[mini-AIR] mini-AIR - Handstand, grandstand, gift to self

Marc Abrahams marc at improbable.com
Sun Dec 20 19:29:35 EST 2020 

mini-Annals of Improbable Research ("mini-AIR")
December 2020, issue number 2020-12. ISSN 1076-500X.
	<https://www.improbable.com/airchives/miniair/>
----------
  Research that makes people LAUGH, then THINK.
—————————

01 TABLE OF CONTENTS

02 IN THE MAGAZINE ITSELF: Liars & Con Men, with Ig Imminent
03 Handstand Energy Assessment
04 Gift to Self
05 Ig Informal Lectures Schedule
06 Limerick Challenge: Double-Hand Handstand on the Neck Feasibility
07 Sniffing-in-Conversation Winner
08 MORE IMPROBABLE: Jellyfish Grasping, Wine-Cheese-Cognitive
09 Outstanding Clots from Headstanding
20 SOME IMPROBABLE EVENTS
30 — Subscribe to the Actual Magazine! (*)
31 — How to start or stop receiving this little newsletter (*)
32 — Contact Info (*)
33 — Standard Gobbledegook (*)

	Items marked (*) are reprinted in every issue.


—————————
02 IN THE MAGAZINE ITSELF: Liars & Con Men, with Ig Imminent

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

	This is overflow bits-and-pieces overflow detritus from
	the actual magazine Annals of Improbable Research (AIR). 

The special LIARS & CON MEN issue of the magazine is available for detection, and intellectual incarceration:
<https://www.improbable.com/airchives/paperair/volume26/v26i5/v26i5.php >

The next issue (vol 26, no. 6), this year's special IG NOBEL issue, is imminent. It's in the final stages of prep.

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

	SUBSCRIBE to the MAGAZINE, 
	or get BACK ISSUES (there are more than 150 of them!):
	<https://gumroad.com/improbable>


—————————
03 Handstand Energy Assessment

This month's maybe-random research item:

"Energy Cost of a Handstand," E. Shvartz, Journal of Sports Medicine and Physical Fitness, vol. 8. no. 1, March 1968, pp. 18-20. <https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/5657941/>


—————————
04 Gift to Self

If you can talk yourself into being nice to yourself in an improbable way, get yourself a subscription to the magazine:
<https://www.improbable.com/publications/magazine/>

<> It's cheap ($25 for six new issues a year).

<> It's got the most (most in both quantity and quality) happily-surprising stuff in it of almost any source of happily-surprising stuff.

<> You can read it aloud, with your own dramatic vocal genius, to either attract or drive away friends and relatives.

The history of science (and everything) is chock full of (maybe is mostly?) things that (1) got noticed and celebrated, then (2) got forgotten or overlooked, and then, much later, (3) got noticed again. The magazine finds and flaunts stuff, both old and new, from category two.


—————————
05 Ig Informal Lectures Schedule

We have begun posting videos of the 2020 Ig Informal Lectures, one at a time: 
<https://www.improbable.com/ig-about/the-30th-first-annual-ig-nobel-prize-ceremony/#lectures>

Here are the release dates:

* November 26th, 2020: Economics
* December 3rd, 2020: Psychology
* December 17th, 2020: Medicine
* December 24th, 2020: Physics
* December 31st, 2020: Entomology
* January 7th, 2021: Acoustics
* January 14th, 2021: Materials Science

In the Ig Informal Lectures, as you probably know, the new Ig Nobel Prize winners explain, if they can, what they did and why they did it.


—————————
06 Limerick Challenge: Double-Hand Handstand on the Neck Feasibility

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

"Feasibility Analysis of the Skill of Double-Hand Handstand to Handstand on the Neck in Men Acrobatics," Qiu-shuang Zhao, Journal of Tianjin Institute of Physical Education, vol. 3, 2003. <https://tinyurl.com/y858g9ax> The author, at Xiamen University, China, reports:

"The skill of acrobatics form doubles hand handstand to handstand on the neck, completed by men pair of Fujian players though not wide put into practice at present, but has already attract attention of experts in related fields both in China and abroad, and it is obviously of value to study…. it has the characteristics of extra-difficult and creation so as to widening the range of acrobatics. The author's attitude toward this skill is optimistic and feasibility."

