Yaël: Hey Don, look what I've got here!

Don: Oh cool, its one of those little origami cranes. I didn't know you were into the whole origami thing.

Y: Well the little paper figures are pretty cool, but what really excites me about origami are all of its modern applications.

D: Modern applications?

Y: Yeah, some of the same paper folding techniques used in origami to create figures like this little crane here have been adopted by researchers in fields as diverse as medicine, space science, and consumer electronics.

D: Really?

Y: Sure. For example in the early 2000s researchers at the University of Oxford incorporated an origami pattern called the "waterbomb base" into a heart stent design. This allowed the device to fold into a very small package for its trip through the small blood vessels leading to the weakened artery where it could then be expanded to provide support and hold the artery open.

D: Cool!

Y: Scientists working in the automobile industry have used origami folding patterns in making computer simulated airbags. Also space scientists have recently used origami techniques to fold a large lens of a telescope up into a tiny package that fits nicely in a spaceship, and then can be unfolded again out in space.

D: It sounds like all of these designs have used origami folding methods in a similar way: to make something that needs to be large and expansive at its destination small and compact for its journey there.

Y: Bingo.