Hospice Volunteers -- Johns Hopkins Home Hospice is looking for volunteers to participate in a home hospice program serving the greater Baltimore area and providing care to patients with life-limiting illnesses. Volunteers are needed for direct patient service, bereavement care services and administrative support. The next training session will be held in February.

For information, call the hospice coordinator of volunteers at 410-288-8060.

NASA Summer Space Academy -- The Maryland Space Grant Consortium is accepting applications for the 1999 NASA Summer Space Academy at Goddard Space Flight Center, scheduled for May 29 through Aug. 7. There will also be NASA Summer Space Academy programs at Dryden for aeronautics and at Ames for astrobiology.

Students attending the academy are assigned to a Goddard researcher, enabling them to contribute to a NASA mission. Each student is hand-picked by a series of gates, panels and interviews, beginning with the Maryland Space Grant Consortium application process. The match between student and researcher (principal investigator) is done by mutual selection.

Eligible students should be enrolled as a junior, senior or early-level graduate student as of May 29, 1999; should have maintained a minimum B average; majored in engineering, science (physics, chemistry, biology), mathematics, computer science or other areas of interest to the space program; and be U.S. citizens or permanent residents of the United States as of May 29.

The complete academy application is available on the Internet at http://www.nasa-academy.nasa.gov/app_info.html. The deadline for application submission is Friday, Jan. 29. Applications should be submitted to the Maryland Space Grant Consortium Office, 203 Bloomberg Center, on the Homewood campus.

Alternatives to Animal Testing -- The Center for Alternatives to Animal Testing is soliciting projects that will focus on investigating and developing alternative methods to the use of whole animals for safety/hazard evaluation, risk assessment and efficacy. In vitro approaches to evaluate celluar and target organ toxicity are encouraged. CAAT does not currently fund projects relating to carcinogenicity or mutagenicity.

Deadline for applications is March 15. Preproposal forms may be submitted online through the CAAT Web site at http://altweb.jhsph.edu, or mailed to CAAT Grants Coordinator, 111 Market Place, Suite 840, Baltimore, Md. 21202-6709. No other materials are required for this stage of the application process. Only abstracts using the appropriate form will be reviewed. Those applications that are appropriate to the goals of CAAT will be invited to submit a complete grant application package. Responses will be forwarded by email or by U.S. mail. No telephone responses will be given.