[mini-AIR] mini-AIR: Cough, comfort food, egg-in-your-eye

Thu Feb 23 10:56:36 EST 2017

mini-Annals of Improbable Research ("mini-AIR")
Febuary 2017, issue number 2017-02. ISSN 1076-500X.
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  Research that makes people LAUGH, then THINK.
 		This is a tiny supplement to the magazine
		Annals of Improbable Research.
		Archive at <http://improbable.com/airchives/miniair>
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01 TABLE OF CONTENTS

02 Impending Events: Duck, Then Ig Nobel EuroTour
03 In the Magazine Itself: Sneeze, Cough, Blowwwwwwwww
04 SPOTLIGHT: Comfort of Looking at Pix of Comfort Food
05 Myth-of-Comfort-Food Limerick Contest
06 Cesspits/P-P-P-P-Problem Poet
07 MORE IMPROBABLE: Cork in Your Eye, Egg in Your Eye
08 MAY WE RECOMMEND: Mood Manipulation At the Buffet

09 Improbable Research Events
10 — How to Get The Magazine (*)
11 — Contact Info (*)
12 — Standard Gobbledegook (*)
13 — How to start or stop receiving mini-AIR (*)

	Items marked (*) are reprinted in every issue.

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02 Impending Events: Duck, Then Ig Nobel EuroTour

	"The Homosexual Necrophiliac Duck Opera", 
		London, UK			— February 26, 2017

	Ig Nobel Spring EuroTour	— March-April 2017
		UK, Switzerland, Austria, Norway,
		Sweden, Austria, Italy, The Netherlands

Details: <http://www.improbable.com/improbable-research-shows/complete-schedule/>

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03 In the Magazine Itself: Sneeze, Cough, Blowwwwwwwww

The special SNEEZING, COUGHING, NOSE-BLOWING issue (vol. 23, no. 1) of the magazine awaits your squint.
<https://is.gd/ogf7fg>

	SUBSCRIPTIONS & SINGLE ISSUES: <https://gumroad.com/improbable>

	Tables of Contents: <http://www.improbable.com/magazine/>

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04 SPOTLIGHT: Comfort of Looking at Pix of Comfort Food

This month's research spotlight shines on comforting pictures of comfort food:

"No Calorie Comfort: Viewing and drawing 'Comfort Foods' Similarly Augment Positive Mood for Those With Depression," Gregory J Privitera, Deeanna Welling, Gabriela Tejada, Nicole Sweazy, Kayla N. Cuifolo, Quentin W. King-Shepard, and P. Murali Doraiswamy, Journal of Health Psychology, epub 2016. <https://is.gd/9KrvRT> (Thanks to Mustafa M. Husain for bringing this to our attention.) The authors, at St. Bonaventure University and Duke University, explain:

"we tested the hypothesis that viewing/drawing visual images of comfort foods in the absence of eating will increase positive mood and that this effect is augmented for those with clinical symptoms of depression.... 
Results show a consistent pattern: viewing/drawing comfort foods and fruits enhanced mood. For comfort foods, mood was augmented for those with clinical symptoms of depression."

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05 Myth-of-Comfort-Food Limerick Contest

This month's challenge: Devise a limerick that explains this study:

"The Myth of Comfort Food," Heather Scherschel Wagner, Britt Ahlstrom, Joseph P. Redden, Zata Vickers, and Traci Mann, Health Psychology, vol. 33, no. 12, 2014, pp. 1552-1557. <http://behaviorlab.org/Papers/Comfort.pdf> The authors, at the University of Minnesota, explain:

"Results: Comfort foods led to significant improvements in mood, but no more than other foods or no food. Conclusions: Although people believe that comfort foods provide them with mood benefits, comfort foods do not provide comfort beyond that of other foods (or no food)."

Submit your perfectly formed, delightfully enlightening limerick to:

	MYTH-OF-COMFORT-FOOD LIMERICK COMPETITION
	c/o <MARC aaattt IMPROBABLE dddooottt COM>

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06 Cesspits/P-P-P-P-Problem Poet

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

"Cesspits and the P-P-P-P-problem: The Pitfall of the Pompeii Premise and the Palimpsest," Roos van Oosten, Quaternary International, epub 2016. <https://is.gd/uN5F4o>

The winner is INVESTIGATOR TONY HARKER, who wrote:

A cess-pit's a record of history
Which you might shovel out, with hands blistery.
  But if you mix the strata
  You'll make sequence errata
And archaeology into a mystery.

