Date: Wed, 14 Apr 1999 00:12:35 -0400 (EDT) From: Marc Abrahams Reply-To: mini-air@chem.harvard.edu PLEASE FORWARD/POST AS APPROPRIATE ================================================================ mini-Annals of Improbable Research ("mini-AIR") Issue Number 1999-04 April, 1999 ISSN 1076-500X Key words: improbable research, science humor, Ig Nobel, AIR, the ---------------------------------------------------------------- A free newsletter of tidbits too tiny to fit in Annals of Improbable Research (AIR), the journal of inflated research and personalities ================================================================ ----------------------------- 1999-04-01 TABLE OF CONTENTS 1999-04-01 Table of Contents 1999-04-02 mini-Housekeeping 1999-04-03 What's New in AIR 1999-04-04 That Darn Dean 1999-04-05 Bearded Men Group Photo Shoot 1999-04-06 Cogno-Intellectualism in the Financial Sector 1999-04-07 The Modern Woman and Her Sanitary Napkin 1999-04-08 Indigestible Specialty 1999-04-09 Der Einfluss von Erdnussbutter 1999-04-10 A Briefer History of the Universe 1999-04-11 Finnish Termination 1999-04-12 Nordic Oddity 1999-04-13 High Flying Ig Winner 1999-04-14 Global Warming (1): Heated Technical Analysis 1999-04-15 Global Warming (2): The Cool Philosophers' Take 1999-04-16 Vriesendorpiana 1999-04-17 Project AIRhead 2000 1999-04-18 May We Recommend 1999-04-19 AIRhead Events 1999-04-20 How to Subscribe to AIR (*) 1999-04-21 How to Receive mini-AIR, etc. (*) 1999-04-22 Our Address (*) 1999-04-23 Please Forward/Post This Issue! (*) Items marked (*) are reprinted in every issue. mini-AIR is a free monthly *e-supplement* to AIR, the print magazine ---------------------------------------------------------- 1999-04-02 mini-Housekeeping 1. We're giving HotAIR (our web site) a face lift, a tummy tuck, and some new innards. Webmaster and Global Village idiot Amy Gorin is looking for some brave volunteers to help review and test various portions. We're also looking for sites that would like to be mirror sites for the AIR web site. Want to be part of it? Get in touch with Amy at 2. AIR in DC and Toronto There are AIR shows scheduled for the DC and Toronto areas later this year (see section 1999-04-19 below for details). If you are in either area and would like to host an event, please get in touch ASAP at 3. Ig winner Troy Hurtubise and his grizzly-proof suit will be in Seattle soon! (see section 1999-04-19 below for details). ---------------------------------------------------------- 1999-04-03 What's New in AIR This week the March/April 99 issue (vol. 5, no. 2) of Annals of Improbable Research is finally emerging from the printers. It's the Annual Swimsuit Issue. It will wow you (that is, if you or your library subscribes). ---------------------------------------------------------- 1999-04-04 That Darn Dean We invite you to take part in the historic writing of an epic serial poem entitled "That Darn Dean." Here is the first stanza, written by Eric Schulman: That darn Dean. He's so mean. Watch me wipe his hard disk clean. Please send your own stanza or stanzas (8 lines max per stanza -- and pleeeeeeeeease try to follow some conventional rhyme scheme, though we don't care which one) to All stanzas become the property of the Serial Stanza Subcommittee of the That Darn Dean Foundation. The best and worst will be published in future issues of mini-AIR. ---------------------------------------------------------- 1999-04-05 Bearded Men Group Photo Shoot Think your gang of bearded men is the fairest of them all? This September, AIR will publish its long-awaited special Bearded Men Issue. We invite you to take and submit a group photograph which shows off all the bearded men of your university, lab, hospital, or other Official Place. Your institution's News Office or Alumni Magazine will be only too happy to help you take the photograph -- if you ask them. Then just: 1. Pick a date, time and place for the photo shoot 2. Get the word out to your bearded men ("Calling All Bearded Men") 3. Take the picture and send it in. If you would like us to help you publicize the date and time of your scheduled photo shoot, just notify us at , and we will post the info on the AIR web site (http://www.improbable.com). ---------------------------------------------------------- 1999-04-06 Cogno-Intellectualism in the Financial Sector There is more good news from Project Cogno-Intellectual, our campaign to introduce idiotic new jargon into the mouths of too- hungry administrators. This note comes from a reader whose name and location we vow to protect: "I am an instructional designer for a major ___________-based bank. A while back, I conned... er, persuaded... a few colleagues to help spread the joys of cogno-intellectuality. In recent months, the term has been used generously by us during training gatherings and leadership meetings. Finally, success! We received a memo from our department head recapping a recent meeting. Sure enough, it contained the