Submit your perfectly formed, delightfully enlightening limerick to:

	HANDSTAND-ON-NECK LIMERICK COMPETITION
	c/o <MARC aaattt IMPROBABLE dddooottt COM>


—————————
07 Sniffing-in-Conversation Winner

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

"Waiting to Inhale: On Sniffing in Conversation," Elliott M. Hoey, Research on Language and Social Interaction, vol. 53, no. 1, 2020, pp. 118-139, <https://tinyurl.com/y5ogb42q> The authors explain:

"Sniffing—the swift, audible, intake of breath through the nasal passage—is analyzed by reference to its sequential placement in talk. Using a collection of 70 cases of sniffs in naturally occurring conversations, two recurrent uses of sniffing are described."

INVESTIGATOR A.S. KASWELL writes:

Sniff, sniff? I shall be gruff:
Those seventy sniffs were enough—
sufficient to show
that YOU, Doctor, know
that sniffing is meaningful stuff.

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

As I listen to what you're conveying,
every sound, every word that you're saying,
  I catch a brief whiff
  of a noise.  It's a sniff!
Are you done now, or are you delaying?


—————————
08 MORE IMPROBABLE: Jellyfish Grasping, Wine-Cheese-Cognitive

Recent improbable research bits you may have missed...

BLOG: <http://www.improbable.com/>:
* A Stress-Testing Machine to Gently Grasp a Jellyfish
* Why Wild Giant Pandas Frequently Roll in Horse Manure
* Headline Power: Wine + Cheese + Cognitive
*…and much more

LUXURIANT FLOWING HAIR CLUB FOR SCIENTISTS (LFHCfS) 
<https://www.improbable.com/category/lfhcfs-hair-club/>

PODCAST: 
<https://www.improbable.com/category/the-weekly-improbable-research-podcast/>:
* Episode #1044: Boring Machines
* Episode #1045: Do Cats Sometimes Pay Some Attention to Their Owners?
* Episode #1046: Standardized Food Glops

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

TWITTER: @ImprobResearch, @MarcAbrahams, #IgNobel

INSTAGRAM: <https://www.instagram.com/improbable_research/>

PATREON: <www.patreon.com/ImprobableResearch>


—————————
09 Outstanding Clots from Headstanding

"Bilateral Conjunctival Varix Thromboses Associated with Habitual Headstanding," Curtis E. Margo, John Rowda, and John Barletta, American Journal of Ophthalmology, vol. 113, no. 6, 1992, pp. 726-727. <https://www.ajo.com/article/S0002-9394(14)74810-X/abstract> The authors, at the University of Florida, report:

"It is possible that headstanding predisposed our patient to vascular thrombosis by intermittently increasing conjunctival venous pressure and decreasing venous outflow."


—————————

FIND (MUCH) MORE IMPROBABLE STUFF.

	SUBCRIBE TO THE ACTUAL (PDF) MAGAZINE!
	<www.improbable.com/magazine/>


—————————
20 SOME IMPROBABLE EVENTS

Ig Informal Lectures (online)		—Nov, Dec & Jan (see web site)
Harvard Club of Merrimack Valley (online)	—Dec 3, 2020
Café Scientifique, Muret, France (online)	—Dec 9, 2020
Intersci, Edinburgh, Scotland (online)	—Jan 11, 2021
Arisia. Boston (online)				—Jan 2021 (date TBA)
Israel Physics Society (online)		—Jan 22, 2021
AAAS Annual Meeting (online)		—Feb 2021
2021 Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony		—September 2021
2021 Ig Informal Levtures			—September 2021
2021 Ig Nobel EuroTour (we hope)		—TBA 2021
Ig Nobel Exhibition, Japan (we hope)	—TBA 2021

[All live events in 2020 and 2021 are subject to pandemical constraints and adventures.] 

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


—————————
—————————
30 — 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) 
	BACK ISSUES 	($5 each)

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


—————————
31 — 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>


—————————
32 — 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


—————————
33 — 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


—————————

More information about the mini-AIR mailing list