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.

For example, a cheetah’s tail is long and skinny; in that narrow space, the spots coalesce into stripes. “A simple mechanism can create an amazing, diverse and rich variety of patterns,” says Seita ...

Giant's Causeway in Northern Ireland features around 40,000 exposed polygonal columns of basalt in perfect horizontal sections. Chris Hill/Photodisc via Getty Images The reason patterns often appear ...

The back of a tiger could have been a blank canvas. Instead, nature painted the big cat with parallel stripes, evenly spaced and perpendicular to the spine. Scientists don't know exactly how stripes ...

One of the things the human brain naturally excels at is recognizing all sorts of patterns, such as stripes on zebras, shells of turtles, and even the structure of crystals. Thanks to our progress in ...

Anyone who follows my Instagram, @fromlondontomanchester (in case you missed it!), knows that I don’t just like a stripe – I ...

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 ...

From Simons Science News (find original story here). In 1952, Alan Turing, a British mathematician best known for his work on code-breaking and artificial intelligence, was convicted of engaging in ...

The dazzling variety of coral fish. On the left is the copperband butterflyfish, on the right the Picasso triggerfish. Nemo, alias Amphiprion ocellaris, belongs to the clownfish group, which includes ...

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 ...

(The Conversation is an independent and nonprofit source of news, analysis and commentary from academic experts.) Curious Kids is a series for children of all ages. If you have a question you’d like ...