term 'cogno-intellectual.' Will keep you informed of further breakthroughs in the financial sector." ---------------------------------------------------------- 1999-04-07 The Modern Woman and Her Sanitary Napkin Investigator J. Cornell alerts us to a notably cogno-intellectual event. The CONFERENCE ON TECHNOLOGY AND IDENTITY is organized by the Cornell University's Department of Science and Technology Studies. The session scheduled for Friday afternoon, April 16 is advertised thusly: PANEL 1: Media, masses, and more: The construction of users and technology. Commentary: Pauline Kusiak, S&TS, Cornell a. "The modern woman and her sanitary napkin: the social construction of women through feminine technologies." Yvonne Houy, German Studies, Cornell University b. "Sport/utility vehicles and identity: a semiotic perspective." Andrew Garnar, Dept. of Science & Tech Studies, Virginia Tech Details are available at http://www.sts.cornell.edu/TI.html If you attend the session, please take good notes (but not on a napkin, please) and send a report to us here at ---------------------------------------------------------- 1999-04-08 Indigestible Specialty It is time to emphasize, yet again, the plight of the geomorphologists. mini-AIR proofreader Wendy Mattson explains (regarding last month's mini-AIR): "While attempting to run a spell-check on this document using BBEdit 5.0.2, the word _Geomorphologists_ stopped the spell- checker cold and crashed the application, generating a message 'there is not enough memory to complete this task.'" ---------------------------------------------------------- 1999-04-09 Der Einfluss von Erdnussbutter In Germany, science classes will soon be adopting new textbooks. Our recommendation is the just-published German edition of "The Best of Annals of Improbable Research." The German language being more expressive than English, the book's subject matter is clarified in the German title, which translates back into English as "The Effects of Peanut Butter on the Rotation of the Earth." It would not be unseemly to clamor for it (the book, not the peanut butter) at your local bookstore. The gory details: "Der Einfluss von Erdnussbutter auf die Erdrotation - Forschungen, die die Welt nicht braucht," Marc Abrahams (ed.), Birkhüuser, 1999. ISBN 3-7643-5941-2. ---------------------------------------------------------- 1999-04-10 A Briefer History of the Universe In the twenty-first century, no one will have time to read the complete works of Stephen Hawking. Instead, people will buy a condensed matter version. Our recommendation is the just-published "A Briefer History of Time," an improbably exciting, book-length, expanded-universe version of Eric Schulman's famous research report "The History of the Universe in 200 Words or Less," which was published in AIR 3:1. The glittery details: "A Briefer History of Time," Eric Schulman, W. H. Freeman and Company, 1999. ISBN 0-7167-3389-7. ---------------------------------------------------------- 1999-04-11 Finnish Termination Investigator Andres Valdre, who is originally from Estonia, reports a curious clipping that occurred in Finland, where he now dwells: "The subject line of the last issue of mini-AIR looked in my mailreader as 'mini-AIR March 99 -- Global War...', the title being terminated in that interesting place by the end of the subject field." ---------------------------------------------------------- 1999-04-12 Nordic Oddity The unusual names named last month provoked investigator Martin Schoon: "This reminds me of a distant colleague whose name is Odd Person. Odd is an old Nordic name. It is not very common in Sweden these days but still quite common in Norway. Persson (2 s) is one of the most common family names in Sweden and spelling it with one s is quite common. Hence, there is nothing odd with Odd Person here in Sweden but when he travels to the UK or the U.S...." ---------------------------------------------------------- 1999-04-13 High Flying Ig Winner John Hagelin, the winner of the 1994 Ig Nobel Peace Prize, has recently extended his prize-winning work. The following report is from the April 9 issue of the newsletter "What's New" by Bob Park: APPLIED PHYSICS: HAGELIN OFFERS TO END VIOLENCE IN KOSOVO. At a Washington press conference this morning, string theorist and Natural Law Party presidential candidate John Hagelin proposed a more effective air campaign: an elite corps of 7,000 trained Yogic flyers. The trained meditators, he explained, would spread tranquillity with a quantum-mechanical consciousness field. It's been proven, he said, citing the 1993 Demonstration to Reduce Violence in Washington, DC. WN covered that demonstration (WN 23 Jul 93). The murder rate in the capital soared to an all-time high during the 8-week project, but Hagelin later explained it would have been 18% higher if the meditators hadn't been there meditating (WN 7 Oct 94). NATO must guarantee the security of the flyers presumably by force. He was perplexed