The New Zealand Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (Inc.) seeks nominations for its annual journalism/media awards for 1986-1987. Awards will be presented at the annual meeting of the Committee, held this year at Victoria University in Wellington, August 29-30.

A flying competition with a difference will be held in Auckland at the weekend.

With a nearly firm programme in hand, the 1987 NZCSICOP conference is shaping up to be a remarkable event. The presentations will cover a wide range of arresting topics, from the dangers of alternative medicine and fraudulent faith healing, through the connections between paranormal belief and the decline of religion, to astrology, creationism, the not-so-mysterious Shroud of Turin, and more.

Didi you know that the 'principle' of water-divining was used to find people buried under snow? I did not, until I read about it in Nature (letter from Rolf Manne, of Pergen, Norway, in the issue of 4 December, 1986). This practice has been foisted on the Mountain Rescue Organisation of the Norwegian Red Cross, and is also taught in the Norwegian Army.

Evidence of the Shroud. By lan Wilson. Macmillan, 1986. 158 pp. $46.15.

A fire that recently burned a marquee at a Christian camp "inexplicably" died because of the plastic roof — not a miracle of God.

Sir, — I share Colin Bell's concern about what goes on in our universities and what sort of watching brief the university councils keep on their tutors (March 2).

Peter Dady, MD, MRCP, Director, Oncology Department, Wellington Hospital.