Mini-AIR

mini-Annals of Improbable Research ("mini-AIR")

January 2024, issue number 2024-01. ISSN 1076-500X.

improbable.com/publications/newsletter-mini-air/

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Research that makes people LAUGH, then THINK.

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01 TABLE OF CONTENTS

02 IN THE MAGAZINE ITSELF: Riddles and Puzzles

03 Day and Weeks on Space and Time

04 Improbable Stuff in Vienna

05 LIMERICK CHALLENGE: The Plan of Day (and Weeks)

06 Death by Compaction Limerick Winners

07 MORE IMPROBABLE: Saliva, Prizes, Navel Gazing

08 Day and Weeks on Grim Prognoses

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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.

What you are reading at the moment (mini-AIR) is overflow detritus

from the magazine Annals of Improbable Research (AIR).

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02 IN THE MAGAZINE ITSELF: Riddles and Puzzles

The special RIDDLES & PUZZLES issue (vol. 30, no. 1) of the magazine has been sent to subscribers. The table of contents and selected articles are at:

https://improbable.com/annals-of-improbable-research-january-february-2024-vol-30-number-1/

Three of its articles can be downloaded free. Those are:

• Cat Puzzles

• Body Part Puzzles

• Icky Cutesy Research: Ewe, Fire, Noises

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

Tables of Contents: improbable.com/magazine-2/

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03 Day and Weeks on Space and Time

This month's quasi-haphazardly selected research report of the month (QHSRROTM) is:

"The Philosophic Practitioner and the Curriculum Space," Dianne Dredge, Pierre Benckendorff, Michele Day, Michael J. Gross, Maree Walo, Paul Weeks, and Paul Whitelaw, Annals of Tourism Research 39, no. 4 (2012): 2154-2176.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.annals.2012.07.017

The authors explain:

"The conceptual model... incorporates the idea of a progressive learner, mindfully engaged in the stewardship of societal change over time."

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04 Improbable Stuff in Vienna

Marc Abrahams will give the first annual "Vienna Lecture on Science Communication" on Friday, January 26 at the Austrian Academy of Science. The topic is: "Why do so many people distrust science, and what can we do about that?"

The next night, Saturday the 27th, Marc will again be part of the Vienna Science Ball.

If you are in Vienna and have free time (and tickets), please come say hello.

Details are at

https://www.wissenschaftsball.at/en/whale-song-and-schmusechor/

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05 LIMERICK CHALLENGE: The Plan of Day (and Weeks)

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

"The Plan of the Day: Managing the Dynamic Transition from Regional Conservation Designs to Local Conservation Actions," Robert L. Pressey, Morena Mills, Rebecca Weeks, and Jon C. Day, Biological Conservation, vol. 166, 2013, pp. 155-169.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2013.06.025

Weeks and Day (and colleagues) report about weaknesses, specifically:

"The weaknesses in methods for conservation planning are most starkly revealed by the need to adapt designs during protracted application of actions on private or community-managed lands and marine waters."

Submit your perfectly formed, delightfully enlightening limerick to:

PLAN OF DAY AND WEEKS LIMERICK COMPETITION

c/o MARC aaattt IMPROBABLE dddooottt COM

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06 Death by Compaction Limerick Winners

The judges have chosen co-winners in last month's Competition, which asked for a limerick to explain this pair of studies:

"Death by Compaction in a Garbage Truck," Paul N. Staats, Mary I. Jumbelic, and Caroline R. Dignan, Journal of Forensic Sciences, vol. 47, no. 5, 2002, pp. 1065-1066.

doi.org/10.1520/JFS15517J

"Death by Compaction in a Robotic Dumpster," Maria-Valeria Karakasi, Ioannis Nikolaidis, Pavlos Pavlidis, Journal of Forensic Sciences, vol. 68, no. 4, July 2023, pp. 1386-1392.

doi.org/10.1111/1556-4029.15264

Co-winning limerickicist FAITH CORMIER writes:

Luke, sister Leia and Han,

Were nearly all crushed like a can.

No one learned from their fate.

It was sorely too late

For more than one unlucky man.

Co-winning limerickicist DOT BONDELEVITCH writes:

Of all of the ways to be crushed

That are violent, nasty or rushed,

Compression in trucks

Or dumpsters just sucks —

A truth to be shouted, not hushed.

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

When trash piles up, as it will,

Compact it. Less landfill to fill

Is good all around —

Except, they have found,

That dumpsters and garbage trucks kill.

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07 MORE IMPROBABLE: Saliva, Prizes, Navel Gazing

Recent improbable research bits you may have missed...

BLOG: www.improbable.com:

• “Why are they using SALIVA to clean works of art?”

• Prizes of Various Sorts in Lund

• Price of a Life: Statistical Navel-Gazing Deep Dive

• …and much more

WEEKLY COLUMN IN NEW SCIENTIST MAGAZINE:

newscientist.com/author/marc-abrahams/

LUXURIANT FLOWING HAIR CLUB FOR SCIENTISTS (LFHCfS):

www.improbable.com/category/lfhcfs-hair-club/

PODCAST ARCHIVE:

www.improbable.com/category/the-weekly-improbable-research-podcast/

FACEBOOK: facebook.com/improbableresearch

MASTODON: @[email protected]

INSTAGRAM: instagram.com/improbable_research/

PATREON: patreon.com/ImprobableResearch

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08 Day and Weeks on Grim Prognoses

This month's Other Haphazardly-Selected Research Report (OQHSRROTM) of the month is:

"Relationship Between Cancer Patients' Predictions of Prognosis and Their Treatment Preferences," Jane C. Weeks, E. Francis Cook, Steven J. O'Day, Lynn M. Peterson, Neil Wenger, Douglas Reding, Frank E. Harrell, et al., JAMA, vol. 279, no. 21, 1998, pp. 1709-1714. https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.279.21.1709

The authors report:

"Conclusions.— Patients with metastatic colon and lung cancer overestimate their survival probabilities and these estimates may influence their preferences about medical therapies."

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TREAT YOURSELF TO (MUCH) MORE IMPROBABLE STUFF.

SUBCRIBE TO THE (PDF) MAGAZINE!

improbable.com/magazine-2/

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20 SOME IMPROBABLE EVENTS

· Arisia, Boston, MA, USA — Jan 12, 2024

· Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna, Austria — Jan 26, 2024

· Ball of the Sciences, Vienna, Austria — Jan 27, 2024

· Boskone, Boston, MA, USA — February 10, 2024

· AAAS Annual Meeting, Denver, CO, USA — Feb 17, 2014

· 2024 IG NOBEL EURO-TOUR:

· U Aarhus, Denmark — Apr 9, 2024

· Copenhagen, Denmark — Apr 10, 2024

· EPFL, Lausanne, Switzerland — Apr 2024

· Rome Science Festival, Italy — April 2024

· Oxford, UK — date TBA

· Other EuroTour events TBA

· 34th First Annual Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony — Sep 2024

· Balticon, Baltimore, USA — May 23-26, 2025

OTHER EVENTS TBA

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

For details and additional events, see: improbable.com/upcoming-events/

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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.

improbable.com/publications/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.)

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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, see the links at the end of this email.

ARCHIVES: improbable.com/publications/newsletter-mini-air/

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32 — CONTACT INFO (*)

Annals of Improbable Research (AIR)

improbable.com

EDITORIAL: MARC aaattt IMPROBABLE dddooottt COM

SUBSCRIPTION QUESTIONS: subscriptions AT improbable.com

Cambridge, MA, USA

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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

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