[mini-AIR] mini-AIR: Perspicacity, Needle Not, Tick Paralysis

Tue Jan 21 13:17:35 EST 2020

mini-Annals of Improbable Research ("mini-AIR")
January 2020, issue number 2020-01. 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: Ig Nobel, Impending Psychology
04 Are Free Agents Perspicacious Peregrinators?
05 Limerick Challenge: His Perspicacity on Tick Paralysis
06 Needle Not Winner
07 MORE IMPROBABLE: Giants, Profounderer, Crunchiness Lost
08 Perspicacious Pillar's Papers
09 IMPROBABLE EVENTS
20 — Subscribe to the Actual Magazine! (*)
21 — How to start or stop receiving this little newsletter (*)
22 — Contact Info (*)
23 — Standard Gobbledegook (*)

	Items marked (*) are reprinted in every issue.

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02 Imminent Events

	AAAS Annual Meeting, Seattle, WA, USA — February 15.
		The Improbable Research session
		 is open to the public, free. Bring friends.

	Ig Nobel EuroTour — March & April.
		The schedule still has room for 
		additional small events.
		If you'd like to host a talk,
		please email <marc atttttttt improbable dotttttttt com>.

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

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03 IN THE MAGAZINE ITSELF: Ig Nobel, Impending Psychology

	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 IG NOBEL issue (vol. 25, no. 6), awaits you:
<https://www.improbable.com/airchives/paperair/volume25/v25i6/v25i6.php> 

The special PSYCHOLOGY issue is in prep.

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 Are Free Agents Perspicacious Peregrinators?

This month's quasi-randomly selected dip into our vast collection of Improbable Research:

"Are Free Agents Perspicacious Peregrinators?" Donald J. Cymrot and James A. Dunlevy, Review of Economics and Statistics, vol. 69, no. 1, February 1987, pp. 50-8. <https://tinyurl.com/uwvf2lb> The authors explain:

"The perspicacious peregrinator model of Polachek and Horvath hypothesizes that individuals decide to migrate based on the size of potential gains. This model is tested using the migration decisions of Major League Baseball players between 1978 and 1980."

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05 Limerick Challenge: His Perspicacity on Tick Paralysis

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

"The Perspicacity of Seymour Hadwen on Tick Paralysis — A Commentary," M.W. Felz, Wilderness and Environmental Medicine, vol. 11 No. 2, 2000, pp. 113-121. <https://tinyurl.com/uwlvdmp> The author explains:

"A commentary on a study of tick paralysis by Seymour Hadwen is presented. Clinical and investigative insights are evaluated. The similarities between Hadwen's observations and those of Allen Steere involving Lyme disease are explained. Research and clinical observations supporting Hadwen's findings are discussed."

Submit your perfectly formed, delightfully enlightening limerick to:

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

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06 Needle Not Winner

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

Loss of a Sewing Needle in the Tongue During Attempted Tongue Piercing: Report of a Case," Terrence R. Nedbalski, Daniel M. Laskin, Journal of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, vol. 64, no. 1, January 2006, pp. 135-7.

INVESTIGATOR JOANNE ELISA LEARY writes:

When piercing one’s tongue on the cheap,
Be advised of the harvest you’ll reap.
  If you cut off the pin
  After putting it in,
You’ll lose it, and then how you’ll weep.

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

At the hospital, in came some guy,
After piercing his tongue when awry.
  But the docs saved the day,
  Kept infection at bay.
So what Darwin said doesn't apply.

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07 MORE IMPROBABLE: Giants, Profounderer, Crunchiness Lost

Recent improbable research bits you may have missed...

BLOG: <http://www.improbable.com/>:
* "Big Men" in Leadership Roles
* "Bullshit Makes the Art Grow Profounder" study
* Hair Club member and three (3) Ig Nobel Prizewinners named among the "50 Most Influential Psychologists"
<https://www.improbable.com/category/lfhcfs-hair-club/>

PODCAST: 
<https://www.improbable.com/category/the-weekly-improbable-research-podcast/> 
Episode 201—Crunchiness Lost, Clever Contraptions to Trap Crooks, Shoe-Throwing at Weddings, Untied Laces Across the World, Moving Violations of Washing Machines, Stool Pigeons, Clothes for Clothes Shopping, Tanning Beds, Frozen Mammoth Meat, and Neurological Damage from Praying.

FACEBOOK: <http://www.facebook.com/improbableresearch>

TWITTER: @ImprobResearch, @MarcAbrahams, #IgNobel

PATREON: www.patreon.com/ImprobableResearch

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08 Perspicacious Pillar's Papers

This month's quasi-randomly selected other dip into our vast collection of Improbable Research:

"Perspicacious Pillar's Papers," Glenn G. Gilbert, American Speech, vol. 59, no. 3, Autumn, 1984, pp. 236-239. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/454492>

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09 IMPROBABLE EVENTS

Beijing, China						—Jan 13, 2020
Arisia, Boston, MA, USA				—Jan 17, 2020
MIT, Cambridge, MA, USA			—Feb 23, 2020
AAAS Annual Meeting, Seattle, USA	—Feb 2020
Ig Nobel EuroTour					—Mar/Apr 2020
Ig Nobel ceremony TICKETS go on sale	—Jul, 2020
30th First Annual Ig Nobel ceremony	—Sep 17, 2020
Ig Informal Lectures				—Sep 19, 2020
Osaka, Japan						—Fall, 2020

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

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20 — Subscribe to the Actual Magazine! (*)

The Annals of Improbable Research is a 6-issues-per-year magazine, 
in PDF form. 
It's packed with research that makes people laugh, then think.

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

(mini-AIR, the thing you are reading at this moment, is but a tiny, free-floating appendix to the actual magazine.)

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21 — 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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22 — 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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23 — 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 2020, Annals of Improbable Research

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