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The mini-Annals of Improbable Research ("mini-AIR")
Issue Number 1994-03
July, 1994
ISSN 1076-500X
Key words:science humor,Improbable Research,Ig Nobel
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The mini-journal of inflated research and personalities.
Published by The Annals of Improbable Research (AIR)
at The MIT Museum
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1994-03-01      TABLE OF CONTENTS

1994-03-01      Table of Contents
1994-03-02      News: Yes Indeed! Curiousity, Kilt, the, CAT
1994-03-03      Additional, Unreported Dangers from Mexican food
1994-03-04      International Sweetness Ages
1994-03-05      Specimen of the Month
1994-03-06      May We Recommend...
1994-03-07      Upcoming Events
1994-03-08      Calls for Papers
1994-03-09      Purpose of mini-AIR (*)
1994-03-10      How to Submit Articles (*)
1994-03-11      How to Subscribe to AIR(*)
1994-03-12      How to Receive to mini-AIR, etc.(*)
1994-03-13      AIR's Mailing and Internet Addresses (*)
1994-03-14      Please DO make copies! (*)

                Items marked (*) are reprinted in every issue.


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1994-03-02      News: AIR, Curiousity, Kilt, the, CAT

1. Yes Indeed!
We are very pleased to announce:
You can now become a charter subcriber (whatever that means) to
The Annals of Improbable Research (AIR).  The magazine will appear
on your doorstep 6 times per year.  For details, see section 1994-
03-11 below.  PLEASE SPREAD THE WORD!!!!!!

2. Curiousity
We AIRheads continue to receive queries from former readers of The
Journal of Irreproducible Results (JIR) hungry for details of why
the entire staff (1955-1994) of JIR felt it necessary to resign
from that publication and create The Annals of Improbable Research
(AIR).  The matter is explained in news reports in The Scientist
(July 11), Science (June 24) and Nature (June 9).  Details can
also be obtained by emailing a request to air@mit.edu.

3. Kilt
Would the Scottish reader who mailed a kilt to the AIR editorial
office please inform us of your address?  We are otherwise unable
to send you a letter acknowledging that the contribution is tax-
deductible.

3. the
Effective with this issue of mini-AIR, we must discontinue our
popular data feature "The 'The' Count."  "The 'The' Count"
reported how many times during the previous month the the word
"the" appeared in major metropolitan newspapers in 162 cities.  If
and when Internet sites in Asia and Australia agree not to censor
the data, we will resume publishing the column.

4. CAT
The winner of the CAT scanner lottery is Norman F. Lee of Hong
Kong.  Second prize, a wooden tongue depressor, was won by Traian
Mihaescu of Iasi, Romania.


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1994-03-04      Additional, Unreported Dangers from Mexican food

by Steve Mirsky
New York City

The recent report from CSIPI [1] on the high fat and salt content
of Mexican food, though long overdue, still neglects to
implicate the myriad other health dangers consumers face when
dining in Mexican restaurants.

The plates upon which Mexican food is traditionally served
can be very, very hot, indeed approaching the "yip yip woo
hatcha" stage.  Contact between said plates and human skin
can result in tissue damage followed by vigorous hand waving
and blowing that in turn can cause hyperventilation.

A little-discussed danger of Mexican dining is the finite
probability of encounters with roving Mariachia bands.  A
condition known as Castanet Culjone, though rare, is
particularly painful and debilitating.  In addition, the
small mobile orchestras are exceptionally annoying, which can
lower the immune response.

Finally, there is the much observed but little discussed
"twice-burned" phenomenon, consistent with the relative
indigestibility of certain key ingredients of Mexican food
that register particularly high on the Scoville Organoleptic
Test (the official scale of hotness)[2].  At least one Navy test
has shown that window cleaning fluid, especially if it
contains ammonia, can be an effective topical neutralizing
solution for SOEYYWH (Sudden Onset Egress Yip Yip Woo
Hatcha)[3].


REFERENCES

1. The Center for Science in the Public Interest

2. "Peppers," by Amal Naj, Vintage Books, 1992, p. 25.

3. Personal communication to the author.  A Naval Academy graduate
reports that his roommate at Annapolis used to spray his (the
roommate's own) anal region with Windex after a spicy meal.


