Complex systems, ranging from developing embryos to systems of locally communicating agents, display an apparent capability of “programmable” pattern formation: They reproducibly form target patterns, ...

A synthetic mammalian reaction-diffusion pattern has yet to be created, and Nodal-Lefty signaling has been proposed to meet conditions for pattern formation: Nodal is a short-range activator whereas ...

The way that a flock of birds flies or a school of fish swims may involve more than individuals simply judging the distance between themselves in the group. Recently, scientists from the University of ...

In 1952, Alan Turing published a study which described mathematically how systems composed of many living organisms can form rich and diverse arrays of orderly patterns. He proposed that this ...

In developmental cell biology, the phrase “pattern formation” is used in reference to the propagation of complex organizations of cell fates in time and space. Pattern formation is mainly controlled ...

When it’s time for an e. coli bacterium to divide, proteins inside the single-celled organism start to chase each other around. “There are two types of proteins doing this, collectively,” said ...

Cell–cell adhesion-induced patterning in keratinocytes can be explained by just starvation and strong adhesion, Hokkaido University researchers find. Fingerprints are one of the best-recognised ...

Nature has no shortage of patterns, from spots on leopards to stripes on zebras and hexagons on boxfish. But a full explanation for how these patterns form has remained elusive. Now engineers at the ...

Frost forms different patterns as it spreads across a surface depending upon the level of humidity, a novel imaging technique has revealed. These patterns range from complete surface coverage to ...

The scientific perspective behind cell pattern formation involves observing both the commonly seen principles behind similar cell patterns seen in nature and the visible events of self-organization.