WELL-DESIGNED:

Origami May Be an Art, but Nature Got There First (NY Times, 3/22/05)

In 1980, a Japanese scientist, Dr. Koryo Miura, developed a pattern of peaks and valleys that allows a map to be unfolded all at once, with one pull of a corner. In introducing his method, Dr. Miura wrote that his "experience on deployable space structures and origami science" led him to look for a better way to fold a map.

The result of his work, the Miura-ori origami pattern, has indeed been used for solar arrays as well as maps.

Last week, in the journal Science, Dr. Lakshminarayanan Mahadevan of Harvard reported that nature itself has an origami trick or two, including the Miura-ori pattern. His analysis suggested that the nature of the skin of a leaf and its supporting framework could lead to the same efficient folding that Dr. Miura developed.