In addition to helping scientists understand how natural soft structures such as flower petals and embryos take shape, the technique could be used to make polymer actuators. These devices move in ...

Researchers from the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) have developed a mathematical framework that can turn any sheet of material into any prescribed shape, ...

Cambridge, Mass., – June 28, 2010 – "More than meets the eye" may soon become more than just a tagline for a line of popular robotic toys. Researchers at Harvard and MIT have reshaped the landscape of ...

New research shows that microscale robots can be made from shape shifting 2D sheets. Itai Cohen and Itay Griniasty of Cornell University in the US have developed a mathematical technique for encoding ...

Experimental and theoretical physicists and a polymer scientist have teamed up to use much thinner sheets than before to achieve seeking to encapsulate droplets of one fluid within another. Thinner, ...

Sheets of plastic that fold into tiny pyramids, boxes and spheres when water is added have been created by French researchers. They think the technique could one day be used to mass-produce the ...

Researchers have developed a mathematical framework that can turn any sheet of material into any prescribed shape, inspired by the paper craft termed kirigami (from the Japanese, kiri, meaning to cut ...

In what they hail as a “new frontier in materials,” engineers at Northeastern University have developed a new type of ceramic that can be fashioned into thin and complex shapes, opening up expansive ...