Googling the universe. The challenge of scanning the heavens with a powerful telescope has lured a top computer expert from Google. Wayne Rosing, vice president of engineering at the Internet search engine, has left the company after 4 years to work as an unpaid adviser on the proposed Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) project at the University of California, Davis. The telescope will use its 8.4-meter mirror to sweep the entire visible sky every three nights searching for signs of hidden dark matter and transient objects such as asteroids and gamma ray bursts. Managing its 30 terabytes of data each night poses a "wonderful engineering problem" similar to what his team faced at Google, says Rosing. He will help devise data-analysis strategies for LSST's scientists and engineers. "The sheer boldness and scale of this project is just extraordinary," says Rosing, 58, who was captivated by the telescope's potential after meeting its director, J. Anthony Tyson. In years past, Rosing designed and constructed a robotic camera for an ongoing sky survey based in Chile and founded the Las Cumbres Observatory near Santa Barbara, California, for astronomy education and outreach. CREDIT: GOOGLE

Who's left? The start of a second presidential term is traditionally a time for job reshuffling. But the past 6 months have seen an unusually high turnover rate at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), with five senior managers moving to greener pastures. The two most recent departures, announced last week, involve new postings for longtime government hands. Neuroscientist Kathie Olsen (right), associate director for science since 2001, has been nominated to be deputy director of the National Science Foundation (NSF). She would replace engineer Joseph Bordogna, who came to NSF in 1991. And astronomer William Jeffrey (above), who has handled national and homeland security issues for the past 3 years, has been tapped to head the National Institute of Standards and Technology. NIST has had an acting director since Arden Bement moved to NSF in February 2004. Olsen's shop has recently lost two veteran civil servants. Rachel Levinson left this spring to set up a Washington, D.C., office for Arizona State University's new Biodesign Institute. And Cliff Gabriel decamped in January for the Environmental Protection Agency. Likewise, Brett Alexander, who handled space issues, left in January to handle government relations for the start-up Transformational Space Corp. in Reston, Virginia. CREDITS: OSTP