dishes. This is because cells of dead plants are better protected physically and chemically against bacteria and fungi than cells of dead animals (whose immune system ceased functioning at death), so fewer spices would be necessary to make vegetables safe for consumption. We tested this corollary by compiling information on 2129 vegetable-only recipes from 107 traditional cookbooks of 36 countries."
Submit your perfectly formed limerick to:
HASH ON NOT-VERY-SPICY VEGETABLE LIMERICK COMPETITION
c/o <MARC aaattt IMPROBABLE dddooottt COM>
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2015-03-08 Orange Juice Fraud Spectroscopy Poet
The judges have chosen a winner in last month's Orange Juice Fraud Spectroscopy Limerick Competition, which asked for a limerick to honor this study:
"Detection of Orange Juice Frauds Using Front-Face Fluorescence Spectroscopy and Independent Components Analysis," Food Chemistry, vol. 168, February 1, 2015, pp. 211–217. <http://goo.gl/9As4z5>
The winner is INVESTIGATOR JOANNE ELISA LEARY, who wrote:
Suspect that your OJ's not pure?
There's a test that will show you for sure.
Front-face fluorescence
Reveals if the essence
Is orange, or something obscure.
Here's the offering from our LIMERICK LAUREATE, MARTIN EIGER:
The authors report, with conviction,
Their methods for citrus depiction.
Fluorescent light's glow
Helps the analyst know
If a sample exhibits pulp fiction.
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2015-03-09 MORE IMPROBABLE: Sound of flavor; Sheep; Comparison.
Recent improbable bits you maybe missed:
· "The sound of flavor" <http://goo.gl/9fyW9E>
· "Demo of physics of sheep through a bottleneck" <http://goo.gl/K00oUS>
· "New penis survey follows in footsteps of Ig Nobel Prize-winning study"< http://goo.gl/7c37kL>
New members of the Luxuriant Flowing Hair Clubs for Scientists (LFHCfS) and Social Scientists (LFFFHfSS):
· Lincoln Carr <http://goo.gl/35dm19>
· Amelie Stuart <http://goo.gl/ixchol>
· Mario Ettore Giardini <http://goo.gl/nOICOC>
· Halfdan Skjerning <http://goo.gl/7ZOJ8M>
· Stephen Goss <http://goo.gl/VU8pM9>
...AND LOTS MORE, at
[blog] <www.IMPROBABLE.com>
[twitter] @ImprobResearch, @MarcAbrahams, #IgNobel
[facebook] <http://www.facebook.com/improbableresearch>
[podcast] <http://goo.gl/GqUW6i>
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2015-03-10 MAY WE RECOMMEND: Hash for Defeating Downy Mildew
"Defeating Downy Mildew," Wendy A. Breese, C. Tom Hash, Arun Sharma, and John R. Witcombe, 2000. <http://goo.gl/gWo17X>
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2015-03-11 — Improbable Research Events
For details and additional events, see
<http://improbable.com/improbable-research-shows/complete-schedule>
Premiere of Improb Res weekly podcast — March 5, 2015
Ig Nobel Tour of Europe — Mar 12-30, 2015
San Antonio, TX — Apr 27, 2015
Ig Nobel Events in Japan — Jun, 2015
25th First Annual Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony — Sep 17, 2015
Ig Informal Lectures — Sep 19, 2015
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2015-03-12 — How to Get the Magazine (*)
The Annals of Improbable Research is a 6-issues-per-year magazine. (It's much bigger and better than the little bits in this newsletter.)
We produce each issue as an e-book, as well as on traditional paper.
E-BOOKS:
<http://www.improbable.com/magazine>
DOWNLOAD A FREE E-BOOK ISSUE: <http://goo.gl/BMzMw>
PAPER EDITION:
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(+1) 617-491-4437 <subscriptions AT improbable.com>
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2015-03-13 — Our Address (*)
Annals of Improbable Research (AIR)
PO Box 380853, Cambridge, MA 02238 USA
(+1) 617-491-4437
EDITORIAL: <MARC aaattt IMPROBABLE dddooottt COM>
PRINT SUBSCRIPTIONS: <subscriptions AT improbable.com>
Web Site and blog: <http://www.improbable.com>
Twitter: @ImprobResearch
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2015-03-14 — 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
CO-CONSPIRATORS: Kees Moeliker, Alice Shirrell Kaswell, Gary Dryfoos, Ernest Ersatz, 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 2015, Annals of Improbable Research
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2015-03-15 — How to start or stop receiving this newsletter (*)
Mini-AIR is a (free!) teeny-tiny monthly *supplement* to the actual six-times-a-year magazine AIR.
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