From the spiral arms of galaxies to microscopic snow crystals, nature seems to fall into fractal-like patterns that repeat in increasingly smaller increments. No matter how small you go, parts of the pattern still resemble the whole.
One exception appears to be molecules, which have not been known to exhibit self-similarity at changing scales. That is, until now.
Researchers from Germany, Sweden, and the UK have discovered an enzyme produced by a single-celled organism that can arrange itself into a fractal – not just any fractal, but a repeating pattern of triangles known as a Sierpiński triangle.
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