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 It has petioleless, lanceolate leaves and grows in water close to the bank and reaches a height of 1.5 m. Göbel (unpublished) and SUCHANTKE (2009) have shown that in the genus Ranunculus, with its multitude of leaf forms, the respective… Read More

Sketch of an organismic systems biology

Biology has been dominated for a long time by two contrasting explanations and research approaches: reductionism and holism. This article shows that both views are one-sided and that a new synthesis can be developed. We develop a fundamental concept of the organism starting from the earlier… Read More

Metamorphosis in the biography of an artist Philippe Lambercy, ceramist (1919-2006)

Philippe Lambercy was one of the pioneers of modern ceramics. He left behind a wide range of works including pottery, ceramic sculptures, installations and architectonic works, especially reliefs on public und private buildings. He also left drawings,… Read More

What is expressed in a person’s sleeping phases?

Whereas contemporary psychologists and philosophers puzzle over whether there is any such thing as 'consciousness', sleep researchers are in surprising agreement that the human being daily passes through three different forms of consciousness: waking, sleeping, dreaming. But just as… Read More

Formative motifs in the genus Ranunculus

According to ‘Flora Europaea’ (2nd ed. 1993) almost every available habitat is colonised by the 135 species of the genus (not family!) Ranunculus. In parallel with this, manifests an enormous plasticity in the formation of the vegetative parts, the leaves, which have an almost inexhaustible… Read More

Goethe and evolution

During the 17th and 18th centuries ‘evolution’ literally meant unwrapping what was already there. Goethe and Darwin therefore avoided this term, preferring to use ‘metamorphosis’ or ‘desccnt’. It was Herbert Spencer who first used the term in its modern sense. There upon, however, Goethe was a complete evolutionist… Read More