[mini-AIR] mini-AIR: coffee and wine, and the SciFri big broadcast (and frozen mammoth)

Mon Nov 23 20:33:30 EST 2015

mini-Annals of Improbable Research ("mini-AIR")
November 2015, issue number 2015-11. ISSN 1076-500X.
----------
The monthly wee little tiny mini update/alert from Improbable Research
	Archive at <http://improbable.com/airchives/miniair>

2015-11-01 TABLE OF CONTENTS

2015-11-02 Imminent Events: SciFri, RI, PINC, SIB
2015-11-03 In the Magazine: Ig Nobel Issue Imminent
2015-11-04 RESEARCH SPOTLIGHT: Coffee & Red Wine & Teeth
2015-11-05 Wine/Coffee Electro-Discrimination Limerick Contest
2015-11-06 Frozen Toe Poet
2015-11-07 MORE IMPROBABLE: Cooked Frozen Mammoth, Coffee, Stupid
2015-11-08 MAY WE RECOMMEND: Coffee in, Not Just With, Wine
2015-11-09 — Improbable Research Events
2015-11-10 — How to Get the Magazine (*)
2015-11-11 — Our Address (*)
2015-11-12 — Please Forward/Post This Issue! (*)
2015-11-13 — How to start or stop receiving this newsletter (*)

	Items marked (*) are reprinted in every issue.

2015-11-02 Imminent Events: SciFri, RI, PINC, SIB

	"Science Friday" annual day-after-Thanksgiving
	Ig Nobel special radio/web broadcast 		— Nov 27, 2015
	(It's the 2nd hour of the two-hour program)

	U Rhode Island						— Dec 8
	PINC, Sarasota, FL						— Dec 10
	SIBC, Portland, OR						— Jan 5, 2016

2015-11-03 In the Magazine: Ig Nobel Issue Imminent

The special IG NOBEL issue of the magazine (vol. 21, no. 6) will burst forth a few days from now, with a full, photo-stuffed report about what happened at the 25th First Annual Ig Nobel Prize ceremony. And with other stuff, too.

REMINDER: 
All issues of the magazine henceforth will be published in PDF form. (21:6 will be the last issue we publish also on paper.)

	SUBSCRIPTIONS & BACK ISSUES & TOCs:
	<http://www.improbable.com/magazine/>

2015-11-04 RESEARCH SPOTLIGHT: Coffee & Red Wine & Teeth

This month's spotlight shines on a mouthful:

"Influence of coffee and red wine on tooth color during and after bleaching," Gabriel Côrtes, Núbia Pavesi Pini, Débora Alves Nunes Leite Lima, Priscila Christiane Susy Liporoni, Egberto Munin, Gláucia Maria Bovi Ambrosano, Flávio Henrique Baggio Aguiar, and José Roberto Lovadino, Acta Odontologica Scandinavica 71, no. 6, 2013, pp. 1475-1480. <http://goo.gl/FJgy2N> The authors, at State University of Campinas, Brazil, and other institutions, report:

"The aim of this study was to evaluate the influence of coffee and red wine staining on tooth color during and after bleaching.... After the whitening procedures, both stain therapies—coffee and wine—caused enamel color changes; however, the wine led to greater staining than did coffee."

2015-11-05 Wine/Coffee Electro-Discrimination Limerick Contest

Wine, coffee, and electro-snouts infuse this month's limerick competition. To enter, compose an original limerick that clarifies the nature of this study:

"Improving the Performance of an Electronic Nose by Wine Aroma Training to Distinguish between Drip Coffee and Canned Coffee,"  K. Fujioka, Y. Tomizawa, N. Shimizu, K. Ikeda, and Y. Manome, Sensors (Basel), vol. 15, no. 1, 2015, pp. 1354-1364. <http://goo.gl/bEHw9C> The authors, at the The Jikei University School of Medicine and other instititions in Tokyo, report:

"Although electronic noses have been successfully used for objective analysis and differentiation of total coffee aromas, it is difficult to use them to describe the specific features of coffee aroma (i.e., the type of smell).... In this paper, we present an electronic nose that is capable of learning the wine related aromas using the aroma kit 'Le Nez du Vin,' and the potential to describe coffee aroma in a similar manner comparable to how wine experts describe wine aroma."

