Magazine, Comic Awards Improbably Change Location

Location Author: PETER GWYNNE Having survived a spring and summer of discontent, two manifestations of science humor have emerged in a new location. Their efforts to laugh at-and with-science, scientists, and everything associated with them proceed unabated, to the general relief of some Nobel laureates and others who like their science spiced with satire. STAR-STUDDED SPINOFF: AIR board member Karen Hopkin's "Studmuffins of Science" calendar features researcher models like Brian Scottolini of Stanford University, left, and Robert Jones of the University of Minnesota. This year's Ig Nobelists will receive calendars. After a year based in Cambridge, Mass., on the Massachusetts Institute of Technology campus, the Annals of Improbable Research (AIR)-a science humor magazine that, in the words of cofounder Marc Abrahams, "specializes in inflated research and personalities"-has separated from MIT and moved up Cambridge's Massachusetts Avenue to the ivied, less-techie surroundings of Harvard University. Also making the journey are the magazine's E-mail companion, the "mini-Annals of Improbable Research"-a free newsletter available on the Internet-and the annual Ig Nobel Prize ceremony, a four-year-old affair founded by Abrahams to honor individuals whose achievements "cannot or should not be reproduced." This year's version of the ceremony, which previously played to overflow crowds in MIT's Kresge Auditorium, will take place on October 6 in Harvard's cosier Lowell Lecture Hall. In its 18-month existence, AIR has established a strong niche in and around the scientific community, boasting seven science Nobel laureates on its editorial board. The publication aims its humor at real scientific endeavors rather than science fantasy. Neither side is willing to discuss details of AIR's split with MIT. What is clear is that differences in perception about the role of the magazine in the MIT Museum, which acted as the publisher of AIR and sponsor of the Ig Nobels, triggered the initial disagreement. A major point of contention, according to sources close to the situation who request anonymity, related to the cost of AIR and the Ig Nobels. Some individuals at MIT feared that the museum would lose money through publishing AIR and sponsoring the ceremony, while Abrahams felt that AIR was being unfairly blamed for other revenue problems. MIT's ombudsman, the school's top aca-demic staff, and, ultimately, attorneys were enlisted to try to settle the differences, but they failed. Beyond that, details are scanty. "It was an idea that, for a variety of reasons, did not work out, even though there were very intelligent people on both sides," says an MIT source, speaking on condition of anonymity. MIT issued a terse statement: "Unfortunately, MIT and Mr. Abrahams were unable to reach an agreement on continued publication of the magazine. . . . The publishing responsibilities have been assumed by Mr. Abrahams. . . . In a related matter, MIT has decided not to host the 1995 Ig Nobel Prize ceremony." Hence, Abrahams was free to take the awards presentation to Harvard, although he has no administrative relationship with the university. AIR is now published by Improbable Research Inc., based on the Harvard campus in Cambridge. Abrahams took a more elliptical view of the relocation. In the July/August issue of AIR, the first for which the MIT Museum was not the publisher, he quoted Arthur Conan Doyle's passing reference to the Sherlock Holmes encounter with the Giant Rat of Sumatra: "a story for which the world is not yet prepared." He noted, "It is perhaps heartening, at least from a literary point of view, that one hundred years later such sagas [as Doyle's] are still occurring." What is important, he adds in an interview with The Scientist, is that "I am now undisputed owner of my property." The magazine is a kind of intellectual successor of the Journal of Irreproducible Results (JIR), which Abrahams edited in harness with the late Israeli cardiologist Alex Kohn. JIR is now owned by George Scherr, a microbiologist in Chicago. A note in the "mini-AIR" stresses that "AIR is IN NO WAY associated with the name 'The Journal of Irreproducible Results' or with its publisher." AIR's Nobel-winning board members played a key role in the continuation of the magazine and the Ig Nobel ceremony. Nobelists and AIR editorial board members Sheldon Glashow (1979, physics), Dudley Herschbach (1986, chemistry), and William N. Lipscomb (1976, chemistry), all Harvard professors, worked the phones and used their influence to find Abrahams a new home at the Ivy League school. Other laureates on the magazine's board are MIT's Jerome Friedman (1990, physics); Melvin Schwartz of Columbia University (1988, physics); Richard Roberts of New England BioLabs Inc., Beverly, Mass. (1993, physiology or medicine); and Sir John Kendrew of Cambridge University (1962, chemistry). AIR also proudly proclaims that its board includes "a convicted felon," in the person of computer hacker Robert T. Morris, now a postdoctoral student at Harvard. Why do Nobel laureates support AIR and the Ig Nobel Prizes? "I've been willing to be involved because I think it will be of some help if the public perceives that scientists aren't a bunch of super-nerds who have no sense of humor," explains Herschbach. "I'm convinced a lot of people get a kick out of it." Glashow agrees. "I think anything we can do to get some interest in science among the general public is valuable," he says. Abrahams, who has an undergraduate degree from Harvard in applied mathematics and does occasional computer-programming projects, is certainly helping to stimulate such interest. Later this month in New York City, he will address the Folio Conference, a tutorial