[mini-AIR] mini-AIR: Ig Nobel Tickets go on sale / research about sucking

Tue Jul 18 03:20:28 EDT 2017

mini-Annals of Improbable Research ("mini-AIR")
July 2017, issue number 2017-07. ISSN 1076-500X.
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  Research that makes people LAUGH, then THINK.
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01 TABLE OF CONTENTS

02 In the Magazine Itself: Lotsa Fears, Tears Research
03 Kid Sucks, Mom Drinks
04 Ig Nobel — Tickets Go On Sale Thursday, July 20
05 The High-Amplitude Sucking Quest [LIMERICK CONTEST]
06 Swallowing-Sound
07 MORE IMPROBABLE: Mouse Scratching Acoustics, Coffee
08 High Amplitude Sucking Procedure
09 IMPROBABLE EVENTS
10 — How to Get The Magazine (*)
11 — How to start or stop receiving mini-AIR (*)
12 — Contact Info (*)
13 — Standard Gobbledegook (*)

	Items marked (*) are reprinted in every issue.

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02 In the Magazine Itself: Lotsa Fears, Tears Research

The special FEARS AND TEARS issue (vol. 23, no. 3) is downloadable. It and most other previous issues await you:

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

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

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03 Kid Sucks, Mom Drinks

This month's research spotlight shines on kids and moms:

"Sucking Frequency and Amplitude in Newborns As a Function of Maternal Drinking and Smoking," D. C. Martin, J.C. Martin, A.P. Streissguth, and C.A. Lund, Currents in Alcoholism, vol. 5, 1978, pp. 359-366. <https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/755637>

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04 Ig Nobel — Tickets Go On Sale Thursday, July 20

Tickets for the 27th First Annual Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony go on sale July 20 — at NOON (US eastern time), 
exclusively from the Harvard Box Office.
TICKETS: <https://is.gd/FgfmO4>

This year's theme: UNCERTAINTY.
This year' ceremony will include a new mini-opera, "The Incompetence Opera". It celebrates the Dunning-Kruger Effect and the Peter Principle.
DETAILS: <http://www.improbable.com/ig/2017>

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05 The High-Amplitude Sucking Quest [LIMERICK CONTEST]

This month's challenge — 
Devise a pleasing limerick that encapsulates this study:

"High-Amplitude Sucking and Newborns: The Quest for Underlying Mechanisms," Caroline Floccia, Anne Christophe, and Josiane Bertoncini, Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, vol. 64, no. 2, 1997, pp. 175-198.  <https://is.gd/EPFwou> The authors, at CNRS-EHESS, Paris, France and University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland, report:

"Experiment 2 showed that an increase in sucking rates could be obtained after a stimulus change, when sounds were presented contingently, but not when sounds were presented noncontingently."

Submit your perfectly formed, delightfully enlightening limerick to:

	SUCKING LIMERICK COMPETITION
	c/o <MARC aaattt IMPROBABLE dddooottt COM>

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06 Swallowing-Sound

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

"Characterization of Swallowing Sound: Preliminary Investigation of Normal Subjects," Tsuyoshi Honda, Takuro Baba, Keiko Fujimoto, Takaharu Goto, Kan Nagao, Masafumi Harada, Eiichi Honda, and Tetsuo Ichikawa, PLoS ONE, vol. 11, no. 12, 2016, e0168187. <https://is.gd/aRYXvh>

The winner is INVESTIGATOR KEITH ELWOOD, who wrote:

Acoustical researchers found
Concerning our swallowing sound:
  Their principal thought is
  The larynx and glottis
And hyoid bone bouncing around.

The word from our LIMERICK LAUREATE, MARTIN EIGER:

The cavities, cavernous, hollow,
That drinks that we drink have to follow —
  Let them go, let them flow,
  Let fluoroscopy show
All the sources of sound as we swallow.

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07 MORE IMPROBABLE: Mouse Scratching Acoustics, Coffee

Recent improbable research bits you may have missed...

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

<> Automated Acoustic Detection of Mouse Scratching
<> A Visit to the World of the Ig Nobel Prizes
<> Six Cups of Coffee Goes to Your Head, for Surgical Guidance

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

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08 High Amplitude Sucking Procedure

"High Amplitude Sucking Procedure," K. Byers-Heinlein, in P.J. Brooks, and V. Kempe, [Eds.], Encyclopaedia of Language Development, Sage Publications, 2014, pp. 263-264. <https://is.gd/xzitSp> The authors report:

Infants are offered a sterilized pacifier, which is connected to a pressure transducer. The pacifier is held in place either by the experimenter or by a mechanical arm. The pressure transducer relays information to an adjacent computer about the frequency and intensity of the infants’ sucking."

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09 IMPROBABLE EVENTS

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

Ig Nobel Ceremony TICKETS go on sale — Jul 20, 2017
2017 Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony		— Sep 14, 2017
Ig Informal Lectures				— Sep 16, 2017
Ig Nobel Fall EuroTour
	U Manchester, UK				— Nov 29, 2017
	EMBL, Heidelberg, Germany		— Dec 4, 2017
SLAS Conference, San Diego		— Feb 7, 2018
AAAS Annual Meeting, Austin, TX		— Feb 2018
Ig Nobel Spring EuroTour			— Mar 2018
Northwest Rheumatism Society,
	Portland, OR					— Apr 26, 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 — 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.

   To SUBSCRIBE or UNSUBSCRIBE to mini-AIR:
   <http://five.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/mini-air>

   ARCHIVES: <http://improbable.com/airchives/miniair>

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12— 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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13 — Standard Gobbledegook (*)

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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