The largest prehistoric mound in Europe is the Bronze-Age Hill of Udine (Italy) and legend linked its origin to Attila the Hun.

Prehistoric monuments often constitute evident landmarks and sometimes, after falling into disuse, fascinated local people enough to stimulate speculations about their origin over time. According to legend, the Hill of Udine (NE Italy) was built by Attila the Hun's soldiers, but its origin (natural or anthropogenic) has been debated until now. Our research analyzed five new 40-m long stratigraphic cores, investigating for the first time the total thickness of the hill and compared the data with the available archaeological information.

Italian natural history museums on the verge of collapse?

The Italian natural history museums are facing a critical situation, due to the progressive loss of scientific relevance, decreasing economic investments, and scarcity of personnel. This is extremely alarming, especially for ensuring the long-term preservation of the precious collections they host. Moreover, a commitment in fieldwork to increase scientific collections and concurrent taxonomic research are rarely considered priorities, while most of the activities are addressed to public events with political payoffs, such as exhibits, didactic meetings, expositions, and talks.

Unique method of tooth replacement in durophagous placodont marine reptiles, with new data on the dentition of Chinese taxa.

The placodonts of the Triassic period (~252-201 mya) represent one of the earliest and most extreme specialisations to a durophagous diet of any known reptile group. Exceptionally enlarged crushing tooth plates on the maxilla, dentary and palatine cooperated to form functional crushing areas in the buccal cavity. However, the extreme size of these teeth, combined with the unusual way they occluded, constrained how replacement occurred.

[A double ventricular obstruction in a case of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy].

The authors report the case of a young woman with hypertrophic obstructive cardiomyopathy and double left ventricular obstruction (midventricular and subaortic). This young woman was also affected by mild aortic coarctation. Both abnormalities were diagnosed by means of echocardiography.