All Patterns Great and Small

By: Tina Hesman Saey

Science News - July 17 2010

Page 28-29

Researchers have been studying different animals and the patterns and colors of their skin, scales or fur in an effort to try to discover what colors an animal and how and why these colorations are arranged in certain locations and patterns. Originally, Alan Turing explained that it was a mathematical process that could be applied to any species. However, Sean B. Carroll and his team of scientists recently found that preexisting patterns within the animal's body cause the coloration. In their experiment they found that a fruit fly's wing spots occurred where wing veins crossed, using a protein called Wingless. David Parichy contested that Turing was right about color pigments self-organizing into patterns. By holding back the production of yellow pigment in Zebra fish, Parichy was able to change the direction of its stripes from horizontal to vertical. Scientists so far have mainly focused on small animals that are easy to work with in a laboratory, instead of big animals such as wild cats .

The information in the article was found using hypothesis-based science. The researchers used experiments and genetically altered fruit flies to test their theories on a fruit fly's coloration. These discoveries and theories are important to humans because it could give insight as to how organism change and adapt