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In the last years of his life, it was a great concern of Mathias Küster (1950–2022) to write down his ideas on the gestalt biology of snakes, even though he no longer saw himself in a position to do so alone. However, the project, which was started together in 2021, could only be completed after his death. With regards to content, the… Read More

The approximately 398 species of living parrots (macaws, parakeets, cockatoos, etc.) comprise a more or less homogeneous group of birds found mostly in tropical and subtropical regions. No other group of wild birds has attracted such strong human interest, and conse- quently parrots are the most popular avian pets around the world, from the… Read More

This study examines the phenomenon of the so-called »cup-and-ring marked rocks« from the late Neolithic and early Bronze Age, as they occur particularly in Scotland and on the Atlantic fringe of Western Europe. This research report has its focus on their aesthetic ef- fects. A phenomenology of their appearance is worked out by starting with the… Read More

Summary

    Throughout the history of biology, there have always been two opposing basic views of life. The one view tried to attribute the processes of life to mechanistic, physical-chemical principles.                                                                       Rejecting this view, the other one tried to find forces or… Read More

Homo-iconics (self-imaging) describes how the design type of the spermatophytes, which appears most concisely in the design type of annual dicotyledons, correlates in its imagery with the individual leaf as well as the design of the three divisions of the spermatophytes. Leaf, single plant and spermatophyte type are homoiconic and show at the… Read More

There are already a number of works on the biology of tree shapes, which primarily deal with conifers and European deciduous trees. In the present essay, an attempt is made to characterize the tree shapes within the worldwide landscape forms and climatic zones more
precisely and to compare them with each other… Read More

Starting from the botanical concept of plant type, the question is raised whether the concept of type can also be applied to plant communities. This is possible with the help of plant sociology, which has developed a comprehensive methodology for this purpose. The individual steps of this procedure are described and brought into relation to… Read More

Biological questions, historical-symptomatological investigations, or literary-aesthetic forms of judgment are each based on very specific phenomena. The cognitive method of phenomenological thinking is affected by the object to be considered. They call for a different framework of treatment, which is related to the specifics of the subject.… Read More

While the image of the hard transparent hexagonal prisms of rock crystal (quartz) suffices to illustrate the general role of silicic acid in the human organism, other aspects can contribute to a differentiated understanding of the distribution and dynamics of silicic acid in relation to the human I-organisation, self-consciousness and warmth.… Read More