About This Lesson
Lighting up a leaf’s vascular structure with some fluorescent dye and viewing it using time lapse photography reveal nature’s mathematical formula for survival. Rockefeller University mathematical physicist Marcelo Magnasco and his colleague Eleni Katifori analyze the architecture of leaves by finding geometric patterns that link biological structure to function. Magnasco says this research is a jumping off point for understanding other systems that branch and rejoin, including river systems, neural networks and even malignant tumors.
