Nature´s blueprints unmasked

ALAN TURING PUBLISHED in 1952 one of the most important ideas of the 20th century – a mathematical model of the chemical processes underlying cell differentiation. But it would take 60 years to be confirmed. His aim was to answer fundamental questions about life. One of the most puzzling is how the undifferentiated cells in an early embryo decide to specialise without some overarching control. How does one become a bone cell and another a blood cell? Similarly, how did all the shapes and surface patterns we see in the huge diversity of plants, insects, and animals emerge?