On a battered rock in an ancient Martian riverbed, a pattern of dark, rounded patches has jolted planetary science. These ...

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.

Miyazawa in Japan analyzed thousands of fish species for spotted and mazelike patterns. In fish families where there are species with both kinds of spotted patterns, there is often a labyrinthine ...