The reason patterns often appear in nature is simple: The same basic physical or chemical processes occur in many patterned substances and organisms as they form. Whether in plants and animals or ...

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 ...

What happens if you cross a fish that has white spots on a black body with another fish that has black spots on a white body? You might think that you’d get a fish with a single uniform colour, or one ...

‘Bottom-up fabrication’, which exploits the intrinsic properties of atoms and molecules to direct their self-organization, is widely used to make relatively simple nanostructures. A key goal for this ...

We have seen enough of artificial intelligence to know the term is, quite often, a misnomer. Publicly available AI programs still churn out hilariously telling moments of non-intelligence as concepts ...

The most obvious feature you'll see is large scale. Florals will be larger than life. Geometrics will be grand. Contrast in color will be definitive. Whatever the pattern, you can count on it being ...

Dear Reader: In my last blog post, I began answering a reader who wondered why so many of her relationships were unsuccessful, from a marriage to an emotionally abusive husband to her brother’s ...

(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 ...

Dear Reader: In my last blog post, I began answering a reader who wondered why so many of her relationships were unsuccessful, from a marriage to an emotionally abusive husband to her brother’s ...