Understanding the flow of complex fluids through confined spaces and forces governing the flow is key to diverse fields, from blood flow to lubricant design. Studying such situations is difficult because typical devices cannot achieve the necessary degree of confinement. New experiments and simulations reveal flow behavior under different levels of confinement and show how this behavior can be tuned.  

We envision the next generation of nanotechnology as machines that are active at time and length scales comparable to biological microorganisms. These machines will be able to change shape in fractions of a second in response to environmental cues, carry electronics, be fabricated en mass using standard semiconductor processing techniques, and cost less than a cent per machine. The key breakthrough behind this future? Autonomous origami machines made with atomically thin paper.