Submit your perfectly formed, delightful limerick to:

	WINE/COFFEE ELECTRO-DISCRIMINATION LIMERICK COMPETITION
	c/o <MARC aaattt IMPROBABLE dddooottt COM>

2015-11-06 Frozen Toe Poet

The judges have chosen a winner in last month's Frozen Toe of Glacier Snout Limerick Competition, which asked for a limerick to honor this study:

"Frozen Toe (Outer Zone of Glacier Snout)," Pratima Pandey, Encyclopedia of Snow, Ice and Glaciers, Encyclopedia of Earth Sciences Series 2014, p 311. <http://goo.gl/hG9O3C>

The winner is INVESTIGATOR MATTHEW K. CHEW, who wrote:

There's hardly a shadow of doubt,
What the article here is about.
  But metaphors facial
  Have failed at the glacial:
A toe at the end of the snout?

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

A glacier's a big bunch of snow,
So much that the snow starts to flow.
  We call one end the head,
  While the other, it's said,
Is the snout, and its tip is the toe.

2015-11-07 MORE IMPROBABLE: Cooked Frozen Mammoth, Coffee, Stupid

Recent improbable bits you maybe missed.

The weekly podcast, with dramatic readings
from bizarre-seeming research studies:

	LISTEN / DOWNLOAD: <http://goo.gl/sxh7DX>
		(It's also on Play.it, iTunes, and Spotify)

	#38 Color preference in the insane, with frozen mammoth
	#37 Shoe-throwing at weddings & wandering washing machines
	#36 Crunchiness loss and headless mannequins
	#35 The psychoanalysts’ nose, and hair in funny places

The blog: <http://www.improbable.com/>:

	· An authoritative answer to the coffee/health question
	· What is stupid(ity)?
	· Algorithm predicts winner of 2016 U.S. Presidential election
	...and lots more

MORE MORE MORE, at 
	[twitter]	@ImprobResearch, @MarcAbrahams, #IgNobel
	[facebook]	<http://www.facebook.com/improbableresearch>

2015-11-08 MAY WE RECOMMEND: Coffee in, Not Just With, Wine

"A Preliminary Report On The Use Of Coffee Pulp In Wine Brewing," Wang Yuguang, Lei Luwang, Hu Guanglie, Li Meiqiu, and Qiu Zhibing, Chinese Journal of Tropical Crops, vol. 1, 1989. <http://goo.gl/r6K0q9>

2015-11-09 — Improbable Research Events

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

"Science Friday" Ig Nobel radio	— Nov 27, 2015
U Rhode Island				— Dec 8, 2015
PINC, Sarasota, FL				— Dec 10, 2015
SIBC, Portland, OR				— Jan 5, 2016
AAAS, Washington, DC			— Feb TBA, 2016
Ig Nobel EuroTour				— Mar TBA, 2016
ESOF, Manchester, UK			— Jul TBA, 2016

—————————
2015-11-10 — How to Get the Magazine (*)

The Annals of Improbable Research is a 6-issues-per-year magazine, in PDF form. It's chock full of research that makes people laugh, then think. (It's got muuuuuuch more stuff than the little bits you see this newsletter.)

	SUBSCRIPTIONS and BACK-ISSUES: 
	<http://www.improbable.com/magazine/>

—————————
2015-11-11 — Our Address (*)

Annals of Improbable Research (AIR)
PO Box 380853, Cambridge, MA 02238 USA
(+1) 617-491-4437

EDITORIAL: <MARC aaattt IMPROBABLE dddooottt COM>
SUBSCRIPTIONS: <subscriptions AT improbable.com>
Web Site and blog: <http://www.improbable.com>
Twitter: @ImprobResearch

—————————
2015-11-12 — 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

—————————
2015-11-13 — 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.
   ...................................................
   To subscribe or unsubscribe, please visit
   <http://five.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/mini-air>
   ...................................................
—————————