that Madeleine Albright had rejected the plan. The press conference ended with 12 trained yogic flyers bouncing around on mattresses. It was clear to me his plan would work. Serbian troops viewing 7,000 bouncing yogic flyers would be rendered helpless by laughter. ---------------------------------------------------------- 1999-04-14 Global Warming (1): Heated Technical Analysis Last month's Scientific Correctness Survey has settled yet another of the great scientific controversies: Global Warming. Our public opinion survey asked: IS GLOBAL WARMING A GENUINE PROBLEM? and offered a simple choice of Yes, No, or Go to Hell. Here are the results: 34% answered Yes. 42% answered No. 16% opted for Go to Hell. 8% specified some combination of Yes, No, and/or Go to Hell. Many respondents who answered Yes were insistent that their Yes really means no. Many who answered No explained why, for them on this question, No really means Yes. Here are some voter comments. * * * "Global warming is not a genuine problem. Liver spots is more of a genuine problem." --Barbara Cramer "Not for us Canadians, who will enjoy a comfortable, fertile American climate while Nebraskans desperately try to sow bananas and Kansas tries to move from cattle to capybara. And don't even talk about Florida, the Gulf Coast and Houston, and the East Coast.... Us Canadians live inland, except for the Maritimes and, frankly, good riddance." --Laurie Nyveen "We will only have a global warming problem when Hell freezes over." --Henry L. Welch "My answer is go to hell as it would be hot as hell if no care is taken to contain the problem." --Rahul Dasgupta "Global warming is strictly a LOCAL phenomenon it just seems to be in all Locations. But no cause to worry, as long as you aren't anywhere you'll be fine." --William A. Pociengel "The problem may just come from all the hot air spewing from jet engines as scientists and policy hacks fly themselves to conferences around the world to spew more hot air as they disagree about the existence of a problem." --Eric Bails "No, but it does keep a lot of greedy, creative scientists off the street." --Dee Johnston "Yes. I'm so glad you asked. As a computer book author, I'm fully qualified to comment on meteorology and climatology." --Margaret Levine Young * * * The public opinion poll having been taken, reported, and forgotten, the issue of global warming is now settled.... ---------------------------------------------------------- 1999-04-15 Global Warming (2): The Cool Philosophers' Take ..And now that the issue is dead and buried, it is time for the professional philosophers to give it their attention. Here is a sampling of their comments. * * * "Who cares... in another 30 years I won't be here." --Emmy M. "Yes (but) No (because we are all going to) Go to Hell (anyway)." --Marcelo Rinesi "Go To Heck. (I'm at Brigham Young University.)" --Hannah A Jensen "No. Don't you know that the world is on the back of a giant turtle and turtles are cold blooded, therefore having no constant body temperature. Thus the earth warms up when the turtle warms up and cools off when the turtle cools off. Given that the turtles metabolism probably slows down while sleeping, similarly to a human's. Given these facts, I think we can attribute the ice age to a really long nap." --Bill Giles * * * And now that the issue has been disposed of and philosophized, it is a fit subject for the artists and literati, who will effuse into the essence of the sublime. Ta ta, global warming! ----------------------------------------------------------- 1999-04-16 Vriesendorpiana Behold another citation from our growing collection of co-authors who share family names. This is our first Vriesendorpian item: "Prediction of normal tissue damage induced by cancer chemotherapy," H.M. Vriesendorp, R. Vriesendorp, and F.J. Vriesendorp, Cancer Chemotherapy and Pharmacology, vol. 19, 1987, pp. 273-6. (Thanks to Ian Davis for bringing this to our attention.) ----------------------------------------------------------- 1999-04-17 Project AIRhead 2000 Here is a further random selection from the Project AIRhead 2000 collection of things inexplicably named (in whole or in part) 2000. ITEM 206 (submitted by investigator Cathy Maloney) AIREDALE2000, a web site devoted to a dog breed. http://www.clearlight.com/k9/2000frame-menu.html ITEM 3729 (Submitted by investigator Curtis Guy) BLACK ON BLACK CRIME 2000, an organization based in Cleveland Ohio. QUERY Investigator Ron Fenstemacher opens a new line of investigation: "I was involved in a routine procedure the other day, when I noticed the pulltab on my zipper was imprinted 'YKK.' Have zipper manufacturers identified their product as Y2K compliant? (Might one hypothesize the President Clinton's recent difficulties were merely a subset of unidentified Y2K compliance issues?)" ----------------------------------------------------------- 1999-04-18 May We Recommend Research reports that merit a trip to the library. (This item