[mini-AIR] mini-AIR: Phrap overlap; great toe transfer; a phone for animals

Thu May 28 14:47:45 EDT 2015

mini-Annals of Improbable Research ("mini-AIR")
May 2015, issue number 2015-05. 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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2015-05-01 TABLE OF CONTENTS

2015-05-02 Imminent Events: Duck Day, Tokyo, Ig Nobel Tix
2015-05-03 In the Magazine: Dogs (and Cats)
2015-05-04 RESEARCH SPOTLIGHT: CATS, RATS, EARS, and Accounting
2015-05-05 PROGRESS REPORT about the future of our magazine!
2015-05-06 Phrap Overlap Rat Assembly Limerick Competition
2015-05-07 Great Toe Transfer Poets
2015-05-08 MORE IMPROBABLE: A Telephone for Animals, Door Etiquette
2015-05-09 MAY WE RECOMMEND: Identical-Jawed Rat Tooth Grasper Assembly
2015-05-10— Improbable Research Events
2015-05-11 — How to Get the Magazine (*)
2015-05-12 — Our Address (*)
2015-05-13 — Please Forward/Post This Issue! (*)
2015-05-14 — How to start or stop receiving this newsletter (*)

	Items marked (*) are reprinted in every issue.

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2015-05-02 Imminent Events: Duck Day, Tokyo, Ig Nobel Tix

· Dead Duck Day						— June 5
· Tokyo, Japan							— late June/early July
· Ig Nobel Ceremony TICKETS go on sale	— July 9

	DETAILS: <http://goo.gl/SEMgnw>

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2015-05-03 In the Magazine: Dogs (and Cats)

The special DOGS (AND CATS) issue of the magazine is at the printer now, and will soon meander out to subscribers. It will be followed, two months later, by the special CATS (AND DOGS) issue.

	Links to all issues: <http://www.improbable.com/magazine>

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2015-05-04 RESEARCH SPOTLIGHT: CATS, RATS, EARS, and Accounting

This month's spotlight shines on sometimes-neglected charms of acronyms and accounting:

"CATS, RATS, and EARS: making the case for ethnographic accounting research," Sten Jönsson, and Norman B. Macintosh, Accounting, Organizations and Society 22, no. 3, 1997, pp. 367-386. <http://goo.gl/o8WfXU> The authors, at Göteborgs Universitet, Germany and Queen's University, Canada, emote, in a way:

"In this paper we argue that ethnographic or interpretive accounting research studies (EARS), which have been marginalized by critical accounting theory studies (CATS) and rational accounting theory studies (RATS), are a valuable way to understand the way accounting works in actual organizational settings."

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2015-05-05 PROGRESS REPORT about the future of our magazine!

Progress there is, in our conversion of the magazine from paper to convivial PDFs. See last month's mini-AIR for details about why we are going to gradually (no rush!) phase out the paper version of the magazine — the Annals of Improbable Research — and phase in PDFs.

We have chosen what appears to be clearly the best platform for doing this. We have high hopes that buying subscriptions, or back issues, will be a simple, low-hassle (and low cost) experience. A big THANK YOU to the many people who gave us advice (and, in many cases, warnings about specifically which vendors to avoid!).

Lauren Maurer Trew, our bookmaster, is gearing the new system up for testing. We hope to launch it within the next few months. 

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2015-05-06 Phrap Overlap Rat Assembly Limerick Competition

Phrap overlap rat assembly inspires this month's limerick competition. To enter, compose an original limerick that clarifies the nature of this study:

"Improving Phrap-Based Assembly of the Rat Using 'Reliable' Overlaps." Michael Roberts, Aleksey V. Zimin, Wayne Hayes, Brian R. Hunt, Cevat Ustun, James R. White, Paul Havlak, and James Yorke. PloS One, vol. 3, no. 3, 2008, e1836. <http://goo.gl/jZ4T4s>

Submit your perfectly formed limerick to:

