New options for making finely structured soft, flexible and expandable materials called hydrogels have been developed by researchers at Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology (TUAT). Their ...

Heat dissipation has become increasingly important in electronics. Conventional convection cooling systems have significant material and dimensional constraints, and they have difficulty meeting the ...

A humble concept from ancient Japanese design might remake the way supplies are dropped from the air. Polytechnique Montréal engineers designed parachutes based on kirigami—cutting paper into ...

Kirigami is a technique that modifies the mechanical properties of a sheet of material by making precise folds and cuts to it. Children use it to make snowflakes out of paper, and engineers have used ...

(Nanowerk News) New options for making finely structured soft, flexible and expandable materials called hydrogels have been developed by researchers at Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology ...

Researchers at The University of Osaka exploit geometrical design to make structures rotate, with new potential for robots ...

A traditional paper crane is a feat of artistry. Every fold in origami leads to the transformation of a single square sheet of paper into a bird, a dragon, or a flower. Origami discourages gluing, ...

The Japanese art of “kirigami”, or paper cutting, has been used by scientists in the US to make electrically conductive composite sheets more elastic, increasing their strain from 4% to 370%, without ...

The shape transformation of some biological systems inspires scientists to create sophisticated structures at the nano- and macro- scales. However, to be useful in engineering, the mechanics of ...

As the material folds, it opens the through-cuts, shifting the shape of the sheets into 2D or 3D designs. "We can make a 2D template with the same pattern of through-cuts and use it to create many ...

Researchers at the École Polytechnique de Montréal have developed a new type of parachute based on the Japanese art of cutting and paper folding kirigami – a variation of origami. The parachute is ...

Wireless, wearable, and flexible: the electrocardiogram monitor and a mobile phone running the app that receives heartbeat data. (Courtesy: Kuniharu Takei) The Japanese art form of kirigami has ...