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The smooth texture of linen is pleasant, but the fact that it wrinkles easily makes it a little difficult to use. However, there are creatures in nature that deal with creases themselves. For example, flying insects. How do they neatly spread out the wrinkles that have formed on their large wings?

Insects grow by molting multiple times from larvae to adults. As you may know from your elementary school science classes, there are insects that look pretty much the same from larvae to adults, like grasshoppers and praying mantises, and there are insects that go through a pupal stage and then go through a dramatic transformation from larvae to adults, like butterflies and cicadas.

Although there are exceptions, for the most part, there is one big difference between the larvae and adults of both types: whether they have wings or not. Adults have the important mission of finding a mate and leaving offspring, so they transform into a form with wings that allows them to travel far.

Whether insects have a pupal stage or not, when they emerge from their cocoons, their wings, which were previously cramped into numerous folds, are crumpled up on their backs. However, strangely enough, even though they do not appear to be doing anything, the wings tense up on their own, and within an hour they are perfectly spread out and wrinkle-free. The process of the wings stretching out, flapping widely, and soaring into the sky is truly mystical.

The mechanism by which wings spread has actually been elucidated. Insect wings have blood vessels called wing veins that spread out like the veins of a leaf. When an insect emerges, body fluids that have accumulated in the body gradually flow from the base of the wing veins to the tip, and the pressure applied causes the retracted wings to open up and spread out neatly.

Taking inspiration from this mechanism, "inflatable structures" were created by injecting gas or liquid into a bag-shaped membrane to inflate it, and have been used in buildings such as the Tokyo Dome. The advantages of this structure include the fact that it can be stored compactly, making it easy to transport, it can be deployed on a large scale on site, and it can be constructed in a short period of time.

Clothes that instantly remove wrinkles and maintain a beautiful silhouette when taken out of a travel bag, and fabrics that do not require ironing - such convenient fabrics have actually already been developed.

Reference material: Research examples based on learning from nature : https://www.sekisui.co.jp/csr/contribution/nextgen/bio_mimetics/1189079_27856.html

Living Creatures Encyclopedia: Swallowtail

Swallowtails are large, beautiful butterflies that can often be seen in city parks from spring to autumn. There are around 20 species that live in Japan. The caterpillar-shaped larvae feed on different plants depending on the species, and females touch the plants with the tips of their front legs to distinguish the species and then lay eggs. The favorite food of swallowtail larvae is plants in the Umbelliferae family, and with their voracious appetite, they can quickly strip parsley and carrot leaves from their stems.

Wrinkle-resistant linen

It has the same cool feeling as hemp, but with a soft texture like cotton. It also does not easily get the sharp wrinkles that are characteristic of hemp, which has a hard fiber. It took two years to develop this new hemp material, which was made from the raw materials using a different process from the usual hemp spinning method.