SAN DIEGO — A mathematical tale of how tigers got their stripes and leopards acquired spots has undergone a slight revision. In 1952, computer scientist and polymath Alan Turing devised a theory about ...

Chris Konow researches the impact of growth on Turing patterns in the Epstein Lab. Turing patterns are named after the British mathematician Alan Turing, who proposed a mechanism for how ...

In his only paper on biology Alan Turing the computing science pioneer and renowned mathematician, proposed a theory of morphogenesis, in which he hypothesized how chemical reactions might produce ...

Turing also turned his math skills to understanding how regular features could emerge on the developing embryo. Scientists since then have applied his equations to the development of such patterns as ...

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 ...

The mechanism behind leopard spots and zebra stripes also appears to explain the patterned growth of a bismuth crystal, extending Alan Turing’s 1952 idea to the atomic scale. The stripes looked like a ...