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The ’typus’ between irrationality and rationality - or: the secret law of chickweed wintergreen (‘star-flower’, Trientalis europaea)

The theory of phyllotaxis, the positions of leaves on plants, describes the reciprocal 'annidation‘ of plant organs and thus the adaptation of the plant organism to itself so to speak. In this respect it… Read More

The upright position in the evolution: ‘Why is the fluke of the Whale shaped horizontally?’

Dolphins and whales are water-based mammals and differ in various characteristics from fish, the predominant water species. A comparison of those two animal groups provides helpful insights into basic concepts of evolution. Evolutionary research… Read More

Periphery and centre — indicators for inversions in plant growth

Goethe said 'that nature has no secrets that she does not somewhere present naked to the eyes of the attentive observer' (Annals of 1790). A secret in two senses, i.e. not only for our inspection but also for our understamling, is the changing shape of the organ in the… Read More

Goethe's and Schiller's Xenien on 'The Philosophers'

The Xenien is a series of satirical epigrams that Johnnn Wolfgang von Goethe und Friedrich Schiller first published in 1797 in Schiller's Musenalmanach. The name Xenien was coined by the Roman poet Martial (1st century AD) who thus named the 13th book of his Martial Epigrams which… Read More

Archetypal experiments for conceptualising both the polarisation of light and the optical activity of a substance while staying close to the phenomena

In the 17"‘ century, C. Huygens described the 'phénornéne merveilleux', a 'wonderful' optical experiment with two calcite (Iceland spar) crystals. ln connection with this, a series of… Read More

Through the. specific anatomy of their lungs enclosed in the shell, the rhythtmic system of turtles is less autonomous than in other reptiles, higher animals or the human being. This correlates with an openness to the influences of annual rhythms in the environment. Such openness is at its most extreme in the North American Freshwater turtles,… Read More

Continuous movement - ocean currents between sun and earth

Ocean currents develop in the energy fields between sun and earth‚ between the heat that comes from the sun and the salt that comes from the earth. They serve to balance out the heat of the climatic zones and transport gases and nutrients. The biggest ocean current, the… Read More

Nodes and internodes — on Goethe’s concept of the spiral tendency

Starting from the interesting phenomenon of biastrepsis (‘Zwangsdrehung’), the helical twisting of shoots, in which the rhythm of node and internode formation in the plant shoot deviates from a kind of continuum of both elements, we discuss the question of the eonditions… Read More

It has long been regarded as unscientific to consider the musical aspects of territorial behaviour among songbirds. The musical abilities of song birds, for example their perception of melody and their capacity to transpose, have been questioned many times. Furthermore, avian intelligence — With the exception of ravens and parrots — was… Read More

Greater spearwort (Ranunculus lingua L.)

Ranunculus lingua L. is a member of the buttercup family. It has petioleless, lanceolate leaves and grows in water close to the bank and reaches a height of 1.5 m. Göbel (unpublished) and SUCHANTKE (2009) have shown that in the genus Ranunculus, with its multitude of leaf forms, the respective… Read More