URI engineer: Origami-inspired device enables easy capture, release of delicate underwater organisms

The open ocean is the largest and least explored environment on Earth, estimated to hold up to a million species that have yet to be described. However, many of those organisms are soft-bodied – like jellyfish, squid, and octopuses – and are difficult to capture for study with existing underwater tools, which all too frequently damage or destroy them.

Now, a new device developed by a University of Rhode Island…