255 articles from TUESDAY 20.10.2020

Plantwatch: Australia's giant stinging trees – 35m tall with a poison that can last for months

Scientists are hoping that research into Dendrocnide excelsa could lead to new painkillersIt sounds like something out of The Day of the Triffids: a stinging nettle the size of a large tree, with a sting so vicious it inflicts excruciating pain that can last for days, weeks or even months. But this is no science fiction, these are the stinging trees of Australia.Dendrocnide excelsa can grow up to...

How initiatives empowering employees can backfire

Strategies meant to motivate people in the workplace may have unintended consequences -- depending on who's in charge. Recent research shows that empowerment initiatives aren't necessarily the answer for business leaders hoping to motivate their employees.

Tradition of petrified birds in the Dome of the Rock

On the southern exterior wall of the Dome of the Rock, a very important Islamic shrine in Jerusalem's Old City, there are two marble slabs, both carved from the same stone and placed side by side to form a symmetrical pattern, that depicts two birds. In a recent article published in the Journal of Near Eastern Studies, "Solomon and The Petrified Birds on the Dome of the Rock," author Elon Harvey...

Repairing the photosynthetic enzyme Rubisco

Manajit Hayer-Hartl, head of the research group "Chaperonin-assisted Protein Folding," has a long-standing interest in the central enzyme of photosynthesis called Rubisco. Her team has already reported on many of the interacting partners of Rubisco that are required for the folding and assembly of this highly abundant protein. In the current study, they have elucidated how Rubisco activase works....