According to Nature, it's "a modified version of the equation for a circle." "When I found the formula, all these beautiful shapes came rolling out of my computer," Gielis told Nature.

Have you ever made a wisecrack about something terrible that just happened, and been greeted with dead silence instead of a laugh? Not a great feeling. It's tricky knowing what you're allowed to ...

As long as science fiction has had a coherent existence, writers and critics have debated its relevance to science. From Jules Verne and H.G. Wells, through Hugo Gernsback and John W. Campbell, Jr., ...