PLEASE FORWARD/POST AS APPROPRIATE ================================================================ mini-Annals of Improbable Research ("mini-AIR") Issue Number 2002-04 April, 2002 ISSN 1076-500X Key words: improbable research, science humor, Ig Nobel, AIR, the ---------------------------------------------------------------- A free newsletter of tidbits too tiny to fit in the Annals of Improbable Research (AIR), the journal of inflated research and personalities ================================================================ ----------------------------- 2002-04-01 TABLE OF CONTENTS 2002-04-01 Table of Contents 2002-04-02 Soon... 2002-04-03 What's New in the Magazine 2002-04-04 Pulp Beating 2002-04-05 Ig: (1) Video and (2) Von Daniken World 2002-04-06 String Theory and Stars 2002-04-07 Project DEATH-BY-DISSERTATION 2002-04-08 Ghastly Gastroscopy 2002-04-09 Many Mellifluous Chemicals 2002-04-10 Russian Beard Info 2002-04-11 Obscure Journal Confusion 2002-04-12 CAVALCADE OF HotAIR: Mom Boom, Missionary Major 2002-04-13 RESEARCH SPOTLIGHT: Parking Problem 2002-04-14 MAY WE RECOMMEND: Tongue, Nub, Slab, Rear 2002-04-15 AIRhead Events 2002-04-16 How to Subscribe to AIR (*) 2002-04-17 Our Address (*) 2002-04-18 Please Forward/Post This Issue! (*) 2002-04-19 How to Receive mini-AIR, etc. (*) Items marked (*) are reprinted in every issue. mini-AIR is a free monthly *e-supplement* to AIR, the print magazine ---------------------------------------------------------- 2002-04-02 Soon... The next AIR show: * National Science Foundation, Washington, DC Thurs, April 18, 1:00 p.m. For details see section 2002-04-15 below. ---------------------------------------------------------- 2002-04-03 What's New in the Magazine AIR 8:2 (Mar/Apr 2002) is the special PIZZA, SEX, AND TELEVISION (AND CHEESE) ISSUE. The table of contents is on line at . Highlights: <> THE EFFECT OF TELEVISION ON SEXUAL BEHAVIOR, by Jennifer A. Zimmerman. The author presents convincing evidence that people prefer watching television to having sex. The article is on-line at <> TELEVISION SATURATION EXPERIMENT by Jeff Van Bueren. An experiment shows what happened when a volunteer was confined in a room for 7 days, 24 hours a day, surrounded by a circle of 30 televisions tuned to different channels. <> PIZZA AND PROGRESS, by Robert Friedel. A pictorial history of several hundred years of large-scale pizza-making machinery. <> THE THIRD SEX, by Nan Swift. The author presents photographic evidence that there is a third human sex. <> ...and much, much more, including a new feature called "WHAT'S THIS PICTURE?", which you can see at: (What you are reading at this moment is mini-AIR, a small, monthly e-mail supplement to the print magazine.) ---------------------------------------------------------- 2002-04-04 Pulp Beating Investigator Harris DeLand writes: I am a big fan of the British Standards Institution's standard BS 6094. "Methods for Laboratory Beating of Pulp." Are there other fans out there? If so, perhaps we could form a BS 6094 club. We encouraged investigator DeLand to keep us apprised as the club takes or loses form. RELATED NEWS FLASH FOR CANADIAN PULPERS: The Canadian standard -- "Méthodes d'essai des pâtes et du papier: Raffinage de la pâte en laboratoire (méthode de la pile Valley)" -- can now be ordered from ---------------------------------------------------------- 2002-04-05 Ig: (1) Video and (2) Von Daniken World Ig-related news: 1. Video of the entire 2001 Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony is now on the AIR web site at . Very special thanks to Forrest Schultz at University of Wisconsin-Stout for bringing this about. 2.) 