A giant crane from southern Germany

Researchers from Frankfurt and Tübingen say the skull of a very large crane found at the Hammerschmiede fossil site in Allgäu, Bavaria, is more than eleven million years old. It is the earliest evidence of such a large ...

When do plants help or hinder each other?

When plants grow close together, each individual plant has less chance of doing well—at least, that was the accepted wisdom in environmental research. Now Dr. Ruichang Zhang and Professor Katja Tielbörger from the Institute ...

The tips of a plant design its whole shape

Plants grow throughout their entire life. This is due to a small structure at the tip of the plant's shoots known as the meristem. This is the control center for the maintenance of stem cells—which can be converted into ...

Fungus produces active agent in a medicinal herb

Tatarinow's aster is used in traditional Chinese medicine to treat a number of ailments; the plant contains an active ingredient known as astin—and it is this agent which cancer researchers are now investigating. However, ...

Gender equality dates back to the Vikings

The Scandinavian countries are regarded as models of equality between the sexes. A new study indicates that this may go back a very long way. Dr. Laura Maravall and Professor Jörg Baten, economic historians working as part ...

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