There’s a reason fashion designers look to animal prints for inspiration. Creatures have evolved a dizzying array of patterns: stripes, spots, diamonds, chevrons, hexagons and even mazelike designs.

Some patterns arise simply or randomly, but others develop via complex, precise interactions of pattern-generating systems. Their beauty aside, the intricacies of these systems are inspiring the ...

Patterns abound in nature, from zebra stripes and leopard spots to honeycombs and bands of clouds. Somehow, these patterns form and organize all by themselves. To better understand how, researchers ...

There are many purposes that spots and stripes serve in nature, but how they form has been more of a mystery to scientists. Now, researchers have advanced their breakthrough theory – and it could help ...

Add Yahoo as a preferred source to see more of our stories on Google. Giant's Causeway in Northern Ireland features around 40,000 exposed polygonal columns of basalt in perfect horizontal sections.

Chris and Martin explain why creatures' patterns are so important to their survival. Chris and Martin explain why creatures' patterns are so important to their survival. Animals and insects use ...

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 ...

A new mathematical tool could help scientists better understand how zebrafish get their stripes as well as other self-assembled patterns in nature. The iconic stripes of zebrafish are a classic ...

Stripe patterns are commonly seen in nature—for instance, birds and fish move in coordinated flocks and schools, fingerprints form unique designs, and zebras can be identified by their distinctive ...

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 ...

Maxim Lavrentovich receives funding from the National Science Foundation. The reason patterns often appear in nature is simple: The same basic physical or chemical processes occur in many patterned ...