Notebook

Choice Cuts Raub Leaves NIH for OSTP Shopping Around For Space Grants Changes Ahead For University Coalition National Public Radio Talks Science Federal investigators looking at how certain agencies use their special authority to offer higher salaries for hard-to-fill technical slots have discovered that many scientists and engineers are actually taking pay cuts to join the government. Some 35 percent of the people hired during 1987-88 under these rules agreed to pay cuts, some exceeding $20,000, according to the General Accounting Office ("Federal Recruiting and Hiring," GAO/GGD, 91-22). GAO's Don Allison, technical analyst for the report, speculates that greater job security and a less strenuous work environment could be factors in their decisions, which he terms "absolutely surprising to me." The survey looked at the 10 installations that use this special hiring authority most frequently; the list includes five NASA research centers, the National Institutes of Health, and Argonne National Laboratory. NIH sources say that NIH director Bernadine Healy isn't shedding tears over the decision by deputy director William Raub to accept the job of special assistant for health affairs at the White House's Office of Science and Technology Policy. Raub declined to comment on his decision to leave NIH this month after 25 years, but Healy issued a three-sentence statement devoid of any praise for his NIH career, which included almost two years as acting director until Healy assumed office last April. Healy begins her statement by noting her own experience (1984-85) at OSTP, and ends by saying that "I am sure that Dr. Raub's many friends at NIH and in the extramural research community wish him well as he assumes his new duties." Raub's new boss, OSTP associate director for the life sciences D.A. Henderson, says that Raub heard about a vacancy in Henderson's office and called "to see what the qualifications were. By the time we had finished talking, he was sold on the idea of coming to work here." In another NIH-related matter, Healy and Lennard Fisk, the head of NASA's space science division, were called before Congress last month to discuss biomedical research in space. House space subcommittee chairman Rep. Ralph Hall (D-Texas), who believes that the payoffs from biomedical research conducted in a microgravity environment justify building space station Freedom, invited the two officials before his panel in the hopes of strengthening ties between their agencies. But when Healy suggested that NASA might be interested in funding those space-related research proposals that NIH didn't have the money to support, NASA officials politely declined her offer. "Getting enough good ideas is not our problem," says Fisk. "We have lots more grant applications right now than we can fund." The organization that lobbies for 58 research universities in the United States and Canada has a year to find itself a new president, following Robert Rosenzweig's announcement that he will be leaving at the end of 1992. Rosenzweig, a political scientist, will be completing his second five-year term as head of the Association of American Universities. The surprise announcement has led to some organizational soul-searching at AAU, including the formation of a committee chaired by Caltech president Thomas Everhart that is reviewing the association's mission. Everhart says: "There are other organizations serving the interests of higher education, and there is overlapping membership. The political environment has changed over the years, and we want to make sure we are continuing to meet the needs of our members." A two-hour, call-in program devoted to understanding science made its debut this month on National Public Radio. The show, to be broadcast every Friday afternoon, is one segment of a new NPR series called "The Talk of the Nation," which is on the air every weekday from 2 P.M. to 4 P.M. The Friday science segment, broadcast from New York and taking calls from around the U.S., is hosted by Ira Flatow, former NPR science correspondent and host of the public television series "Newton's Apple." During the rest of the week, "Talk of the Nation" installments will explore a variety of other topics. The show's toll-free number is (800) 989-TALK.

Notebook

The Scientist Staff

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