Letters

One exception to the writeup about UniSci in your fine article -- we do not simply "post" news releases, as do the others in your paragraph about releases.

We select, edit, amalgamate, and end up with our own stories about the material.

In addition, our hypertext links are to URLs of special interest, not simply to the generic university home page (or to locations on our other page which are there as straight promotion).

Finally, we often cite the release writer as a source so that readers have an email address (other than ours) to write to. If a release is fine enough to be an article that we vurtually do not edit, we use a byline rather than a contact line.

In science daily news, no other website does this. Please take a look.

Very best wishes!

Don Radler, Editor
unisci@unisci.com
http://unisci.com/
University Science

Regarding Book Review of Environmental Guide to the Internet (Fall 1997)

I have not looked at the book being reviewed, and I'm not a vegetarian, but I greatly question why the reviewer thinks topics such as vegetarianism and sustainable agriculture are beyond the scope of environmental issues.  Some segment of vegetarians are vegetarians from beliefs about eating lower on the food chain; they believe that eating lower on the food chain would use fewer natural resources and still satisfy nutritional needs.  Other vegetarians are animal rights activists who are presumably concerned about cruelty to animals and/or degradation or destruction of animal habitat. Animal habitat disappearance, at least, is clearly an environmental issue even if one argues that cruelty to animals isn't.  I'm even more clueless about why the reviewer considers sustainable agriculture out of bounds.  I would think the connection has obviously to do with soil health, soil depletion concerns including tilling/non-tilling patterns, or philosophies of how pests should be controlled.  Most anything, in fact, with "sustainable" in front of it is a good candidate for being within bounds.

Chris Kuykendall
chris.kuykendall@tlc.state.tx.us