Kenya, Amboseli National Park, close up of zebra stripes. Scientists aren’t sure, but one theory, dubbed the “motion dazzle hypothesis,” suggests that high-contrast patterns create an optical illusion ...

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.

Stripes are common in our lives. It’s a pretty basic pattern, and easy to take for granted. As an applied mathematician who studies how patterns form in nature, though, I am wowed by the striped ...

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 ...

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.

Scientists observe a visible time crystal for the first time, revealing a phase of matter that repeats patterns through time.

With its black and white fur and fluffy mane, the zebra is one of the most distinctive creatures in the animal kingdom. But how exactly did the zebra get its stripes? Scientists from the University of ...

If told to imagine a "typical" cat, you're doing well if you think "tiger-striped." That's because the tabby pattern, with its familiar stripes, is the most common in all of catdom. It's so dominant ...

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 ...