This “smart sheet” can instantly fold into a boat or a plane without any human assistance. It’s the first step toward being able to carry any imaginable tool around with you in the form of a single ...

Watch your backs, professional origamists: researchers are working on a sheet of material that can fold itself. The sheets of material, called “programmable matter” by their inventors, use electric ...

Why is Christian Science in our name? Our name is about honesty. The Monitor is owned by The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and we’ve always been transparent about that. The church publishes the ...

As if a brain-like processing chip weren’t bad enough news for us humans, this week’s edition of Science also describes a robot that, after being laid out as a flat sheet, can fold itself into the ...

Researchers have invented a real-life Transformer, a device that can fold itself into two shapes on command. The system is hardly ready to do battle with the Decepticons—the tiny contraption forms ...

Researchers at Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.I.T.) have developed self-folding smart sheets of fiberglass inspired by the ancient art of origami. The team ...

The art of origami usually requires dextrous fingers to turn a flat sheet into an intricate 3D shape. Now it’s got considerably easier, thanks to a material that can fold up on its own. Each foil was ...

Over dinner with a potential business partner in 2019, Swedish designer Tue Beijer pulled out some sketches and a model of an electric scooter made out of folded paper. He explained that he wanted to ...

Plastic with a thousand faces: A single piece of Nafion foil makes it possible to produce a broad palette of complex 3-D structures. Researchers now describe how they use simple chemical 'programming' ...

Professional origami artist Sipho Mabona is hoping to push - or should that be fold - the envelope of his art form by creating a life-size elephant from a single piece of paper measuring 15 metres ...