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1994-03-04      International Sweetness Ages

by Susan Andersen, Lennox University, London, U.K., and Bernadette
Highwood, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Massachusetts

In virtually every culture, people who have generous, kind
dispositions are described as being "sweet."  However, this term
is usually reserved (by other adults) for individuals who have
reached a certain age.  We conducted a cross-national study[1] to
determine how "the minimum age of adult sweetness" varies from
country to country.  Our results our presented below.[2]

Country         Age     (Number of people surveyed)
=======         ===     =========================
Argentina       51      5
Australia       64      550
Austria         58      69
Belgium         57      57
Brazil          56      179
Bulgaria[2]     90      1
Canada          58      867
Columbia        59      2
Costa Rica      58      2
Croatia[2]      114     1
Denmark         59      59
Ecuador[2]      3       1
Estonia         63      7
Fiji[2]         98      1
Finland         67      85
France          14      89
Germany         84      357
Great Britain   64      1222
Greece          58      12
Hongkong        51      17
Hungary         59      4
Iceland         66      7
India           50      27
Ireland         60      41
Israel          75      124
Italy           55      60
Japan           62      41
Korea           58      3
Kuwait[2]       206     1
Malaysia        54      6
Mexico          59      14
Netherlands     50      178
New Zealand     64      103
Norway          62      80
Peru            50      2
Poland          67      12
Portugal        58      29
Romania[2]      714     1
Russia[2]       4       1
Saint Lucia[2]  1       1
Saudi-Arabia[2] 91      1
Singapore       58      27
Slovenia        69      2
South Africa    50      75
Spain           48      33
Sweden          48      143
Switzerland     69      94
Taiwan          61      10
Thailand        54      10
Turkey          58      10
USA             68      12934


NOTES

1. Due to space limitations,we cannot list here the many national
agencies that helped us carry out the survey. We gratefully
acknowledge their assistance.

2. Data may not be reliable for countries that reported fewer than
two responses to the survey question.

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1994-04-05      Specimen of the Month

Taxonomic and analytical text prepared by Emmert Lowery, Jr.
This item is on exhibit at The MIT Museum.

ITEM #786-4591-089      Ferdie The Cow

This fiberglass bovine, measuring eight feet in length from tail
to snout and four feet tall at the shoulders, appeared on the
morning of  October 31, 1979 perched atop MIT's 150 feet tall
Great Dome. The previous  night Ferdi had been, "liberated" from
its home in the Hilltop Steak House  in Saugus, Massachusetts, by
an unidentified group of MIT students. Ferdi's visit to the Great
Dome attracted wide media coverage, and the Hilltop management
took it in good stride, displaying Ferdi with mortar board and
diploma after its return home.

Ferdi returned to MIT in 1990, as part of the MIT Museum's exhibit
on science humor. Since then she has served both as exhibit
artifact and landmark. "Take a right at the cow," has become a
standard instruction to visitors.


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1994-03-06      May We Recommend...

Research reports that merit a trip to the library:

"Identification of Gourmet Meat Using FINS (Forensically
Informative Nucleotide Sequencing)," by Alistair Raymond Russel
Forrest and Patrick Robert Carnegie., "Biotechniqes," 1994, vol.
17, no 1, pp. 24-26.  The report reads in part:
"To protect both producers and consumers from illegal substitution
of cheaper meats for expensive meats, it is necessary to have
tests available that are effective with both cooked and processed
meats.... This high cost of development cannot be justified for
gourmet meats, such as emu, crocodile, and buffalo...  As an
example of the application of the improved FINS technique, a
sample of an emu shish kebab ordered at a local restaurant was
analyzed..."  It was found that the "emu" shish kebab was actually
buffalo shish keb.  (Thanks to Gene Cutler for bringing this to
our attention.)

"An Automated Feeding and Testing Device for Elephants," by
Charles W. Hyatt, Andy T. Richardson, Bruce W. Copeland, John R.
Lehnhardt, "IEEE Transactions on Instrumentation and Measurement,"
Vol. 43, No. 1, February 1994, pp 100-101.  The abstract reads:
"An automated feeding and testing device was developed to provide
behavioral enrichment and research instrumentation for the
elephants at the National Zoological Park/Smithsonian Institution
in Washington, DC."  (Thanks to Steve Goldstein for bringiing this
to our attention.  Goldstein points out that this device may be
the world's biggest touchpad keyboard.)

(We welcome your suggestions for this column.  Please include full
citations. If possible, please send us a photocopy of the paper.)


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1994-03-07      Upcoming Events


MIT ALUMNI/AE CLUB OF LONG ISLAND               date TBA

U RHODE ISLAND, Kingston                        Sept 30, 3 pm
                Pastore Hall Auditorium (Chemistry Dept.)
                Spons. by URI Sigma Xi and URI Dept. of Chemistry
                For info: Prof. Louis J. Kirschenbaum
                kirschenbaum@chm.uri.edu        401-792-2340

1994 IG NOBEL PRIZE CEREMONY            Thurs., October 6
Kresge Auditorium,MIT, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
You are cordially invited to attend.

