What do silver nanoparticles have to do with snowflakes and crochet? Usually, not much! But recently, scientists have created methods to make snowflake-like shapes out of silver nanoparticles 1, and their methods reminded me not only of snowflakes but also of how I make some of my own crochet projects.

So what do these different shapes have in common? Snowflakes, like many other structures in the natural world, are…