 |
| from Gómez-Gálvez et. al |
If you’ve seen the recent headlines of “Scientists Discover NEW SHAPE!,” then you’ve been touched by bad science reporting.
If you skimmed an article or two and came away thinking, so what the f*ck is a SCUTOID, or, why the f*ck is a scutoid, it’s also not really your fault. Though the new-not-new scutoid is a fairly simple 3D shape, explaining why it exists and what it does involves referencing cellular biology, tiling, geometric projection, and Voronoi diagrams; in passing, entomology; and optionally, Steiner trees.
Here we go.
If you skimmed an article or two and came away thinking, so what the f*ck is a SCUTOID, or, why the f*ck is a scutoid, it’s also not really your fault. Though the new-not-new scutoid is a fairly simple 3D shape, explaining why it exists and what it does involves referencing cellular biology, tiling, geometric projection, and Voronoi diagrams; in passing, entomology; and optionally, Steiner trees.
Here we go.