Alan Turing’s Final Theory Was About Leopards
4/27/20261 hr 1 min
How does a perfectly symmetrical ball of cells become an animal, with a head, a tail, and complex zebra or leopard like patterns? In this episode, we dive into the mind bending science of how order emerges from chaos, guided by an unexpected genius: Alan Turing. From leopard spots and human embryos to crime hotbeds, Hannah and Michael discover the hidden mathematical rules shaping life itself…and the ethical dilemmas that come with them.
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Clips
Showing 10 of 11Transcript preview
First 90 secondsMichael Stevens· Host0:00
Hello, and welcome to The Rest is Science. I'm Michael Stevens.
Hannah Fry· Host0:03
And I'm Hannah Fry. And I've got a question for you, Michael.
Michael Stevens· Host0:05
Okay.
Hannah Fry· Host0:06
[sighs] It's a bit of a, it's a bit of a weird one, right?
Michael Stevens· Host0:09
Good.
Hannah Fry· Host0:10
It's, uh, it's sort of a philosophical question in a way, but maybe also, maybe also deeply scientific. If you start out with an embryo and it's just this perfectly symmetrical sphere of cells, how does it ever decide where the head goes, right? Why doesn't it just- Right ... well, how does it ever end up with any structure?
Michael Stevens· Host0:29
I mean, when it, when there's already a little bit of structure there, like, I get it. Maybe there's hormones that come from the head cells that let the neck start forming. But when you're a blastocyst, like, just a ball, a symmetric- Hmm ... ball of cells, how does it decide, "All right, guys, final positions. You're the butt. You guys are the toes."
Hannah Fry· Host0:51
Yeah [laughs].
Michael Stevens· Host0:51
"You're gonna be the brain. Get to work"?
Hannah Fry· Host0:53
Ready, steady, go.
Michael Stevens· Host0:54
Which way's up and down? Does it have to do with, like, local gravity- Mm-hmm ... or the parent's body? I don't know. How does it seed those?
Hannah Fry· Host1:02
How does it seed those, exactly.
Michael Stevens· Host1:04
Yeah.
Hannah Fry· Host1:04
But then also, I mean, I mean, uh, you said if there's a little bit of structure there, maybe it makes sense, but at the same time, when you look at physics, if you take, I don't know, like, a glass of water for instance, and you put a little drop of ink in it, the process that happens there is diffusion, and diffusion is, like, the destroyer of patterns. You don't- That's right ... get structure from physical processes. So what is it about biology that means that you end up