1991 Ig Nobel Literature Prize winner Erich von Daniken (author of the book "Chariots of the Gods") is going to open an amusement park in Interlaken, Switzerland, together with a group of investors, all of whom are, like Erich von Daniken, presumably descended from ancient astronauts from outer space. The investors include Sony, Coca-Cola, Sennheiser, Hewlett-Packard, and Jeffries Asset management, Ltd., the executives and shareholders of whom are also, like Erich von Daniken, presumably descended from ancient astronauts from outer space. The park is scheduled to open on November 7. There will be a press conference with aperitifs on April 19. Details are at ---------------------------------------------------------- 2002-04-06 String Theory and Stars String theory, the almost-latest rage among high-energy physicists, is said to explain where stars come from. Thanks to investigator Lloyd Grove, it's clear that stars explain where string theory comes from. Thanks to Investigator T. Divens for bringing the following report to our attention: OVERHEARD AT THE OSCARS By Lloyd Grove Washington Post Staff Writer Tuesday, March 26, 2002; 1:17 PM At Saturday's picnic lunch for tout Hollywood on entertainment mogul Barry Diller and his fashion designer-wife Diane Von Furstenberg's Beverly Hills estate, Dustin Hoffman and Shirley MacLaine were deep in conversation. "I'm telling you, all those people should be in past-lives therapy," we overheard MacLaine telling Hoffman. "That's exactly what I'm saying, Shirley!" Hoffman replied with a triumphant grin. "All your past-lives theory is in this book I'm reading, 'The Elegant Universe'" -- the 1999 bestseller by physicist Brian Greene. "What you're doing is really quantum physics and string theory. It's all in there!" ---------------------------------------------------------- 2002-04-07 Project DEATH-BY-DISSERTATION The academic year is drawing to a close, and as usual we would be interested in hearing from anyone who was ALMOST killed by his or her dissertation. The most common way in which this happens is that the near-victim steps on a sheet or sheets of paper, and goes head-over-heels. We would like to hear instances of this and all other types of thesis-caused genuinely near-death experiences. We are especially eager to learn of cases in which the mishap occurred while the doctoral candidate was en route to the thesis defense. HOWEVER, we do NOT want to hear reports that merely (sorry to put it this way) involved psychological distress. Please send your report to: PROJECT DEATH-BY-DISSERTATION c/o ---------------------------------------------------------- 2002-04-08 Ghastly Gastroscopy Since the mention here last month of the medical report "Esophageal Perforation in a Sword Swallower," gastroscopes have been on many people's minds. Investigator Jeff Hecht, for example, writes: "In light of your report on the dangers of sword swallowing, I should report that the idea of the gastroscope -- to look down the throat into the stomach -- may have been inspired by sword swallowers. Early gastroscopes were only slightly more flexible than swords, with unfortunate consequences for the patients. The esophagus is reasonably straight, but the entrance and exit are not, so thrusting an inflexible tube through delicate body passages could be catastrophic. One physician later called the rigid gastroscope 'one of the most lethal instruments in the surgeon's armamentarium.'" [NOTE: for further details, see investigator Hecht's book "City of Light: The Story of Fiber Optics."] ----------------------------------------------------------- 2002-04-09 Many Mellifluous Chemicals Our search for the longest fully mellifluous chemical name has produced many pleasant sounds. Here are a few of them. INVESTIGATOR DAVID ELLIOTT: Isaac Asimov, when still an active biochemist, used to enjoy going to the stockroom to order, to the tune of "The Irish Washerwoman," para-dichloro-amino-benzaldehyde. [NOTE: Many other investigator pointed out the same thing. Investigator Eric Henderson supplied a pointer to a sound file of the tune: ] INVESTIGATOR CAROL S. MYERS: 1-methyl-4-phenyl-1,2,3,6-tetrahydropyridine. It sounds like some kind of chant one would utter just before using a ouija board. Also, it's the only more-than-16-syllable chemical I know by heart. INVESTIGATOR MARK PERKS: 2,3,4,5-tetraphenylcyclopentadienone. I've always wanted to write a