|
|
| |
|
|
| |
01 TABLE OF CONTENTMENT
02 In the Magazine Itself: MIXTURES, and soon IG NOBEL
03 Stifling the Sneeze
04 Improbable Events Soon in Europe
05 Item Five
06 Ig Nobel Card Game Addiction Fears
07 LIMERICK CHALLENGE: Photonic Sneeze in a Plane
08 Pineapple E-Nose Aroma Winner
09 MORE IMPROBABLE: Glug-Glug, Glee, Whatnot
10 Photic Sneezing Hazards
---
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.
This little newsletter you are reading at the moment (mini-AIR) is overflow detritus from the magazine Annals of Improbable Research (AIR).
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
02 In the Magazine Itself: MIXTURES, and soon IG NOBEL
The special MIXTURES issue (32:5) is now still in existence. The table of contents and a preview are at
payhip.com/b/dQWAz
The special IG NOBEL issue (for Nov/Dec) is in the early stages of being imminent.
* * *
SUBSCRIBE to the MAGAZINE, or get BACK ISSUES
improbable.com/magazine-2/
Tables of Contents: improbable.com/magazine-2/
|
|
|
03 Stifling the Sneeze
This month's quasi-haphazardly selected research report of the month (QHSRROTM) is:
"Stifling the Sneeze in ACHOO Syndrome — What the Anesthesiologist Should Know," Shalini Subramanian and Deepa Shetty, Journal of Anaesthesiology Clinical Pharmacology, vol. 39, no. 3, 2023, pp. 499-500.
doi.org/10.4103/joacp.joacp_440_21
|
|
|
04 Improbable Events Soon in Europe
Some improbable happenings happening soon in Europe, with:
- Marc Abrahams: (Ig Nobel founder): Why the Ig Nobel Prize ceremony moved to Europe
- Keira Lee Rice (nose-spray researcher and Ig Nobel organizer): How to live-draw improbable research
- Ilona Croy (psychologist and Ig Nobel Prize winner): Smelling babies and teenagers
- Nicole Sharp (fluid dynamicist and Ig Nobel organizer): Designing a splash-free urinal
- Kees Moeliker (ornithologist and Ig Nobel Prize winner): The rise and fall of the pubic louse [at Falling Walls]; and How a dead duck changed my life [at Berlin Science Week]
FRIDAY, November 6: Falling Walls Science Summit
SUNDAY, November 8: Berlin Science Week
Info about those:
improbable.com/2026/10/18/ig-nobel-events-in-berlin/
After that, some other stuff in Luxembourg, Belgium, and The Netherlands.
|
|
|
05 Item Five
This is the fifth item. It is not the fourth item. It is not the sixth item. It is the least important item in this month's newsletter.
|
|
|
06 Ig Nobel Card Game Addiction Fears
We have been made aware of reports of people who fear they have become addicted to the new (and only) Ig Nobel card game. We are endeavoring to plumb the claims, to learn the truth about the situation.
Info about the game:
improbable.com/2026/08/24/the-official-ig-nobel-card-game-is-born/
|
|
|
07 LIMERICK CHALLENGE: Photonic Sneeze in a Plane
This month's RESEARCH LIMERICK challenge — Devise a pleasing limerick that encapsulates this study:
"The Photic Sneeze Reflex as a Risk Factor to Combat Pilots," R.A. Breitenbach, P.K. Swisher, M.K. Kim, and B.S. Patel, Military Medicine, vol. 158, no. 12, 1993, pp. 806–809.
doi.org/10.1093/milmed/158.12.806
The authors explain:
"This study was initiated by a flight surgeon with a life-long history of sneezing twice with sudden changes in light intensity."
