The space savings could lend itself to astronaut food or even food deliveries to disaster areas, according to the Times. Wen Wang, a computer scientist at Carnegie Mellon University, says in a statement that the technique they developed may even have applications in soft robotics or biomedical devices that need to change shape.

“We were inspired by flat-packed furniture and how it saved space, made storage easier and reduced the carbon footprint associated with transportation,” says Lining Yao, a mechanical engineer at Carnegie Mellon University and co-author of the study, in the statement. “We decided to look at how the morphing matter technology we were developing in the lab could create flat-packed pastas that offered similar sustainability outcomes.”
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