"CRAZY AFTER CALCULUS"                          ongoing
An ongoing exhibition of extraordinary humor at MIT from
prehistoric times through the presen. [NOTE: The police car that
recently materialized atop MIT's Great Dome is now in storage at
The MIT Museum.]
   The MIT Museum
   265 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA  02139  USA
   (617) 253-4422               (ktl@mitvma.mit.edu)

GODDARD SPACE CENTER, Greenbelt, MD             Oct 28
details TBA

MENSA CONVENTION, Chicago, IL           Sat., Oct. 29
For info call Dianne Miller, (708) 747-5651

INTERSOCIETY POLYMER SOCIETY            Mon., October 10, 1995
Stouffer Harborplace Hotel, Baltimore, MD
The society recommends early reservations. Info: (518) 387-7942

***

In honor (?) of the new book, "Sex As a Heap of Malfunctioning
Rubble," (see below) the books's editor and many of its other
authors are barnstorming North America, doing readings/slide shows
and presenting current trends in improbable research.

Stops on this first leg of the tour included:
POWELL'S TECHNICAL BOOKS, Portland, OR;
UNIV. OF PORTLAND; MICROSOFT, Redmond, WA; UNIV. of WASHINGTON,
Seattle; UC BERKELEY; 3DO, Redwood City, CA;
"WEST COAST LIVE" (NPR); U CHICAGO; NORTHERN ILLINOIS U;
SCI-FI MINICON, Bloomington, MN; BROOKHAVEN NAT'L LAB;
COLUMBIA PRSBYTERIAN MEDICAL CTR; NEW YORK MENSA CLUB;
CORNELL U. MEDICAL CENTER; BRYN MAWR COLLEGE; FRANKLIN INSTITUTE,
Philadelphia; ARMY RESEARCH FORUM, Alexandria, VA;
ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY, Washington, DC;
CONGRESSIONAL OFFICE OF TECHNOLOGY ASSESSMENT, Washington, DC;
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, Washington, DC; MARY WASHINGTON COLLEGE,
Fredricksburg, VA; NAVY RESEARCH LAB, Washington DC;
NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF HEALTH, Bethesda, MD; HORN POINT
ENVIRONMENTAL LAB, Cambridge, MD; TECHNICON SCI-FI CONVENTION,
VIRGINIA TECH, Blacksburg, VA; CEBAF NATIONAL LAB; U CINCINNATI;
AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY, Cincinatti, OH; OHIO STATE U;
CORNELL UNIVERSITY; MIT ALUMNI CLUB of NEW HAMPSHIRE

::::: THE NEXT LEGS:  Invite us to your place!!
Other events are being organized now.
If you would like to be a host/instigator for an Improbable
Science Event for 50 or more people at your city, university,
hospital, research center, high school, book store, etc., ASAP
please contact the editor .
 

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1994-03-08      Calls for Papers

CALL FOR PAPERS on the topic: "A Knot Theorist's Analysis of City
Street Maps."  We are seeking a series of cross-disciplinary
reports in which the mathematics of knot theory is used to analyze
the city street maps of Tokyo, London, Buenos Aires and other
complex cities.  Please include maps and relevant diagrams.

CALL FOR SLIDES AND X-RAYS that show unexpected shapes (swans,
chickens, elephants, the Eiffel Tower, dogs, fish, smiley faces,
ships, trains, Bart Simpson, Margaret Thatcher, etc., etc.). The
most outstanding of these will appear on the cover of AIR.

CALL FOR NOMINATIONS for the 1994 Ig Nobel Prizes. Ig Nobel Prizes
are awarded for achievements that cannot or should not be
reproduced. Nominations may be submitted, anonymously or
otherwise, by e-mail or by standard mail.


******************************************************************
1994-03-9       Purpose of mini-AIR (*)

The mini-Annals of Improbable Research (mini-AIR) publishes news
about improbable research and ideas. Specifically:

A) Haphazardly selected superficial (but advanced!) extracts of
research news and satire from The Annals of Improbable Research.

B) News about the annual Ig Nobel Prize ceremony.

C) News about other science humor activities intentional and
otherwise.

WHAT IS AIR? (An introduction, of sorts)
AIR is a new magazine produced by the entire former editorial
staff (1955-1994) of "The Journal of Irreproducible Results
(JIR)," the world's oldest satirical science journal. The new
magazine's co-founders are Marc Abrahams, who edited JIR from
1990-1994, and Alexander Kohn, who founded JIR in 1955 and was its
editor until 1989. AIR is published at the MIT Museum in
Cambridge, MA.  AIR's editorial board consists of more than 40
distinguished scientists from around the world including seven
Nobel Laureates. Every October, AIR and the MIT Museum produce the
Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony, honoring people whose achievements cannot
or should not be reproduced.