is in addition to the many, many which appear in the pages of AIR itself.) COMBINATION THERAPY "Effects of high-speed drill noise and gunfire on dentists' hearing," W.D. Ward and C.J. Holmberg, Journal of the American Dental Association, vol. 79, no. 6, December 1969, pp. 1383-7. (Thanks to Felicia Sanchez for bringing this to our attention.) APPROPRIATE AUTHORSHIP "Rapid Application of Lightweight Formal Methods for Consistency Analysis," Martin S. Feather, IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, vol. 24, no. 11, November 1998, 949 ff. (Thanks to Dan Berry for bringing this to our attention.) ------------------------------------------------------------ 1999-04-19 AIRhead Events ==> Want to host an event? Call or E-mail 617-491-4437. ALTERNATIVELY, please call W.H. Freeman Publishers, publisher of the book "Best of AIR," at 212-576-9423 ==> For updates of this schedule, see http://www.improbable.com HAYDEN PLANETARIUM, NEW YORK CITY MON, APR 19 AIR editorial board member ERIC SCHULMAN will speak about his new book in a talk entitled "A Briefer History of Time: The History of the Universe in 60 Minutes or Less." The book is based on the article Eric published in AIR. The talk will begin at 7:30 pm in the Kauffmann Theater at the American Museum of Natural History. To purchase tickets in advance, call the museum's Central Reservations at (212) 769-5200. GRAND ILLUSION CINEMA, SEATTLE WA FRI, APR 23 1403 NE 50th St (at University Way) Ig Nobel Prize winner TROY HURTUBISE and his grizzly-bear-proof suit of armor will be guests of honor at a showing of the documentary film "Project Grizzly." INFO: 206-523-3935 http://www.wigglyworld.org SIGMA XI, SMITH COLLEGE, NORTHAMPTON, MA THURS, APR 29 6:30 pm. AIR editor MARC ABRAHAMS will present an underview of improbable research. Includes the classic slide show "PROFESSOR LIPSCOMB Goes Shopping." [NOTE: this event is open only to Sigma Xi members] INFO: Prof. Dany Adams UNNAMED LARGE SECRETIVE ORGANIZATION, WASHINGTON, DC WED, JUNE 30 Time and exact location TBA. AIR editor MARC ABRAHAMS will present an underview of improbable research. Includes the classic slide show "PROFESSOR LIPSCOMB Goes Shopping." INFO: Sally Shelton 9TH FIRST ANNUAL IG NOBEL PRIZE CEREMONY THURS, SEPT 30 Sanders Theater, Harvard University. Tickets will go on sale in August. ANNUAL IG LECTURES SAT, OCT 2 Harvard University CHEMICAL INSTITUTE OF CANADA, TORONTO SECTION WED, DEC. 8 Time and exact location TBA. AIR editor MARC ABRAHAMS will present an underview of improbable research. Includes the classic slide show "PROFESSOR LIPSCOMB Goes Shopping." INFO: Jack Clark |--- ADVANCE LISTING--| MEDICAL LIBRARY ASSOCIATION, UNIV OF UTAH Sept 9-15, 2002 Exact date and location(s) TBA. AIR editor MARC ABRAHAMS will present a lecture on improbable research at a meeting of the Midcontinental Chapter of the Medical Library Association (MCMLA), and be part of a panel discussion on electronic publishing. INFO: Kathleen McCloskey 801/585-5743 -------------------------------------------------------------- 1999-04-20 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 have been reading here in mini-AIR) ............................................................... Name: Address: Address: City and State: Zip or postal code: Country Phone: FAX: E-mail: ............................................................... USA 1 year/$23 2 years/$39 Canada/Mexico 1 year/$27 US 2 years/$45 US Overseas 1 year/$40 US 2 years/$70 US [Copies of back issues are each $8 in the USA, $11 in Canada/Mexico, $16 overseas.] ............................................................... Send payment (US bank check, or international money order, or Visa, Mastercard or Discover info) to: The Annals of Improbable Research (AIR) PO Box 380853, Cambridge, MA 02238 USA 617-491-4437 FAX:617-661-0927 air@improbable.com ----------------------------------------------------- 1999-04-21 How to Receive mini-AIR, etc. (*) What you are reading right now is mini-AIR. It is NOT a tiny version of AIR -- rather, it is a tiny supplement to the 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 ----------------------------------------------------- 1999-04-22 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: http://www.improbable.com/ --------------------------- 1999-04-23 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. ------------------------------------------------------------ (c) copyright 1999, Annals of Improbable Research ------------------------------------------------------------ ------------- 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 (ringo@best.com) COMMUTATIVE EDITOR: Stanley Eigen (eigen@neu.edu) ASSOCIATIVE EDITOR: Mark Dionne CO-CONSPIRATORS: Gary Dryfoos, Ernest Ersatz, Craig Haggart, Nicki Sorel MAITRE DE COMPUTATION: Jerry Lotto AUTHORITY FIGURES: Nobel Laureates Dudley Herschbach, Sheldon Glashow, William Lipscomb, Richard Roberts ============================================================