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Quick & curious · Technology

Velcro was copied from a plant.

In 1941, after a hunting trip, George de Mestral and his dog were covered in burrs. He looked at them under a microscope.

Close-up of a curved, hook-shaped burdock spine against a dark background
Photo: El Grafo · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Original

The story behind it

Velcro was copied from a plant.

Under the microscope the Swiss engineer saw hundreds of tiny hooks on the burrs that caught on anything with loops. He recreated it: hooks on one side, loops on the other. In 1955 he was granted the patent. The name Velcro comes from "velours" and "crochet".

Fits with this

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    The Pringles can's inventor is partly buried in one.

    Fredric Baur designed the tube for the stacked chips. After his death in 2008, some of his ashes went into a Pringles can.

    Visualization: Sam Derbyshire · CC BY-SA 3.0

  • Nº 036 · Technology

    QR codes were invented for car parts.

    Denso Wave developed them in 1994 to label vehicle parts. The code could be read faster than a barcode.

    Illustration: Brdall · Public domain