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1994-03-10      How to Submit Articles (*)

The Annals of Improbable Research (AIR) publishes original
articles, data, effluvia and news of improbable research. The
material is intended to be humorous and/or educational, and
sometimes is. We look forward to receiving your manuscripts,
photographs, X-rays, drawings, etc. Please do not send biological
samples. Photos should be black & white if possible.  Reports of
research RESULTS, modest or otherwise, are preferred to
speculative proposals.

Articles are typically 500-2000 words in length.
Articles intended for mini-AIR should be much shorter.
Please send two neatly printed copies.
Alternatively, you may submit via e-mail, in ASCII format.

Because of the volume of submissions, we are unable to acknowledge
receipt of printed manuscripts unless they are accompanied by a
SELF-ADDRESSED, ADEQUATELY STAMPED ENVELOPE.


---------------------------
1994-03-11      How to Subscribe to AIR(*)

The first issue of AIR will appear in late autumn.  A large number
of subscribers would make it possible to accelerate the schedule,
so please pass the word to anyone else who might like to
subscribe!

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1994-03-12      How to Receive to mini-AIR, etc.(*)

mini-AIR is an electronic publication, available over the
Internet, free of charge. It is distributed as a LISTSERV
application.  We publish approximately 12 issues per year.
To subscribe, send a brief E-mail message to either of these
addresses:
        LISTSERV@MITVMA.MIT.EDU     or      LISTSERV@MITVMA
The body of your message should contain ONLY the words "SUBSCRIBE
MINI-AIR" followed by your name.
Here are two examples:
        SUBSCRIBE MINI-AIR Irene Curie Joliot
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To stop subscribing,
send the following message to the same address:
        SIGNOFF MINI-AIR
To obtain a list of back issues,
send this message:
        INDEX MINI-AIR
To retrieve a particular back issue,
send a message specifying which issue you want.
For example, to retrieve issue 94-00001,send this message:
        GET MINI-AIR 94-00001

To obtain a somewhat complete list of gopher sites that maintain
mini-AIR, email us a request.


::::: AIR extracts are on USENET

The USENET news group clari.feature.imprb_research presents a
syndicated weekly column of reports extracted from The Annals of
Improbable Research. The material presented there is different
from what appears here in mini-AIR.
[Please note: The news group is available to you if and only if
your Internet site subscribes to the Clarinet newsgroups.]


::::: Books

"Sex As a Heap of Malfunctioning Rubble (and further
improbabilities): More of the Best of The Journal of
Irreproducible Results," Marc Abrahams, editor.
A collection of dangerously potent science humor, much of it
written by the people who have now founded AIR. With riveting
photos, x-rays and eye charts.
Workman Publishing, New York, 1993.     ISBN 1-56305-312-8      $14

"The Journal of the Institute for Hacks, TomFoolery, and Pranks at
MIT," by Brian Leibowitz.
A complete history, lavishly illustrated with inspirational
photos, of the world's leading institute for elegantly conceived,
engineered, and connived collegiate practical joking.
The MIT Museum, Cambridge, 1988.  ISBN-0-917027-03-5            $24

Both books are available from the MIT Museum. The prices quoted
here include shipping/handling to any destination at or above sea
level. For expedited Air Mail Service to locations outside the US,
add $12 to the order. Otherwise, we'll ship book rate. These books
can also be found in many libraries and bookstores.

---------------------------
1994-03-13      AIR's Mailing and Internet Addresses

Our mailing address:

        The Annals of Improbable Research (AIR)
        The MIT Museum
        265 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, MA 02139 USA
        (617) 253-4462  fax: (617)253-8994

        Editorial matters:  (617) 253-8329

        PLEASE include your Internet address
        in all printed correspondence.

Our Internet addresses:

        Editorial matters:      air@mit.edu
        Ig Nobel matters:               ig@mit.edu

---------------------------
1994-03-14      Please DO make copies! (*)

You have permission to distribute copies of mini-AIR or excerpts
from it. The only limitations are:
A) Please indicate that the material appeared in mini-AIR and is
reprinted with permission.
B) You do NOT have permission to copy or excerpt this document for
commercial purposes.

        ------------------------------------------------------------
        (c) copyright 1994, The Annals of Improbable Research
        ------------------------------------------------------------
        The mini-Annals of Improbable Research (mini-AIR)
        Editor: Marc Abrahams (marca@mit.edu)
        Chairman of the Editorial Board: Alexander Kohn
        Tech Support: Christopher Small (chris@das.harvard.edu)
        Associate Editors: Mark Dionne, Stanley Eigen, Jane Patrick
        Museum Exhibits Coordinator: Diego Garcia
        Authority Figure: Barbara Linden

        ============================================================
        IMPORTANT -- The Annals of Improbable Research is IN NO WAY
        associated with the name "The Journal of Irreproducible
        Results" or with the publisher of "The Journal of
        Irreproducible Results"
        ============================================================
