Today's online Computerworld has an article in the Application Development section entitled Computational Origami. It describes how research into determining the paper folds required to create a specific shape (see Treemaker, software created by Robert Lang) can be used in such diverse fields as automobile airbag design and medical research into how prions work.

The March 2003 issue of Discover magazine had an article about Tim Blackwell's investigations of "swarming" behavior when creating computer-generated music. Blackwell is attempting to allow a computer to improvise - riff - music by mimicing bee swarms. Blackwell's personal site has more detailed descriptions of his work, as well as song samples (most require - gag - Real Player, but there are a few MP3s). As the Discover article notes, most of it sounds unlike what we're used to hearing; to me it's a lot like Hearts of Space "space music". Pretty cool in any case.