Mini-AIR

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

February 2014, issue number 2014-02. ISSN 1076-500X.

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Monthly mini update/alert from the Annals of Improbable Research

Archive at <http://improbable.com/airchives/miniair/>

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2014-02-01 TABLE OF CONTENTS

2014-02-02 Imminent Events

2014-02-03 In the Magazine: Miscreant Trapping (in the works)

2014-02-04 Improbability in Chicago, with Roller Derby

2014-02-05 RESEARCH SPOTLIGHT: Heavy Tails

2014-02-06 Interest of Ruin Probabilities Limerick Competition

2014-02-07 Jerks and Monopoles Poet

2014-02-08 MORE IMPROBABLE: Sadly, Farewell to Dr. Fesmire & His Finger

2014-02-09 MAY WE RECOMMEND: More Heavy Tails

2014-02-10 Improbable Research Events

2014-02-11 -- How to Get the Magazine (*)

2014-02-12 -- Our Address (*)

2014-02-13 -- Please Forward/Post This Issue! (*)

2014-02-14 -- How to start or stop receiving this newsletter (*)

Items marked (*) are reprinted in every issue.

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2014-02-02 Imminent Events

AAAS Annual Meeting, Chicago, USA Feb 15, 2014

UK, Denmark, Sweden Mar 14 - Apr 2, 2014

Full events schedule at <http://goo.gl/tzwJt>

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2014-02-03 In the Magazine: Miscreant Trapping (in the works)

The special Miscreant Trapping issue (vol. 20, no. 1) of the Annals of Improbable Research is now at the printer, and will soon meander its papery way to subscribers and also meander digitally onto the major e-bookstores.

The special Ig Nobel issue (vol. 19, no. 6) is partly online, at <http://www.improbable.com/airchives/paperair/volume19/v19i6/v19i6.html>, and entirely in the e-bookstores.

Download a FREE E-BOOK ISSUE <http://goo.gl/BMzMw>

All issues of the magazine <http://www.improbable.com/magazine>

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2014-02-04 Improbability in Chicago, with Roller Derby

Join us for the annual big Ig Nobel Show at the AAAS Annual meeting in Chicago, this Saturday night — February 15, 2014, 8:00-10:00 pm., at the Fairmont Chicago Hotel, in the Moulin Rouge Ballroom.

Among the informataries:

Prof. KATE CLANCY will explain — and demonstrate, with help from the Twin City Derby Girls and the Chicago Outfit — the significance of the study "Signiﬁcant changes in the skin microbiome mediated by the sport of roller derby".

Ig Nobel Prize winner BRIAN CRANDALL will explain the experimental swallowing and excreting of a parboiled shrew.

BETHANY BROOKSHIRE, aka SciCurious, will do a 24/7 Lecture on the topic: "The Brain".

Ig Nobel Prize winner Prof. BRAD BUSHMAN will explicate how his team demonstrated that people who think they are drunk also think they are attractive.

Prof. KATE CLANCY will do a 24/7 Lecture on the topic: "Vaginal pH".

Ig Nobel Prize winner Dr. ELENA BODNAR will tell and show why and how she invented of the Chernobyl-inspired Emergency Bra.

<http://www.improbable.com/2014/02/11/saturday-improbable-research-show-chicago-aaas/>

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2014-02-05 RESEARCH SPOTLIGHT: Heavy Tails

This month's research spotlights thickness and heavy tails — and robustness:

"A Simple Robust Estimator for the Thickness of Heavy Tails," Hans-Peter Scheffler and Mark Meerschaert, Journal of Statistical Planning and Inference, vol. 71, 1998, pp. 19-34.

<http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378375898000937>

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2014-02-06 Interest of Ruin Probabilities Limerick Competition

Ruin probabilities — especially those that randomly reek with interest — inspire this month's limerick competition. To enter, compose an original limerick that illuminates the nature of this study:

"Ruin Probabilities with Random Rates of Interest," Wang Han-xing and Wan Ai-hua, Journal of Shanghai University, vol. 10, no. 3, June, 2006, pp. 211-4.

<http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11741-006-0116-4>

The authors remark, as if it weren't obvious, that "The model equation is an integro-differential equation with deviating arguments".

Submit your perfectly formed limerick to:

INTEREST OF RUIN PROBABILITIES LIMERICK COMPETITION

c/o <marca@improbable.com>

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2014-02-07 Jerks and Monopoles Poet

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

"Jerks and Monopoles: Physical Effects of the Third Derivative," Morris W. Leen, American Journal of Physics, vol. 62, 1994, pp. 393-393.

