Why imperfection could be key to Turing patterns in nature

In essence, it’s a type of symmetry breaking. Any two processes that act as activator and inhibitor will produce periodic patterns and can be modeled using Turing’s diffusion function. The challenge is moving from Turing’s admittedly simplified model to pinpointing the precise mechanisms serving in the activator and inhibitor roles.

This is especially challenging in biology. Per the authors of this latest paper, the classical approach to a Turing mechanism balances reaction…