A primordial developmental toolkit shared by all vertebrates, and described by a theory of the mathematician Alan Turing, sets the growth pattern for all types of skin structures. In 1952, well before ...

More than 70 years ago, mathematician Alan Turing proposed a mechanism that explained how patterns could emerge from bland uniformity. Scientists are still using his model—and adding new twists—to ...

New research revisits the Turing instability mechanism; proving mathematically how the instabilities which give rise to patterns can occur through simple reactions, and in widely varied environmental ...

The strikingly patterned ornate boxfish has no lack of detail when it comes to its hexagonal spots and keen stripes — the intricate markings are so sharp-edged in the species that it had engineers at ...

There’s rarely time to write about every cool science-y story that comes our way. So this year, we’re once again running a special Twelve Days of Christmas series of posts, highlighting one science ...

Patterns that guide the development of feathers and other features can be set by mechanical forces in the embryo, not just by gradients of chemicals. Turing Patterns Turn Up in a Tiny Crystal The ...

Shortly before his death, Alan Turing published a provocative paper outlining his theory for how complex, irregular patterns emerge in nature—his version of how the leopard got its spots. These ...

Extending Turing's theory to help understand how biological patterns are created. (Image: Xavier Diego, EMBL) Alan Turing sought to explain how patterns in nature arise with his 1952 theory on ...