Muenster, Germany  - Two pairs of tortoise twins in the space of a month have got a German zoo wondering what other amazing feats the animal kingdom will offer.

"We've found no record of Indian star tortoises even having twins," said an official of the Muenster Zoo on Monday. "Or at least, nobody has written it up."

All four infants were undersized, 6 to 8 grams, having had to share a normal-sized egg with a sibling.

Muenster, Germany  - Excavations in Egypt could reveal numerous valuable treasures, a German expert said on Wednesday, ahead of an Egyptology conference taking place in the German city of Muenster at the weekend.

"In Egypt there is a lot more in the ground than people think," said Erhart Graefe, the director of the Egyptology Institute at the University of Muenster.

In recent weeks alone, excavations in the Valley of the Kings revealed new graves, Graefe told the German Press Agency dpa.

Muenster, Germany - The controversial powers of German schools to compel Muslim girls to attend swimming lessons with boys in the pool were affirmed Tuesday by a tribunal.

The ruling came just five days after a federal convention had appealed to German schools to end compulsion on the issue, which has antagonized some of the Muslims who make up 5 per cent of Germany's population.

Judges in Muenster said a school in Dusseldorf was entitled to make entry conditional on a written undertaking from parents that their daughter, 11, would attend mixed swimming lessons.

Muenster, Germany - German geologists said Thursday they have discovered in India some of the world's rarest rock, dating back to the birth of the planet when the Earth was covered with a hot ocean of melted stone.

The fragment from the primeval crust is only the second ever discovered, said scientists at the University of Muenster.

The ancient magma formed more than 4 million years ago as the planet slowly cooled in the Hadean period. The fragment, found in Orissa state, yields answers about what the Earth was like in those times.

Muenster, Germany  - A 58-year-old German who refused to give up the bedroom he used as a child was jailed Monday for murdering his sister after she called him a "parasite."

The accused had spent most of his life as a university undergraduate, studying dentistry and education for 30 years, but never advancing past intermediate examinations.

German universities charge almost no fees. Stipends or loans are offered for living expenses.

Muenster, Germany - Muslim parents lost Wednesday an appeal against their 9-year-old daughter having to attend a mixed swimming lesson with boys in the water, an issue that has caused controversy in German schools.

The superior administrative tribunal in Muenster, responsible for one quarter of Germany's population, rejected a request for the girl to be excused from mixed lessons. It said she could protect her modesty by wearing a full-length bathing suit dubbed a "burkini."

Muenster, Germany  - A German court imprisoned a former national treasurer of the far-right National Democratic Party (NPD) on Friday for two years and eight months for fraud.

Erwin Kemna, 57, admitted he had moved the anti-foreigner party's money into his own accounts.

The party, which receives large government grants under a law that allows a bounty for every vote won, has been criticized for bad supervision of its finances. The NDP has legislative seats in two of the 16 German states but no representation at federal level.

Muenster, Germany - A fad for vampire teeth means health troubles ahead, a health insurer warned Monday in Germany, where lovers of spooky Gothic music have been filing their canine teeth into sharp points.

KKH, an insurer in the northern city of Muenster, said filed teeth lacked their natural enamel and were likely to be hit by caries or to break off at the tip.

The music fans wear black clothing and make-up so that they look like scary people with a thirst for fresh blood.