When surgeons are operating on a patient, they need a lot of tools and space to get the job done. That can lead to some pretty big incisions that take a while to heal and sometimes get infected.
Innovations in what's called minimally invasive surgery have changed this, to an extent. But is it possible to make a surgical cut so small that it can heal on its own?
Mechanical engineering student Jason Dearden helps with the origami-inspired research at Brigham Young University.
Surgical tools are already much smaller than they once were. Now, to shrink them down even more, engineers at Brigham Young University (in partnership with physicist/origami virtuoso Robert Lang) are drawing inspiration from an unlikely source: origami.