The word from our LIMERICK LAUREATE, MARTIN EIGER:

Archaeologists study a city,
Unearthing its trash, raw and gritty.
  But why is it hushed
  That the cesspit's been flushed?
Conclusions are, sadly, not pretty.

[Eiger adds: "Some day, an archaeologist will find one of my limericks in a cesspit. I'll be honored."]

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07 MORE IMPROBABLE: Cork in Your Eye, Egg in Your Eye

Recent improbable research bits you may have missed...

The podcast:

	LISTEN / DOWNLOAD: <http://goo.gl/sxh7DX>

	#99 Can Consumers Recognize the Taste
		of their Favorite Beer?
	#100 Bottle-Cork in Your Eye
	#101 Egg in Your Eye
	#102 Triskaidekaphobia When People Buy a House

	NEWS!! Podcast episode #102 is the FINAL episode
	that we'll be doing together with CBS. 
	Thanks to CBS, for two fun years working together!
	* * *
	After this, the Improbable Research podcast 
	will have a NEW broadcast collaborator! 
	(You will always be able to find it
	at www.improbable.com, of course!)
	We'll have details for you soon, about that.

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

<> Dirty Books: Quantifying Patterns Using a Densitometer
<> The Hemline and The Economy – An Urban Legend
<> Many Women Have Men IN the Brain
	...and lots more

  FACEBOOK: <http://www.facebook.com/improbableresearch>
  TWITTER: @ImprobResearch, @MarcAbrahams, #IgNobel

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08 MAY WE RECOMMEND: Mood Manipulation At the Buffet

"Differential Food Intake and Food Choice by Depression and Body Mass Index Levels Following a Mood Manipulation in a Buffet-Style Setting," Gregory J. Privitera, Quentin W. King-Shepard, Kayla N. Cuifolo, P. Murali Doraiswamy, Journal of Health Psychology, epub 2016. <https://is.gd/DQ3huS> The authors explain:

"154 participants were grouped by depression and obesity categories, then asked to read a series of vignettes that were sad (on 1 day) and neutral (on a different day), followed by a buffet to eat until full. Food intake (in grams and calories) and food choice (number of high- or low-calorie food options) were recorded. Results showed that participants who were obese and depressed had significantly greater energy intake following the sad versus happy vignette."

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09 Improbable Research Events

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

Duck Opera, London, UK		— Feb 26, 2017
Harvard Univ					— Mar 1, 2017
Ig Nobel Spring EuroTour		— Mar-Apr 2017
Bahfest, MIT, Cambridge, MA		— Apr 23, 2017
Sarnoff Cardiovascular Research Annual Meeting
						— Apr 27, 2017
Ig Nobel Ceremony TICKETS go on sale	— Jul, 2017
2017 Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony	— Sep 14, 2017
Ig Informal Lectures			— Sep 16, 2017
Ig Nobel Fall EuroTour			— Nov 2017
SLAS Conference, San Diego	— Feb 7, 2018

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10 — How to Get The Magazine (*)

The Annals of Improbable Research is a 6-issues-per-year magazine, published in PDF form. It's packed with research that makes people laugh, then think. (mini-AIR, the thing you are reading at this moment, is but a tiny, free-floating appendix to the actual magazine.)

	<www.improbable.com/magazine/>
	SUBSCRIPTIONS	($25, for six issues) 
	SINGLE ISSUES 	($5 each)

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11 — CONTACT INFO (*)

Annals of Improbable Research (AIR)
<www.improbable.com>
EDITORIAL: <MARC aaattt IMPROBABLE dddooottt COM>
SUBSCRIPTION QUESTIONS: <subscriptions AT improbable.com>
Cambridge, MA 02138 USA, (+1) 617-491-4437
Twitter: @ImprobResearch

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12 — Standard Gobbledegook (*)

	------------- 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 2017, Annals of Improbable Research

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13 — How to start or stop receiving mini-AIR (*)

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