Ten thousand leaves. A thousand cranes.

From December 2009 National Geographic magazine:

"Each appendage consists of a folded flap of paper, and each flap, origamists realized in the 1990's, uses a circular portion, or a quarter or half circle, of the original square."

Scientists have solved the mathematical puzzle by algorithm that enable them to fold complex shapes such as telescope lenses into small spaces. "In 1995 Japanese engineers launched a satellite with a solar array that folded in pleats like a map...to fit into a rocket."
By intuition, the Japanese knew this all along.

From Stephen Crane's The Black Riders:

"IV

Yes, I have a thousand tongues,

And nine and ninety-nine lie.

Though I strive to use the one,

It will make no melody at my will,

But is dead in my mouth."

Crane's meaning probably reflects more on ancient folk beliefs, yet intrinsic in these lines is the idea that even in nine hundred and ninety-nine plus one, that only one is true or real. No matter how many origami designs exist, only one can be manifest in the intention of folding a single origami figure.

All Origami figures are contained in a single sheet of paper. Yes, all of them. That might add up to a billion. All the plans are in that one piece of paper and your brain. Of course, you may select only one per sheet.

Even a simple task like folding towels informs us that we are saving space or reshaping to fit a space.

Folding: Towels, space, paper squares. These three are already folded and ready to go. Yes, that towel is folded. You just can't see it yet. Yes, there is a crane in that sheet. You just can't see it yet, but you will when the right conditions are met.

If you think of it, a riddle has the answer in it, although you may not see it right away.

Some things arrive completely folded, a package tied with string, as it were. The blueprint for many things is hiding in some other form. It has always been and has always been there waiting for you to see.

A garden seed is formed with a tiny plan or blueprint in it.

The plan unfolds and grows by the addition of water and nutrients. You could think of a seed as a plan that is "bound so tight it cannot grow" until the right conditions are met.

A snowflake is a plan that unfolds with the addition of water and cold. As an amateur snowflake aficionado, I have not succeeded in creating snowflakes in the freezer compartment of my refrigerator. Sometimes there are ice crystals in there, but they lack the romance of the snowflake, close but not quite. I have created ice cubes, but I have yet to find a coffee table book filled with wondrous photos of beautiful ice cubes.

That means there is something unique about the snowflake even though it has the same ingredients as frost and ice cubes.

The frost chrysanthemums that bloom on my winter's window are gorgeous in their way, but still they are not snowflakes. They don't possess the same freedom of movement.

Where is the blueprint for a snowflake? Since it is a rain drop transformed, the plan must be in the raindrop, but that plan cannot emerge from its wet chrysalis without the additional elements of sky, light, space, and cold.

A snowflake is not a living thing, but it shimmers with light, a mirage of life.

How can a transition be made from discussing a snowflake to discussing a virus? A comparison could be made from the fact that they remain hidden or dormant until the right conditions are met for their transformation.

Interestingly, the archaic meaning of virus is venom. A spider often hides before its attack, and a snake is often coiled before it strikes.

A virus, a living entity, is a folded plan that needs help from a cell to replicate. Some viruses look like an alien unpacking its suitcase. To humans, viruses are rarely thought of as beautiful or good, but they do have a demonic appetite for survival.

A bacteriophage is particularly scary looking. It eats bacteria, an effective way of destroying them. Phages have been used in place of medicine. "They have been used for over 60 years as an alternative to antibiotics in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.^[5] They are seen as a possible therapy against multi drug resistant strains of many bacteria."

In this way, it acts as a beneficial agent, if the bacteria that it eats is harmful to living things that we value.

A computer virus is like a biologic virus in that it is folded and appears small in a harmless way or seems inconspicuous at face value. It is plain and harmless looking and may go unnoticed for a long time, that is, until it begins to unpack its suitcase.