The Annals of Improbable Research (AIR) is a bimonthly magazine devoted to scientific humor, styled as a satirical version of a standard academic journal. Founded in 1995 and published by Improbable Research, Inc., out of Cambridge, Massachusetts, it has spent three decades occupying a peculiar niche: treating genuinely absurd research with the full apparatus of peer-reviewed scholarship. Its best-known product is the annual Ig Nobel Prize ceremony, which has awarded ten prizes every year since 1991 to achievements that, in the organizers’ own words, “first make people laugh, and then make them think.”
Key facts
- Founded: 1995
- Type: trade magazine
- Website: https://www.improbable.com/
Origins
AIR grew directly out of a breakdown at a rival publication. Marc Abrahams had edited the Journal of Irreproducible Results from 1990 to 1994, but in 1994 the journal’s publisher decided to abandon the magazine. Unable to use the old name, Abrahams and his colleagues launched the Annals of Improbable Research as an entirely new publication the following year. Abrahams holds a degree in applied mathematics from Harvard University, and the organization has remained headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts ever since.
In 2006, AIR extended its footprint to Europe, opening the Improbable Research European Bureau in Rotterdam, The Netherlands. Kees Moeliker was appointed European Bureau Chief in May 2006. Moeliker is a Dutch biologist and former director of the Natural History Museum Rotterdam who had already won the Ig Nobel Prize in Biology in 2003 — making him, arguably, the only bureau chief in journalism hired in part on the strength of an award for improbable science.
Staff, Board, and Community
The permanent staff is small: editor and co-founder Marc Abrahams, European Bureau Chief Kees Moeliker, General Manager David Kessler, and a few other individuals. Behind them sits a large volunteer network spread across many countries.
The editorial board is composed of fifty-odd eminent scientists, doctors, and others from around the world, including several Nobel Prize winners and, as the organization itself notes, a convicted felon.
The Magazine
AIR is published six times a year. The last issue to appear in paper form was the November/December 2015 issue, volume 21, number 6; since then the magazine has been published exclusively in PDF format. Alongside the main publication, AIR distributes a free monthly email newsletter called mini-AIR (ISSN 1076-500X), which functions as a supplement between the six annual issues.
Marc Abrahams extended AIR’s reach through his own writing as well. He wrote a mostly-weekly column called ‘Improbable Research’ in The Guardian for thirteen years and subsequently wrote the weekly ‘Feedback’ column in New Scientist magazine.
The Ig Nobel Prizes
The Ig Nobel Prize ceremony is AIR’s most visible output. Ten prizes are awarded each year for achievements that first make people laugh and then make them think, with prizes given every year since 1991. The ceremony is co-sponsored by the Harvard-Radcliffe Society of Physics Students and the Harvard-Radcliffe Science Fiction Association. Since 1996, every ceremony has included the premiere of a new mini-opera performed by professional opera singers, with Nobel laureates taking supporting roles.
For most of its history the ceremony was held in the United States. In 2026, the 36th First Annual Ig Nobel Prize ceremony moved to Zurich, Switzerland, on September 3, 2026, after 35 years on American soil. The relocation was driven by safety concerns for international winners and journalists traveling to the US. As of 2026, the plan is for Zurich to host the ceremony every other year, with other European countries hosting in between. The 37th First Annual ceremony is scheduled for September 5, 2027, in Antwerp, Belgium.
The Ig Nobel ceremony also drew formal recognition from the broader science-communication community. On November 24, 2022, the 2022 Heinz Oberhummer Award for outstanding science communication was presented to the Ig Nobel Prize at the Stadtsaal in Vienna, Austria.
Side Projects and Clubs
AIR runs the Luxuriant Flowing Hair Club for Scientists (LFHCfS), open since 2001. The club is structured as a group of five conjoined clubs: separate membership tracks exist for scientists with luxuriant flowing hair, former hair (that is, hair that has been lost), and facial hair, along with parallel clubs for social scientists and science journalists.
Did you know
- The Ig Nobel Prize ceremony has been billed as the “First Annual” ceremony every single year since 1991. The 2026 edition was therefore officially the “36th First Annual” Ig Nobel Prize ceremony, a deliberate running joke kept alive for over three decades. (improbable.com)
- The 2009 Ig Nobel Prize for Mathematics went to Gideon Gono, governor of Zimbabwe’s Reserve Bank. Gono was the man who had created the 10-trillion-dollar banknotes that the ceremony used as prize money, making him both the award recipient and the originator of the cash in question. (improbable.com)
- AIR editor Marc Abrahams has collected some striking press nicknames over the years. Le Monde called him “pape de la science improbable” (the Pope of improbable science), The Washington Post described him as “the nation’s guru of academic grunge,” and the BBC went with “Titan of Science.” (improbable.com)
- The Luxuriant Flowing Hair Club for Scientists is not one club but five conjoined clubs, with separate membership tracks for flowing hair, former hair (i.e., hair that has been lost), facial hair, and parallel clubs for social scientists and science journalists. (improbable.com)
- At each Ig Nobel ceremony, a child known as “Miss Sweetie Poo” polices the strict 60-second acceptance-speech time limit by repeating “Please stop, I’m bored” until the speaker sits down. The organizers credit the tradition with making the ceremony 40% briefer than it used to be. (today.com)
Data sources
Data updated: 2026-10-29