In nature, shapes mostly appear with curves and non-flat faces. It's only through human creations that shapes with straight lines and pointed angles are common. A team of mathematicians has ...

These modules would hold their shape until they were reprogrammed to change their form and fulfill some other need. In the second example, the researchers designed a flexible space telescope.

But 3D shapes with curves can fill space, too—although the ready examples are only slightly bent and have obvious corners. Tellingly, the known examples all emerged from questions about nature ...

Despite this apparent disorganization, the resulting structures can acquire a variety of shapes and have surprising strengths, versatility and other useful properties. Most importantly, the ...