We are pleased to introduce SCI-VEG, a new email list devoted to
the discussion of social and natural science topics relating to
vegetarianism.  Relevant fields and sample topics include:

     Nutrition (what is the latest wisdom on protein?)
     Food Science (does refined sugar contain animal bones?)
     Health (how can we get B12?)
     Economics (is leather a marginally harmless by-product?)
     Political Science (do boycotts matter?)
     Anthropology (are there any naturally vegetarian cultures?)
     History (who are the intellectual parents of vegetarianism?)
     Environmental Science (does vegetarianism save forests?)
     Genetics (are we evolved to eat dead critters?)
     Physical Sciences (how does calcium get into the food chain?)
     Philosophy

We hope that this list will provide a forum for several different
levels of discussion, including:

     Simple questions.  Asking other members of the list questions
     in any relevant field is always in order.

     Hashing out and probing ideas.  We hope that this will be the
     heart of the list's discussions.

     Journal club discussions.  It is often nice to have a focused
     discussion about a book or article or two.  Sci-veg provides
     a forum for suggesting up such a reading, giving others a
     chance to look at it, and having a discussion about it.

     Bringing more vegetarian scientists into the net.community of
     vegetarians.

     Inspiring and aiding research, collaboration, and publication
     in the relevant areas.

In terms of mood, sci-veg will try to steer a path between an
academic/research list and the existing wide-open vegetarian lists.
It will attempt to provide a forum for discussion by individuals
who are devoted to scientific understanding and reduce the noise
level that often surrounds these topics while maintaining room for
many scientific viewpoints.

*Who should join sci-veg?
Anyone with an interest in these topics is encouraged to join.  No
expertise is necessary -- anyone who wants can join, lurk, ask
questions, and contribute when you have something to offer.

Any vegetarian who works, studies, researches, teaches, or
otherwise has expertise in the sciences (broadly defined) is
encouraged to join and contribute.  In particular, we extend an
invitation to researchers who are vegetarian but have not been
interested in joining more free-form lists.  There are many
vegetarian academics, researchers, etc. who may not be interested
in vegetarian chat or unmoderated debates, but would be interested
in exploring the relationship of their field to vegetarianism.

*How do I subscribe to sci-veg and get the full charter?
Simply send mail to [log in to unmask] with "subscribe sci-veg"  as
the message text.  You will automatically be sent a copy of the
full charter (from which this is an extract).

If you prefer, there is also a digest version of the list
available. The digest collects all the messages for one day and
sends them as a single message each morning.  This may help if the
number of messages becomes unmanageable.  To subscribe to the
digest send a message to [log in to unmask] with "subscribe
sci-veg-digest" as the message body.  (Please note the second
hyphen in the command.)

We are looking forward to seeing you on the list.