Symmetry is often said to be the mark of beauty in humans. To me, most other animals look more 'perfectly' symetrical (structurally; ignoring fur patterns etc.) than us. Are they then objectively more beautiful than humans? Think of the big cats, hawks and lizards etc from National Geogrpahic...Are we a relatively ugly species?!

If before the big bang, the universe was a singularity: a hot, dense and symmetrical state.  Then after the universes' 'bang' it disbands in all directions, to fundamentally lose this energy and become an infinite wilderness of low energy and complete disordered state.  Could this low entropic state not have a sense of unique symmetrical order, i.e. a highly order state?  Could this provide a state / catalyst to reverse the expansion direction, to ultimately reform the initial singularity?   

When I see a dark object on my leg, on my bed, or just on the floor, I immediately assess its symmetry to help deduce whether it is a creature or just a bit of fluff or a fragment of dirt. Symmetry is a pretty sure giveaway indicating life of some sort.

For insects particularly, and some other creatures too, lateral symmetry seems like the kind of thing evolution might have disguised (giving up symmetry altogether is clearly harder than hiding it).

Take the famous peppered moth - why go for all that camouflage and then reduce the effect by carrying a mirror image on each wing? For other prey animals, asymmetrical lumps, bumps or colours can't be out of the question? Are there are examples? Or is symmetry just so useful that lack of it has never been selected?

With the exception of sperm whales' off-centre blow-holes and some crabs' single large claw, all complex organisms I can think of are effectively symmetrical along one plane of their body. What is the least symmetrical organism?

Max Maguire, By email, no address supplied