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 how regular, repeating patterns — from the pigmentation on an animal’s coat to leaf arrangements in ferns — form in nature. His idea was that two chemicals, which he called morphogens, interact as they spread across a surface to create patterns.
Biologists have found scant evidence that patterns in nature are created as Turing described. For one thing, chemicals don’t diffuse freely in bodies.
