[mini-AIR] mini-AIR: Ig Nobel Ceremony is coming. And in the magazine: disgusting research.

Thu Aug 29 12:06:07 EDT 2019

mini-Annals of Improbable Research ("mini-AIR")
August 2019, issue number 2019-08. 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: Disgusting Research
04 Prompting Promptness 
05 A-Look-Back-at-Déjà-Vu Challenge
06 Balls-Rolling-Off-Tables Winner
07 MORE IMPROBABLE: Researchers Eating Their Research Subjects?
08 Reusing Old Graves [Ecclesiastically/Legalistically Appraised]
09 IMPROBABLE EVENTS
10 — Subscribe to the Actual Magazine! (*)
11 — How to start or stop receiving this little newsletter (*)
12 — Contact Info (*)
13 — Standard Gobbledegook (*)

	Items marked (*) are reprinted in every issue.

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02 Imminent Events

<> The 29th First Annual IG NOBEL PRIZE CEREMONY happens on Thursday, September 12. 
The IG INFORMAL LECTURES, happen two days later, on September 14.

TICKETS (well, a few tickets) for the ceremony are still available: <https://tinyurl.com/y6b2lh7p>

Both events will be webcast, at <www.improbable.com>

CEREMONY & LECTURE DETAILS:
<https://www.improbable.com/ig-about/2019-ceremony/>

FULL IMPROBABLE EVENTS SCHEDULE: <http://www.improbable.com/improbable-research-shows/complete-schedule/>

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03 IN THE MAGAZINE ITSELF: Disgusting Research

	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 Disgusting Research issue (vol. 25, no. 4), is out and about. It is full of delightfully disgusting research:
<https://www.improbable.com/airchives/paperair/volume25/v25i4/v25i4.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 Prompting Promptness 

"On ‘Arriving On Time’, But What Is ‘On Time’?",
Tim Schwanen, Geoforum, 2006, vol. 37, pp. 882–94. (Thanks to Tom Gill for bringing this to our attention.) <https://tinyurl.com/yxdqf2wd>
The author, at Utrecht University, The Netherlands, explains:

"Geographers have typically operationalised the 'when' dimension of coupling constrains through arrival times at locations in physical space or the starting time of specific activities. This paper questions this approach and posits that it may be more productive to identify time-spans of acceptable or appropriate arrival times. However, these time-spans should not be expressed solely with reference to clock time. This is because boundaries on what is acceptable or appropriate depend not only on clock time but also on the times of the body and especially the time inherent to the dynamics in the juxtapositions and presence/absence of human beings and inanimate objects within a bounded physical space."

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05 A-Look-Back-at-Déjà-Vu Challenge

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

 “A Review of the Déjà Vu Experience,” 
Alan. S. Brown, Psychological Bulletin, vol. 129, no.  3, May 2003, pp. 394–413. <https://tinyurl.com/yyv5vbz4>
(Thanks to Neil Martin for bringing this to our attention.) The author, at Southern Methodist University, explains:

"Systematic research is needed on the prevalence and etiology of this culturally familiar cognitive experience."

Submit your perfectly formed, delightfully enlightening limerick to:

	LOOK-BACK-AT-DÉJÀ-VU LIMERICK COMPETITION
	c/o <MARC aaattt IMPROBABLE dddooottt COM>

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06 Balls-Rolling-Off-Tables Winner

The judges have chosen co-winners in last month's Competition, which asked for a limerick to explain 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>

INVESTIGATOR ROSE FOX writes

While writing requests for a grant
I noticed my desk had a slant.
  A ball in the hand
  Is worth several grand
To study its roll deviant.

INVESTIGATOR FRED BETHKE writes:

Balls roll from one point -- that seems clear.
But somehow go random. They veer.
  If the table top's true,
  Not twisted askew,
It's the start governs all, 'twould appear.

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

I will stare at this round thing until
It rolls off the table.  It will.
  I've crunched numbers.  I know
  Just where it will go.
But until then, it's perfectly still.

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07 MORE IMPROBABLE: Researchers Eating Their Research Subjects?

Recent improbable research bits you may have missed...

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

* Should Researchers Refrain from Eating Their Research Subjects?
* PhD Fellowship in Meal Detection by Analysis of Bowel Sounds
* A Mud Deglossing Machine

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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08 Reusing Old Graves [Ecclesiastically/Legalistically Appraised]

"Reusing Old Graves: A Report on Popular British Attitudes, Douglas Davies and Alastair Shaw. Shaw & Sons Ltd, 21 Bourne Park, Bourne Road, Crayford, Kent DA1 4BZ, 1995, 175 pp inc appendices (paperback £24.95), ISBN 0 7219 1470 5" [Book review], Stephen White, Ecclesiastical Law Journal, vol. 4, no. 19 July 1996, pp. 590-592. <https://tinyurl.com/y6mkhpzp>

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09 IMPROBABLE EVENTS

Knight Sci Journalism, Cambridge, MA	—Sept 10, 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
Saudia Arabia				—Oct, 2019
Lubbock, TX				—Oct 25, 2019
Beijing, China				—Jan 12, 2020
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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10 — 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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11 — 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:
   <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, USA
Twitter: @ImprobResearch

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13 — 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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