session for editors, publishers, and others in the magazine business, on "Camshafts, Beer, and Cindy Crawford: How to Make a Dull Topic Irresistible." The talk is sponsored by the American Society of Business Press Editors (ASBPE). "If anyone could tell writers how to make a boring subject interesting, it is Marc Abrahams," says John Nelson, executive vice president of ABPE. On October 10, Abrahams will talk about the current state of AIR at the Inter-Polymer Conference in Baltimore. The main damage to the magazine was the failure to publish two issues of "mini-AIR" during the transition, and some muddling of subscription records. Current subscribers to AIR number about 2,500, and their ranks are rising steadily. The "mini-AIR" goes to about 25,000 addresses on the Internet, free of charge (To subscribe, send the message "SUBSCRIBE MINI-AIR [YOUR NAME]" to LISTPROC@AIR.HARVARD.EDU). AIR also has a home page, "Hot AIR," at the URL http://www.improb.com/. The magazine itself hardly missed a beat. The July/August issue followed the May/June issue, the last published by the MIT Museum, with only a minor delay. The most recent issue, dated September/October, contains a typical mix of AIR features, including: Nobel laureate Roberts on how fatheads and phonies have affected his education and career; an article on the depalliative effects of osculation on the prognosis of pediatric wounds (or the effects of kissing on boo-boos); and the first solution to the half-full, half-empty glass problem. While acknowledging that he was shaken by events at the time, because he feared that he would lose the magazine, Abrahams says that he feels no bitterness toward MIT. "In a couple of years, I hope [AIR] will be a joint Harvard-MIT operation," he tells The Scientist. By then, if all goes as he plans, the magazine will be reaching a wider audience. Abrahams sees the prospect of gradual growth via exposure through the Internet and news shows on radio and television. Within a few years, he hopes, AIR will have 40,000 to 50,000 subscribers. Meanwhile, arrangements for this week's Ig Nobel ceremony are moving apace. Two student groups, the Harvard Computer Society and the Harvard-Radcliffe Mathematical Bulletin (known as Tangents), have helped to arrange the event by booking the hall, selling tickets, and organizing live coverage of the proceedings on the Internet, and the Harvard News Office has taken on much of the load of publicizing it. One problem is the 400-seat capacity of the hall. Last year's awards attracted a standing-room-only crowd to a hall with seating for 1,100. So the organizers set up a lottery system for offering tickets to official delegations. A small number of tickets will go on sale. At press time, plans were in the works to pipe in the ceremony to overflow halls. Other plans for this week's event are well advanced. Robert Lopez, a Westport, N.Y., veterinarian who won an Ig Nobel prize last year for an experiment in which he put a cat's ear mites into his own ears, will appear as keynote speaker. And Abrahams promises that "we have a truly outstanding crop of winners this year." Chemists have the example of 1993 winner Yvette Bassa, a scientist at General Foods USA (now Kraft Foods) of White Plains, N.Y., who invented bright blue Jell-O. She flew up to the ceremony in a corporate jet, accompanied by a delegation of 20 colleagues wearing bright blue lab coats. According to Abrahams, most winners accept their prizes in a similar spirit. Abrahams's projects aren't the only recent efforts to perk up the image of science and scientists. Karen Hopkin, a Ph.D. biochemist and member of AIR's editorial board, has produced a "Studmuffins of Science" calendar for 1996. It features photos of 12 male scientists, at work and at play. FOUNDER: marc Abrahams at last year's Ig Nobel fete. Hopkin, a producer of the National Public Radio show "Talk of the Nation: Science Friday"-which will broadcast this year's Ig Nobel ceremony-financed the scheme with her own money, along with contributions from "family and friends." A blurb about the project in "mini-AIR," along with other publicity, resulted in about 200 nominations, from which Hopkin selected the models. Hopkin will release the calendar on October 17 in a ceremony at the New York Academy of Sciences. Winners of the Ig Nobel will get their own previews: All will receive a studmuffins calendar as part of their prize. NOBEL SUPPORTER: Laureate Sheldon Glashow supports the magazine's efforts to popularize science. Reaction to Hopkin's venture has been "nearly 100 percent fabulous," she maintains. However, a brief item in the September 7 issue of "NABR Update," the newsletter of the Washington, D.C.-based National Association for Biomedical Research (Vol. 16, No. 20), noted that an earlier newsletter announcement of the calendar (Vol. 16, No. 18) "has received mixed reviews. . . We apologize to anyone this article offended." The main concern on the part of individuals who have contacted her, Hopkin reports, was that she should have featured female scientists. In fact, Hopkin has tentative plans for both a "Women of Science" and a "Nobel Studs" calendar for 1997. Such efforts are doing well to take AIR as their exemplar for a mixture of reality and whimsy, say fans of the magazine. "Every single story in AIR has a parallel here," declares John Barrett, an administrator in the Harvard physics department, explaining how the magazine unerringly targets the pomposity of scientists. "I'm surrounded by Nobel laureates and theorists. It's good to see their balloons burst." Peter Gwynne is a freelance science writer based in Lenox, Mass. (The Scientist, Vol:9, #19, pg.3, 11 , October 2, 1995) (Copyright © The Scientist, Inc.)

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