Flat-Packed Noodles Create More Sustainable Packaging, Transportation and Storage Aaron Aupperlee Print A team of researchers led by the Morphing Matter Lab is developing flat pasta that forms familiar shapes when it's cooked. Their work is the cover story in this month's issue of Science Advances. People love pasta for its shapes — from tubes of penne and rigatoni to spirals of fusilli and rotini. But what makes farfalle different from conchiglie also makes the staple a bear to package, requiring large bags and boxes to accommodate the iconic shapes of pastas around the world. A research team led by the Morphing Matter Lab at Carnegie Mellon University is developing flat pasta that forms into familiar shapes when cooked. The team impresses tiny grooves into flat pasta dough — made of only semolina flour and water — in patterns that cause it to morph into tubes, spirals, twists and waves when cooked.