Beneath the ancient landscapes of Xinjiang, a team of Chinese paleontologists has unearthed amber dating back nearly 390 million years — pushing the known origins of plant resin production 65 million years deeper into Earth's history than anyone had believed possible. The discovery, emerging from Middle Devonian coal deposits, suggests that land plants were already engaged in sophisticated chemical self-defense at a time when fish still ruled the vertebrate world. It is a quiet but profound reminder that the story of life's complexity on land began far earlier, and far more intricately, than t