poignant poem in which a line ending in ".... dying alone" is coupled to this compound name, but have been frustrated by a lack of any poetic creativity whatsoever. INVESTIGATOR E.J. BARNES: Back in college, my roommate Lori Bernstein (now a professor of molecular biology at Texas A&M) and I (who, though I majored in chemistry, haven't used it since), took great delight in a chemical name which, in those days, was on every tube of Ortho- Gynol contraceptive jelly. The active ingredient was written as P- diisobutylphenoxypolyethoxyethanol. Good chemists that we were, we read it as para-diisobutylphenoxypolyethoxyethanol. We are still looking for the LONGEST fully mellifluous chemical name. We will accept only entries of more syllables than the entries printed thus far. Please send your entry to: MOST MELLIFLUOUS CHEMICAL c/o ---------------------------------------------------------- 2002-04-10 Russian Beard Info Numerous investigators -- some bearded, others not -- sent missives partially explaining Russian Tsar Peter the Great's decision in 1698 to impose a tax on beards. Most simply say that Peter wanted to "westernize" his country's fashions. INVESTIGATOR MARIO PFLUGER, for example, sent a link (http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/petergreat.html) to one such account, a passage from Jean Rousset de Missy's "Life of Peter the Great" (c. 1730): "Until that time the Russians had always worn long beards... The tsar, in order to reform that custom, ordered that gentlemen, merchants, and other subjects, except priests and peasants, should each pay a tax of one hundred rubles a year if they wished to keep their beards; the commoners had to pay one kopek each.... [T]here were many old Russians who, after having their beards shaved off, saved them preciously, in order to have them placed in their coffins, fearing that they would not be allowed to enter heaven without their beards." INVESTIGATOR ANDRES VALDRE offered a stray detail: "There's a book by one modern Russian historian named Bushkov, and titled 'Rossija, kotoroj ne bylo' (Russia which wasn't), published in the late 1990s, says that there were separate taxes on beards and on moustaches." There several intriguing alternate accounts, including this from INVESTIGATOR JAZZ ALDRICH: "Peter the Great smoked. The Russian Orthodox Church opposed smokers due to a Bible verse (Mark, 6:15: 'The things that come out of him, those are they that defile a man') and the Patriarch of Moscow threatened all smokers with excommunication. Peter therefore put a tax on beards of the sort favored by the Orthodox clergy. All this comes from Ian Gately's 'Tobacco,' pages 94-95." Perhaps some day some intrepid investigator will write a definitive treatise on this hairy historical question. Then again, perhaps not. ---------------------------------------------------------- 2002-04-11 Obscure Journal Confusion The road to identifying the world's Most Obscure Journal is characterized by confusion. This joint research project of the Annals of Improbable Research (AIR) and the Times Higher Education Supplement (THES) seeks to answer this question: "Which is the least-read academic journal?" Many people sent the names of journals which they believe do not exist, others the names of journals they simply detest. Neither of these qualify for the project. Others recognized the subtle challenge of this project: INVESTIGATOR J. LUND: "The 'least-read' possible journal would have a readership of zero. We are likely to detect many 'little-read' journals read by one or more, but the true 'least-read' journal is likely to fall below our detection limit." INVESTIGATOR M. LAMBERT: "One thing you must do in this survey is weight the results. I used to distribute a quasi-scientific randomly-published journal. It went to between 12 & 20 people each time, which would seem to make it a sure winner. BUT it was read by 100% of them. So, a journal distributed to 100 people, only 3 or 5 of which actually read it, should beat mine out. Don't you agree?" JOHN