Origami ScienceYou will be surprised to know that paper folding ideas are used in technically advanced science projects. Some projects use bona fide origami folding techniques in the their work. However, in some cases, the term "origami" is used even when their is minimal folding involved.
In the June 2, 2010 issue of PNAS, researchers Hawkes et al report the development of a sheet of composite material which can fold itself. The flat sheet is composed of triangular panels lined with foil actuators (motors). When an electric current is passed through the sheet, select edges expand and/or contract causing the sheet to fold into origami-like boats & planes. Once the desired shape is realized, the shape is held in place with magnets. This seemingly simple procedure is significant because it requires that a material interacts with its environment and rearrange itself according to specified shapes/stiffness. This may lead to, for example, a measuring cup which folds itself according to the amount and/or temperature of the liquid which it holds.
In the April 23, 2010 issue of PNAS, researchers (Katiforia, Alben, Cerda, Nelson, and Dumais) from the University of Tulsa showed that pollen grains dehydrate and fold upon itself in a defined manner based on its geometry. This controlled folding is similar to the way a crease pattern can be collapsed into a defined origami model.
February 16, 2010; Applied Physics Letters. Conventional solar panels are flat and do not capture the sun's rays efficiently unless they were tilted to track the movement of the sun. MIT professor Jeffrey Grossman propose a method of folding solar cell systems such that they could produce a constant amount of power regardless of the sun's movements. Some of these folded solar cell systems are 2½ times more efficient than the traditional flat arrays.
In the April, 2009 issue of Advanced Materials, Jennifer Lewis and her research team (U of Illinois) developed a new method for fabricating small, complex 3D structures which are needed in biomedical devices. The novel method involves printing titanium hydride ink into flat sheets then folding the sheets into intricate designs. Initially, the titanium sheets dried and cracked but researchers overcame the problem by using wet folding ideas from origami. A mix of fast- and slow-drying solvents were used so that the titanium sheets dried partially but were still flexible enough to fold without cracking. Researchers said, "marriage of printing and origami techniques allows for greater structural complexity".  In January 2007, Eric Tremblay and Joseph Ford from the University of California in San Diego have made an ultrathin, high-resolution Origami Lens. The lens is very thin and is 7 times more powerful that conventional camera lenses. Typically, camera lenses use many parts to bend and focus light. The Origami Lens replaces the many parts of a conventional camera lens with one optical system; this makes the lens thinner. The Origami Lens is made of a crystal which is diamond-cut so that the light travels in a zig-zag manner analogous to the way paper is pleated in origami. Note: the lens itself is not folded, but the optical path is folded.
On the cover of the March 16,2006 issue of Nature magazine, Caltech researcher Paul Rothemund announced the development of Origami DNA. Not much real origami folding here; however, plenty of DNA folding and great potential for future applications.
In 2003, Zhong You and Kaori Kuribayashi from the University of Oxford developed an origami stent which may be used to enlarge clogged arteries and veins. The waterbomb base from origami was used to design the origami stent. A stent is a tube which can be collapse into a smaller size. Using a balloon catheter, the stent is maneuvered through the patients veins/arteries to the clot site. When the balloon is inflated, the stent is expanded to a larger diameter, thereby opening the vein/artery for better blood flow. Depending on the application, the tissue may grow over the stent and it remains in the patient permanently. By 2005, a self-deployable origami stent was developed.
In order to study galaxies and astronomical events that are far away, a large space telescope is needed. However, giant telescopes cannot be shipped into space due to the size constraints of rockets and shuttles. Professional origami artist, Robert Lang helped scientists at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (Livermore, California) design a method for folding a space telescope so that it can be packed into a space shuttle and then easily deployed when in space. The foldable telescopic lens is called “Eyeglass”. In early 2002, a telescopic lens measuring over 3 meters in diameter was constructed. When folded origami style, it was 1.2-meter in diameter and shaped like a cylinder. By early 2004, a 5-meter prototype lens was constructed and shown to concentrate light as expected. In the future, it may be possible to fold 100-meter telescope lenses into 3-meter diameter cylinders and have these delivered into space - all thanks to origami.
Photo: Space telescope "Eyeglass" can be folded origami style from a flat disk (bottom right) into a smaller cylinder (top left). Credit is given to the University of California, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and the Department of Energy under whose auspices the work was performed. Solar Sails in Space Flight Unit In March of 1995, Japanese scientists used origami concepts to pack and deploy a solar power array in the research vessel called Space Flight Unit (SFU). On Earth, the solar array was folded into a compact parallelogram, and then in space, it was expanded into a solar sail. The method of folding the solar panels is called "Miura-ori", in honor of Koryo Miura, a professor in Tokyo University, who developed the fold.
The Miura-ori (translation = Miura-fold) is famous in map folding. The Miura-ori allows a square piece of paper to be folded in such a way that it can be opened (in one motion) by pulling at two opposite corners. As well, a Miura-ori folded map is less likely to tear at the crease junctions. An easy to use road map - now that's origami science! 
Airbags in Cars: A German company, EASi Engineering, was interested in finding a better way to pack airbags into car steering wheels. Professional origami artists, Robert Lang, helped design an algorithm which will allow computer simulations of airbag folding and deployment. This allowed the company to evaluate the efficiency of the airbags without actually doing a crash test. Saves money, saves time, saves lives. Research is ongoing. Crumple Zones in Cars: Most cars have pre-designated crumple zones at the front and back of the car. These are engineered zones which will collapse during a collision. Folding at the crumple zones will absorb the energy of the impact and potentially save the lives of the passengers. In conjunction with the Nissan Motor Company, Japanese scientist, Ichiro Hagiwara, uses his knowledge of origami to design a fold pattern that will absorb maximum energy during impact. Research in progress.
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The idea is simple: DNA is folded in a back and forth manner and then held together with smaller strands of DNA at key positions. This works because of Watson and Crick pairing: recall biology 101 rule that A bonds with T and C bonds with G. Photo shows origami DNA shapes photographed with atomic force microscope.Why is this important to us? Well, it may lead to other molecular self assembly of nanostructures. Note that these DNA shapes are about 100nm in diameter - that's pretty small because an average germ is 1000nm. 
