Notebook

Table of Contents An Improbable Debut Strange Bedfellows SRO Silvery Science Those Cards And Letters Keep Coming The Annals of Improbable Research (AIR)--a new journal published by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Museum and developed by the same brilliant, but twisted, minds who originated the Ig Nobel Prizes for dubious scientific achievements--issued its first volume on December 14. The debut was commemorated at a ceremony highlighted by (questionable) pomp (Marilyn Vos Savant, holder of the world's highest IQ, ate alphabet soup and offered crackers to attendees), (unexplained) circumstance (an invited convicted felon, AIR board member Robert T. Morris, found guilty of paralyzing the Internet, was a no-show), (obligatory) interruptions (it was "a nonstop evening of heckling," according to journal cofounder Marc Abrahams), and the re- burial of a "tiny time caplet" found during renovation of the museum's basement. The occasion was also marked by the presentation of papers from the ...