Send your perfectllly formed, perfectly pleasing limerick to:
PHOTONIC SNEEZE LIMERICK COMPETITION
c/o MARC aaattt IMPROBABLE dddooottt COM
|
|
|
08 Pineapple E-Nose Aroma Winner
The judges have chosen a winner in last month's Competition, which asked for a limerick to explain this study:
"Optimizing Machine Learning Parameters for Classifying the Sweetness of Pineapple Aroma Using Electronic Nose," Mhd Arief Hasan, Riyanarto Sarno, and Shoffi Izza Sabilla, International Journal of Intelligent Engineering and Systems, vol. 13, no. 5, 2020, pp. 122-132.
doi.org/10.22266/ijies2020.1031.12
Winning limerickicist DOT BONDELEVITCH writes:
My thoughts about this are kind of... hectic:
A pineapple that's not electric
plus an A-I electrical nose
in juxtaposition compose
a combo that's sweetly eclectic.
This month's take, from our LIMERICK LAUREATE, MARTIN EIGER:
A profusion of pineapple prose
proposes so sweetly. They pose
that old-fashioned olfaction
has lost its attraction.
What's good? An electronic nose.
|
|
|
09 MORE IMPROBABLE: Glug-Glug, Glee, Whatnot
Recent improbable research bits you may have missed...
BLOG (improbable.com)
• Glug-Glug and Glee in a Cowbird
• Computer-Aided Scalp Hair Quantification (1986)
• Ig Nobel Face-to-Face in Zurich 2026 [video]
• Apparent Death of Lively Belief in a Long-Lived Swath of Research About Long-Lived People
• A New Appreciation of Bill Lipscomb, Chemist and Theatrical Performer
• Politicians’ Fervent Boosts to Medical Education
• …and more
SUBSTACK: (improbablestuff.substack.com)
MASTODON: @MarcAbrahams@mstdn.science
FACEBOOK: facebook.com/improbableresearch
PATREON: patreon.com/ImprobableResearch
|
|
|
10 Photic Sneezing Hazards
This month's Other Haphazardly-Selected Research Report (OQHSRROTM) of the month is:
"Practical Hazards of Photic Sneezing," E.W. Benbow, The British Journal of Ophthalmology, vol. 75, no. 5, 1991, p. 447.
doi.org/10.1136/bjo.75.7.447-a
The author explains:
"Photic sneezing has two hazards not mentioned in either of these publications [which were cited]. The first is the potentially dangerous sneezing which can occur while driving a car on a sunny day. I find that sudden exposure to sunlight when emerging from a road tunnel of sufficient length is sure to induce a sneeze, with accompanying momentary blindness.... The second hazard is more personal, being that paroxysmal hypertension induced when people who observe my photic sneezing make solicitous mutterings about my 'hay fever,' even on the kind of cold clear winter day when the air contains not a single pollen grain."
|
|
|
20 SOME IMPROBABLE EVENTS
- Falling Walls, Berlin, Germany — Nov 6-9, 2026
- Berlin Science Week— Nov 8, 2026
- Luxembourg — Nov 14, 2026
- Belgium and The Netherlands — Nov 16-19, 2026
- Ig Nobel radio broadcast, Science Friday — Nov 27, 2026
- Stanford U, Palo Alto, CA, USA — Dec 9, 2026
- Boskone, Boston, MA, USA — Feb, 2027
- AAAS Annual Meeting, Chicago, IL, USA — Feb 2027
- 2027 Ig Nobel EuroTour — Spring 2027
- 37th First Annual Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony, Antwerp, Flanders, Belgium — Sept 5, 2027
For details and additional events, see: improbable.com/upcoming-events/
If your institution would like to host an event,
please get in touch with us at:
MARC aaattt IMPROBABLE dddooottt COM
|
|
|
| |
|
|
| |
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 ($40 for six issues)
BACK ISSUES ($8 each)
(mini-AIR, the thing you are reading at this moment, is but a tiny, free-floating quasi-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, see the links at the end of this email.
ARCHIVES: improbable.com/publications/newsletter-mini-air/
|
|
|
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
|
|
|
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 2026, Improbable Research
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
This email was sent to ehartwell.newsletters@blogger.com
|
|
You've received it because you've subscribed to our newsletter.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
No comments:
Post a Comment