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A flowering shrub from the Andean cloud forests made taxonomic history last month. The plant--now dubbed Brunfelsia plowmaniana --had puzzled botanists for decades as they endeavored to determine whether or not it was truly an evolutionary newcomer

By Philip Ball of Nature magazine Chemists have succeeded in synthesizing a natural compound that shows promise as a painkiller--and might not cause the side effects that bedevil analgesics currently used to treat acute and chronic conditions. Conolidine is found in the bark of the tropical flowering shrub Tabernaemontana divaricata , commonly called the pinwheel flower. [More]