Inspired by Nature

Sometimes, the best ideas come from looking at nature. In 1941, a Swiss engineer named George de Mestral went for a walk in the mountains with his dog. When they returned home, he noticed that his pants and his dog's fur were covered in small, prickly seeds called "burrs."

De Mestral was curious why the burrs stuck so tightly. He looked at one under a microscope and saw that it was covered in hundreds of tiny hooks. These hooks caught onto the loops in the fabric of his pants and the dog's hair. He realized that if he could copy this hook-and-loop design, he could create a new kind of fastener.

It took him many years to find the right material and design a machine to make it, but he finally succeeded. He named his invention "Velcro." Today, Velcro is used on everything from shoes and jackets to spacesuits used by NASA astronauts. This method of copying nature to solve human problems is now called "biomimicry."

Inspired by Nature

Sometimes, the best ideas come from looking at nature. In 1941, a Swiss engineer named George de Mestral went for a walk in the mountains with his dog. When they returned home, he noticed that his pants and his dog's fur were covered in small, prickly seeds called "burrs."

De Mestral was curious why the burrs stuck so tightly. He looked at one under a microscope and saw that it was covered in hundreds of tiny hooks. These hooks caught onto the loops in the fabric of his pants and the dog's hair. He realized that if he could copy this hook-and-loop design, he could create a new kind of fastener.

It took him many years to find the right material and design a machine to make it, but he finally succeeded. He named his invention "Velcro." Today, Velcro is used on everything from shoes and jackets to spacesuits used by NASA astronauts. This method of copying nature to solve human problems is now called "biomimicry."