<http://goo.gl/CXFNuy>

The winner is INVESTIGATOR TONY HARKER, who writes:

Leen noticed, when subway cars get a

Speed-up, that smooth ones are better.

A rough one, a jerk,

Spoiled his journey to work,

And that's why he published this letter.

And here is the offering from LIMERICK LAUREATE MARTIN EIGER:

I was taking the subway to work,

When the car I was in went berserk.

The trainman had spurred

The train so the third

Derivative's high. What a jerk!

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2014-02-08 MORE IMPROBABLE: Sadly, Farewell to Dr. Fesmire & His Finger

Recent improbable bits you maybe missed:

IMPROBABLE BLOG:

Sad News: Dr. Fesmire, of digital-rectal-massage-to-cure-hiccups fame, is gone

<http://www.improbable.com/2014/02/04/sad-news-dr-fesmire-of-digital-rectal-massage-to-cure-hiccups-fame-is-gone>

Vibrostimulating the Latvian bobsleighers can produce victory (study)

<http://www.improbable.com/2014/01/31/vibrostimulating-olympic-bobsleighers-study>

Success and the Attractive Bicycle Racer

<http://www.improbable.com/2014/02/07/success-and-the-attractive-bicycle-racer/>

...and MORE, MORe, MOre, More, more at <http://improbable.com>

New LFHCfS (Luxuriant Flowing Hair Club for Scientists / Luxuriant Former Hair Club for Scientists / Luxuriant Facial Hair Club for Scientists) members:

Hannah Julich

Rik McRae

Neil Martin

Josephine A. Beck

Admire them at <http://www.improbable.com/category/lfhcfs-hair-club/>

Newspaper column: <http://goo.gl/KuywJ>

twitter: @ImprobResearch, @MarcAbrahams, #IgNobel

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

book: <http://goo.gl/rHMb3t>

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2014-02-09 MAY WE RECOMMEND: More Heavy Tails

"Shifted Hill's Estimator for Heavy Tails," Inmaculada B. Aban and Mark M. Meerschaert, Communications in Statistics - Simulation and Computation, vol. 30, no. 4, November 2001 , pp. 949-62.

<http://www.stt.msu.edu/~mcubed/hillshftCIS.pdf>

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2014-02-10 Improbable Research Events

For details and additional events, see

<http://improbable.com/improbable-research-shows/complete-schedule>

AAAS Annual Meeting, Chicago, USA — Feb 15, 2014

NEW BOOK — Publication day UK — Mar 6, 2014

Ig Nobel Tour of the UK — Mar, 2014

Ig Nobel Tour of Denmark — Mar, 2014

Stockholm, Sweden — Mar, 2014

USA Sci & Eng Fest, Washington, DC — Apr 24, 2014

NIST, Gaithersburg, MD, USA — Apr 25, 2014

ESOF, Copenhagen, Denmark — Jun, 2014

Ig Nobel TICKETS go on sale — midsummer, 2014

NEW BOOK — Publication day USA — Aug 12, 2014

Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony — Sep 18, 2014

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2014-02-11 -- How to Get the Magazine (*)

The Annals of Improbable Research is a 6-issues-per-year magazine. (It's much bigger and better than the little bits in this newsletter.)

We produce each issue as an e-book, as well as on traditional paper.

E-BOOKS:

<http://www.improbable.com/magazine/>

DOWNLOAD A FREE E-BOOK ISSUE: <http://goo.gl/BMzMw>

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2014-02-12 -- Our Address (*)

Annals of Improbable Research (AIR)

PO Box 380853, Cambridge, MA 02238 USA

(+1) 617-491-4437, FAX: (+1) 617-661-0927

EDITORIAL: <marca@improbable.com>

PRINT SUBSCRIPTIONS: <subscriptions@improbable.com>

Web Site and blog: <http://www.improbable.com>

Twitter: @ImprobResearch

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2014-02-13 -- 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

CO-CONSPIRATORS: Kees Moeliker, Alice Shirrell Kaswell, Gary Dryfoos, Ernest Ersatz, 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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2014-02-14 -- How to start or stop receiving this newsletter (*)

Mini-AIR is a (free!) teeny-tiny monthly *supplement* to the actual six-times-a-year magazine AIR.

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