What do you think of this fact?
Rrrrip. You know that sound from sneakers, jackets and backpacks. A dog invented it, at least indirectly.
Burrs under the microscope
In 1941, according to the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), Swiss engineer George de Mestral was out in the Jura mountains with his dog. Afterwards, burdock burrs were stuck everywhere: on his trousers and in the dog’s fur. Instead of just picking them off, he put them under a microscope.
What he saw were hundreds of tiny hooks. They caught on anything with loops, like fabric and animal hair. De Mestral wondered if he could copy the trick. According to swissinfo, few people took the idea seriously, and some openly laughed at him.
Almost 14 years of tinkering
It wasn’t easy. According to WIPO, de Mestral spent nearly eight years working on it with a weaver from a French textile plant. Cotton worked poorly, nylon much better. According to swissinfo, a weaver in Lyon and a loom maker in Basel helped, and the hooks were made from nylon sewn under infrared light.
In 1951, he filed a patent in Switzerland, which was granted in 1954. Patents in France and the United States followed in 1955. So about 14 years passed between the walk in the woods and that point.
Velvet plus hook
De Mestral built the name Velcro from two French words: “velours” for velvet and “crochet” for hook. In German, it’s called “Klettverschluss”, named after the burdock plant (“Klette”) where it all began.
According to WIPO, the original patent expired in 1978. Since then anyone can make hook-and-loop fasteners, but the Velcro brand name still belongs to the company.
Bonus fact: According to WIPO, about 3,300 square inches of Velcro covered the interior and exterior surfaces of Apollo 11, which is just over 2 square meters.
Nature had the idea first. The dog just carried it home.