Too early to say for sure, but after a bad year and a half for research affairs in Washington, bits of evidence suggest the beginning of a recovery. Money is the principal measure, and it's been rising in places where it seemed sure to fall. Last week, a House-Senate conference committee provided an extra $40 million of "add back" funds that the White House requested for the National Science Foundation. With that money, which is for the present fiscal year, the NSF budget will rise about 2 percent above last year's level. That means a loss to inflation, but given the budgetary war whoops of the newly elected Republican majority last year, the numbers belie the generally gloomy expectations.
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