ATLANTA — Whether they’re in the classroom or learning from home, school children rely on pencils that are shaped in a way to prompt students to ask, “why?” For more than 100 years, pencils have been ...

A new hexagon has emerged high in the skies over Saturn’s north pole. As spring turned to summer in the planet’s northern hemisphere, a six-sided vortex appeared in the stratosphere. Surprisingly, the ...

We’ve all heard it—no two snowflakes are alike. However, they all seem to share that same six-sided shape, so what’s going on? Why do they follow the same rulebook for structure but still end up ...

Hexagons are mutually associated with bees and wasps, as both insect species build their nests using this humble six-sided shape. Anyone who stumbles upon a bee or wasp nest in nature will be greeted ...

Above: A hexagonal (six-sided) snow crystal, classified as a stellar dendrite. This crystal was photographed with an Olympus TG-6 camera after it landed on the sleeve of the authors fleece jacket.

Snowflakes start as ice crystals (in clouds in sub-freezing air) with a basic six-sided shape because of the structure of the water molecule. The range in the shape of the microscopic lattice arms ...

A snowflake is a small weather feature that can pack a big punch. Many are made up of just one single ice crystal while some, more elaborate snowflakes are comprised of as many as 200 ice crystals ...