H. DICKERT: "Any effort to ascertain the 'least likely read journal' will increase the readership of said journal, thus removing it from that title." Investigator Dickert's point is correct, but so what? We must be brave -- science must advance. If you think you know which journal is the least-read journal, please send its name to: OBSCURE JOURNAL SURVEY c/o Please include PITHY but persuasive EVIDENCE that the journal EXISTS and that its readership is triumphantly meager. If the journal has a web site, please include its URL. ---------------------------------------------------------- 2002-04-12 CAVALCADE OF HotAIR: Mom Boom, Missionary Major Here are concise, incomplete, flighty mentions of some of the features we've posted on HotAIR since last month's mini-AIR came out. See them by clicking "WHAT'S NEW" at the web site, or go to: ==> When Mom Went Boom ==> Nobel Thoughts: DUDLEY HERSCHBACH ==> No Accounting for Accounting Nos? ==> Nobel Thoughts: ERIC CHIVIAN ==> Coming Event: THE DUNG CONFERENCE ==> Aircraft Maintenance / Missionary Aviation (M & F) THESE, AND MORE, ARE ON HOTAIR AT ----------------------------------------------------------- 2002-04-13 RESEARCH SPOTLIGHT: Parking Problem Each month we select for your special attention a research report that seems especially worth a close read. Your librarian will enjoy being asked for a copy. Here is this month's Pick of the Month: A SERIES OF ACCIDENTS NOT WAITING TO HAPPEN "An Escalating Problem," P.K. Das-Purkayastha and W.F.M. Jackson, British Medical Journal, vol. 324, March 9, 2002, p. 583. The authors, who are at Royal United Hospital, Bath, U.K., describe the cause of an unusual medical case: "Mrs. C, a 77 year-old lady, was admitted to the Royal United Hospital Bath on 26 September after an usual sequence of events. Earlier that day she had been parking her automatic car, but when she stopped and got out to open her garage door she unfortunately failed to engage the hand brake. While she was opening the door, her car eased forward to knock her down and then roll over her right shoulder, trapping her underneath the vehicle. She cried out for help, and a friendly neighbour (Mrs. Y) out walking with her 7 year-old daughter (Miss Y) rushed to her aid. Mrs. Y (not holding a UK driving license) reluctantly got into the car and, with Mrs. C's advice, engaged reverse, freeing Mrs. C but unfortunately driving into her daughter and knocking her down. Hearing her daughter's cries, she drove forward, crashing the car into a wall. All three were admitted to the accident and emergency department...." ----------------------------------------------------------- 2002-04-14 MAY WE RECOMMEND: Tongue, Nub, Slab, Rear LEVO-LICK, DEXTRAL DROOL "Tonguedness in Cats," M. Reiss and G. Reiss, Perceptual and Motor Skills, vol. 94, no. 1, February 2002, p. 152. The authors report that: The present study describes a preferential tongue movement in cats, suggesting a so-called "tonguedness"... 8 cats (66.7%) showed right-tonguedness and 3 left-tonguedness. DIAGNOSTIC NUB "A 69 Year Old Man with Anger and Angina," Redford B. Williams, Journal of the American Medical Association, vol. 282, August 25, 1999, p. 763. (Thanks to Dawn Caplan for bringing this to our attention.) SLAB UPDATE "Optics of Turbid Slabs," A.A. Kokhanovsky, European Journal of Physics, vol. 23, January 2002, pp. 27-33. (Thanks to R.R. Franzen for bringing this to our attention.) REAR SUCK FUNCTIONALITY "A Possible Function of the Preference for Hind Nipples in Prairie Voles (Microtus ochrogaster)," B. McGuire, International Journal of Comparative Psychology, vol. 115, no. 4, December 2001, pp. 439-43. (Thanks to Gary Bass for bringing this to our attention.) ------------------------------------------------------------ 2002-04-15 AIRhead Events ==> For details and updates see ==> Want to host an event? 