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How the tiger got its stripes

April 19, 2017 by flock 4 Comments

Like many great scientists, Alan Turing found beauty in simple explanations for nature’s complexity. He often found simple explanations for very complex problems. The same mind that cracked Germany’s Enigma code during WWII (inspiring Winston Churchill to say Turing made the biggest single contribution to the allied victory) wondered how a human emerges from a homogeneous blob of cells. While trying to answer that question, he created a model that generated spots and stripes. This model turned out to explain how patterns emerge on animal fur. Turing answered the old questions: How do tigers, zebras, and many others, get their stripes? How do leopards get their spots?

Working in the 1940s, Turing didn’t have the great computers you and I have (To crack the Enigma code he created a huge computer), but he laid out the basic model that you can now run over the web (We make this available to you on www.flockecogames.com). One reason this model generating spots and stripes was so revolutionary was that it showed how the patterns need not be genetically determined, like a blueprint. Rather the patterns emerge dynamically from positive and negative feedback. Only a few chemical processes of feedback are needed, not an elaborate genetic coding of entire patterns. This is an elegant and general model that, as scientists discovered after Turing’s death, can explain a wide range of patterning, even sand dune stripes. Surface complexity emerges from simple rules of interaction (as we see again and again in our models). Turing wasn’t able to take the model further due to his untimely death. He was arrested for having a relationship with a man, and forced to either go to prison or take feminizing hormones. He soon committed suicide.

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Comments

  1. watch this says

    April 26, 2017 at 7:07 am

    This is the perfect website for anyone who would like to find out about this topic.
    You understand so much its almost tough to argue with
    you (not that I personally will need to…HaHa).

    You definitely put a brand new spin on a topic that’s been written about for many years.

    Great stuff, just great!

    Reply
  2. Natasha says

    April 27, 2017 at 8:06 pm

    I think this one may be my favorite. Spots and stripes on animals have always been fascinating and beautiful to me. I read not too long ago about how stripes on some animals, like zebras, also work as a cooling mechanism. Not sure if it’s true for tigers as well? Interesting stuff!

    But the fact that a human can emerge from a blob of cells, is even more fascinating. Like Mr. Turing, I love learning about the processes beind the existence of living things. It makes me a thousand times more grateful for this earth we live in and for the fact that we were given life and the ability to experience and research it.

    Such a tragic loss for dear Mr. Turing. That’s absolutely terrible.

    Reply
  3. K.J. Keane says

    June 11, 2017 at 11:09 pm

    A fun art project to do with children that illustrates the spots turning to stripes mechanism is to throw a dozen large beans (like dried lima beans) or small pebbles on a sheet of paper. Take a marker and draw around each bean. Remove the beans/stones from the paper. Next, color each of the shapes to make a page full of random spots. Draw around each spot with the marker. You will draw just around the outside edge of the spot to make another ring just a little larger than the spot you just colored in. Color this in so it is a solid color. You will continue to do this for all of the spots on the page. After each turn outlining the perimeter of the oval done in the previous turn, notice if some of the rings are almost touching or have intersected with that of another spot. Those will be counted as one unit on the next round and the marker will outline enclose both shapes together to form one oblong spot. In this way, spots become stripes.

    Reply
  4. K.J. Keane says

    June 12, 2017 at 3:10 am

    Here is a slide show showing some of the steps in the project.
    https://youtu.be/dhmS2-_j4mQ

    Reply

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