	PHRAP OVERLAP RAT LIMERICK COMPETITION
	c/o <MARC aaattt IMPROBABLE dddooottt COM>

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2015-05-07 Great Toe Transfer Poets

The judges have chosen co-winners in last month's Great Toe Transfer Limerick Competition, which asked for a limerick to honor this study:

"Preoperative and postoperative gait analyses of patients undergoing great toe-to-thumb transfer," Howard A. Lipton, James W. May Jr, and Sheldon R. Simon, Journal of Hand Surgery, vol. 12, no. 1, 1987, pp 66-69. <http://goo.gl/n6hP1A>

The winners are INVESTIGATOR DAVID WEINBERGER, who wrote:

"Your gait will be fine, understand,
If we sew a toe onto your hand.
   If we did the reverse
   It might be much worse,"
Said the doc in remarks made off hand.

...and INVESTIGATOR F.J. Bethke, who wrote:

Three cheers for the great toe migration,
It won't vitiate your pronation.
   Your gait will stay great,
   So no reason to wait.
Join the toes slash thumbs up celebration.

Here's the offering from our LIMERICK LAUREATE, MARTIN EIGER:

What changes does one undergo
On surgical loss of a toe?
  They study what comes
  When toes replace thumbs.
When not, then they don't want to know.

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2015-05-08 MORE IMPROBABLE: A Telephone for Animals, Door Etiquette

Recent improbable bits you maybe missed.

The weekly podcast:

	LISTEN / DOWNLOAD: 
		Play.it: <http://www1.play.it/audio/improbable-research>
		iTunes: <http://goo.gl/tDnUFW>
		Spotify: (coming soon!)
	LINKS to everything we discuss: <http://goo.gl/GqUW6i>

	#13 "A telephone for animals"
	#12 "Ostrich courtship of humans"
	#11 "Knight of the Living Dead"
	#10 "The birth of Murphy's Law"
	#09 "Psychotic security guards"

Newspaper column (in The Guardian):

	· Analysis of door opening/holding etiquette
		<http://goo.gl/uaZH9Q>

http://www.theguardian.com/education/2015/may/26/etiquette-do-you-hold-door-open

The blog:

	· "Swedish public TV broadcast of the Ig Nobel show in Stockholm"
			 <http://goo.gl/QKFs1k>
	· "Some people prefer orange skin"
			 <http://goo.gl/UEqK0Z>
	· "Champaign-cork RIFD: a new way to amplify narcissism "
			 <http://goo.gl/Vnqycg>
...and lots more

New member of the Luxuriant Flowing Hair Clubs for Scientists (LFHCfS) and the LFFFHfSS: 
<http://www.improbable.com/category/lfhcfs-hair-club/>

	· Eric Aston

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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2015-05-09 MAY WE RECOMMEND: Identical-Jawed Rat Tooth Grasper Assembly

"Rat Tooth Grasper Assembly With Identical Jaws," Keith R. John, Stephen T. Pastor, Scott Haack, and Steven J. Torer, U.S. Patent D689,606, issued September 10, 2013. <http://goo.gl/4XSrAf>

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2015-05-10 — Improbable Research Events

For details and additional events, see
<http://improbable.com/improbable-research-shows/complete-schedule>

Dead Duck Day, Rotterdam			— Jun 5, 2015
Ig Nobel Events in Japan			— Jun/Jul, 2015
Ig Nobel TICKETS go on sale			— July 9, 2015
25th First Annual Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony	— Sep 17, 2015
Ig Informal Lectures, MIT			— Sep 19, 2015
Vienna, Austria					— Oct 8, 2015
U Rhode Island					— Dec 8, 2015

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2015-05-11 — 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.)

PAPER EDITION: 
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2015-05-12 — 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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2015-05-13 — 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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2015-05-14 — How to start or stop receiving this newsletter (*)

Mini-AIR is a (free!) teeny-tiny monthly *supplement* 
to the big, bold six-times-a-year magazine AIR.
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