617-491-4437 NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION, ARLINGTON VA -- THUR, APR 18, 2002 1:00 pm., NSF headquarters, 4201 Wilson Boulevard, Room 1235 (the "board room"). Use the main entrance (corner of 9th & Stuart). AIR editor MARC ABRAHAMS will discuss the current state of improbable research and the Ig Nobel Prizes, in a presentation called "Improbable Research Seminar 2002" Also featuring: * Eric Schulman * Sally Shelton INFO: Mary Hanson 703-292-8070 This is free -- but you MUST get a pass in advance from Julie Smith 703-292-8070 AIR TOUR of ARIZONA and SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA (tentative) -- LATE MAY, EARLY JUNE, 2002 SOCIETY OF AMATEUR SCIENTISTS CONFERENCE, PHILADELPHIA Details and exact date TBA. -- JUNE 28-30, 2002 TWELFTH 1ST ANNUAL IG NOBEL PRIZE CEREMONY -- THUR, OCT 3, 2002 Sanders Theatre, Harvard University IG INFORMAL LECTURES -- SAT, OCT 5, 2002 Massachusetts Institute of Technology AAAS ANNUAL MEETING, DENVER -- FEBRUARY, 2003 Special Annals of Improbable Research session at the Annual Meeting of the American Assn for the Advancement of Science. Featuring: * AIR Editor MARC ABRAHAMS * 2001 Ig Nobel Biology Prize winner BUCK WEIMER * 1994 Ig Nobel Medicine Prize co-winner RICHARD DART and others TBA -------------------------------------------------------------- 2002-04-16 How to Subscribe to AIR (*) Here's how to subscribe to the magnificent bi-monthly print journal The Annals of Improbable Research (the real thing, not just the little bits of overflow material you've been reading in this newsletter). ................................................................ Name: Address: Address: City and State: Zip or postal code: Country Phone: FAX: E-mail: ................................................................ SUBSCRIPTIONS (6 issues per year): USA 1 yr/$24.95 2 yrs/$44.95 Canada/Mexico 1 yr/$28.95 US 2 yrs/$49.95 US Overseas 1 yr/$41.95 US 2 yrs/$71.95 US ................................................................ BACK ISSUES are available, too: First issue: $8 USA, $11 Canada/Mex, $16 overseas Add'l issues purchased at same time: $6 each ................................................................ Send payment (US bank check, or international money order, or Visa, Mastercard or Discover info) to: Annals of Improbable Research (AIR) PO Box 380853, Cambridge, MA 02238 USA 617-491-4437 FAX:617-661-0927 ----------------------------------------------------- 2002-04-17 Our Address (*) Annals of Improbable Research (AIR) PO Box 380853, Cambridge, MA 02238 USA 617-491-4437 FAX:617-661-0927 EDITORIAL: marca@chem2.harvard.edu SUBSCRIPTIONS: air@improbable.com WEB SITE: --------------------------- 2002-04-18 Please Forward/Post This Issue! (*) Please distribute copies of mini-AIR (or excerpts!) wherever appropriate. The only limitations are: A) Please indicate that the material comes from mini-AIR. B) You may NOT distribute mini-AIR for commercial purposes. ------------- mini-AIRheads ------------- EDITOR: Marc Abrahams (marca@chem2.harvard.edu) MINI-PROOFREADER AND PICKER OF NITS (before we introduce the last few at the last moment): Wendy Mattson WWW EDITOR/GLOBAL VILLAGE IDIOT: Amy Gorin (airmaster@improbable.com) COMMUTATIVE EDITOR: Stanley Eigen (eigen@neu.edu) ASSOCIATIVE EDITOR: Mark Dionne DISTRIBUTIVE EDITOR: Robin Pearce CO-CONSPIRATORS: Alice Shirrell Kaswell, Gary Dryfoos, Ernest Ersatz, S. Drew MAITRE DE COMPUTATION: Jerry Lotto AUTHORITY FIGURES: Nobel Laureates Dudley Herschbach, Sheldon Glashow, William Lipscomb, Richard Roberts (c) copyright 2002, Annals of Improbable Research ----------------------------------------------------- 2002-04-19 How to Receive mini-AIR, etc. (*) What you are reading right now is mini-AIR. Mini-AIR is a (free!) tiny monthly *supplement* to the bi-monthly print magazine. To subscribe, send a brief E-mail message to: LISTPROC@AIR.HARVARD.EDU The body of your message should contain ONLY the words SUBSCRIBE MINI-AIR MARIE CURIE (You may substitute your own name for that of Madame Curie.) ---------------------------- To stop subscribing, send the following message: SIGNOFF MINI-AIR ============================================================