[mini-AIR] mini-AIR: Ig Nobel Tickets go on sale, bouncing, rolling, etc

Mon Jul 1 17:15:06 EDT 2019

mini-Annals of Improbable Research ("mini-AIR")
July 2019, issue number 2019-07. ISSN 1076-500X.
	<https://www.improbable.com/airchives/miniair/>
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  Research that makes people LAUGH, then THINK.
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01 TABLE OF CONTENTS

02 Imminent Events
03 IN THE MAGAZINE ITSELF: Habits and Tricks, then Animals
04 Bounce, Bounce, Bounce, and So On
05 Ig Nobel TICKETS Go on Sale
06 Balls Rolling Off Tables Challenge
07 Rats' Cadavers Winner
08 MORE IMPROBABLE: Cramp Writer Booze, Powdering, Maggots
09 Dynamical Bias in the Coin Toss
10 IMPROBABLE EVENTS
11 — Subscribe to the Actual Magazine! (*)
12 — How to start or stop receiving this little newsletter (*)
13 — Contact Info (*)
14 — Standard Gobbledegook (*)

	Items marked (*) are reprinted in every issue.

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02 Imminent Events

<> Improbable Table Talk (Hazards of Bearded Men), July 8, 2019. 

<> TICKETS to the 29th First Annual IG NOBEL PRIZE CEREMONY will go on sale WEDNESDAY, JULY 10, 2019.

<> Readercon, Quincy, MA, USA, July 14-16, 2019.

DETAILS, and full schedule: <http://www.improbable.com/improbable-research-shows/complete-schedule/>

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03 IN THE MAGAZINE ITSELF: Habits and Tricks, then Animals

	WHAT YOU ARE READING AT THIS MOMENT
	is just our monthly newsletter, (mini-AIR).

	Our best stuff goes into the actual magazine:
	Annals of Improbable Research (AIR). 

The special Animals issue is in prep. The special Habits & Tricks issue (vol. 25, no. 2), meanwhile, habitually awaits your acquiring, reading, and re-reading it:
<https://www.improbable.com/airchives/paperair/volume25/v25i2/v25i2.php>

SUBSCRIBE to the MAGAZINE, or get SINGLE ISSUES:
	<https://gumroad.com/improbable>

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

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04 Bounce, Bounce, Bounce, and So On

This month's Research revolves around roundness and rhythm:

"Bouncing a Ball: Tuning into Dynamic Stability," D. Sternad, M. Duarte, H. Katsumata, and S. Schaal, Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, vol. 27, no. 5, October 2001, pp. 1163-84. <https://tinyurl.com/y2rkbrgz>
The authors, at Pennsylvania State University, report on their experiment:

"Rhythmically bouncing a ball with a racket was investigated... Performance with eyes closed was more variable..."

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05 Ig Nobel TICKETS Go on Sale

Tickets for the 29th First Annual Ig Nobel Prize ceremony go on sale Wednesday, July 10, 2019, at NOON (US eastern time), 
exclusively from the Harvard Box Office. 

TICKETS: <https://tinyurl.com/y6b2lh7p>

CEREMONY INFO:
<https://www.improbable.com/ig-about/2019-ceremony/>

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06 Balls Rolling Off Tables Challenge

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

"How Balls Roll Off Tables," M.E. Bacon, American Journal of Physics, vol. 73, no. 8, 2005, pp. 722-4. <https://tinyurl.com/y25qs34l>
(Thanks to Tom Roberts for bringing this to our attention.) The author, at Thiel College, reports:

"The considerable scatter in the data points is most likely due to variations in the initial alignment of the ball and the possibility that the ball rolled off the table at slightly different points from run to run."

Submit your perfectly formed, delightfully enlightening limerick to:

	BALLS-ROLLING-OFF-TABLES LIMERICK COMPETITION
	c/o <MARC aaattt IMPROBABLE dddooottt COM>

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07 Rats' Cadavers Winner

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

"Effect of Some Household Products (Kerosene, Insecticide and Perfume) on Arthropods Colonization on Rats' Cadavers," Nagwa M. Ghandour, and Rasha A.H. Attia, Ain Shams Journal of Forensic Medicine and Clinical Toxicology, vol. 20, 2013, pp. 61-71. 
<https://ajfm.journals.ekb.eg/article_19387_a502091c5b5659b6761600b531fcccd2.pdf>

INVESTIGATOR Michael Hodgkin writes:

Some products you use in the house
Applied to a dead rat or mouse
  May act to determine
  Which species of vermin
Arrives first, the fly or the louse.

This month's take from our LIMERICK LAUREATE, MARTIN EIGER:

Arthropods look to beset
My dead body, a serious threat.
  Household products, each day,
  Will keep vermin away.
But let's not start applying them yet.

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08 MORE IMPROBABLE: Cramp Writer Booze, Powdering, Maggots

Recent improbable research bits you may have missed...

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

* Can Boozing Alleviate Writer's Cramp?
* Rubbing Pubic Hair with Cocaine-Contaminated Hands
* Olga Shishkov's Maggots [video]

Luxuriant Flowing Hair Club for Scientists (LFHCfS) and its sibling clubs: <https://www.improbable.com/category/lfhcfs-hair-club/>

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

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09 Dynamical Bias in the Coin Toss

"Dynamical Bias in the Coin Toss," Persi Diaconis, Susan Holmes, and Richard Montgomery. SIAM [Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics] Review, vol. 49, no. 2, 2007, pp. 211–35. <https://tinyurl.com/y5z2tyzg> (Thanks to Kristine Danowki for bringing this to our attention.) The authors explain:

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10 IMPROBABLE EVENTS

Table Talk, Cambridge, MA, USA		—Jul 8, 2019
Ig Nobel TICKETS go on sale			—Jul 10, 2019
Readercon, Quincy, MA, USA			—Jul 12-14, 2019
Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony			—Sep 12, 2019
Ig Informal Lectures				—Sep 14, 2019
BeWORKS Summit, Ottawa, Canada	—Sep 23, 2019
Red Hat, Boston, MA, USA			—Oct 8, 2019
Lubbock, TX						—Oct 25, 2019
Arisia, Boston, MA, USA				—Jan 2020
AAAS Annual Meeting, Seattle		—Feb 2020
Ig Nobel EuroTour					—Mar/Apr 2020
Osaka, Japan						—Fall, 2020

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

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11 — Subscribe to the Actual 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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12 — How to start or stop receiving this newsletter (*)

This newsletter, Mini-AIR, is just a (free!) tiny monthly *supplement* to the big, bold six-times-a-year magazine Annals of Improbable Research.

   To SUBSCRIBE or UNSUBSCRIBE to mini-AIR:
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13 — CONTACT INFO (*)

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

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14 — Standard Gobbledegook (*)

EDITOR: Marc Abrahams
CO-CONSPIRATORS: Kees Moeliker, Alice Shirrell Kaswell, Gary Dryfoos, Nan Swift, 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 2019, Annals of Improbable Research

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