From snowflake formation to growth of bacterial colonies

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Abstract
Many phenomena display the emergence of patterns during diffusive growth, ranging from the growth of snowflake s to the aggregation of a soot particle, from oil recovery by fluid injection to solidification of metals and from the formation of a coral reef to cell differentiation during embryonic development. Is the diversity of patterns found in Nature a result of different causes and effects, or is there a unifying picture in which they all share the same underlying principles? Only during the past decade has a satisfying answer started to evolve. These exciting new developments in the understanding of form determination in Nature offer the promise that a unified theoretical framework is at hand, one that would also include processes in living systems. This review is an effort to make these developments accessible to researchers in various related fields, so that together we may begin to link the dispersed fragments of knowledge into a coherent picture of growth processes.