Integrating Your Life with Picasso, Dali,&Dean Kamen - a podcast by Alan Philips

Take it that you have died today, and your life’s story is ended; and henceforward regard what future time may be given you as uncovenanted surplus, and live it out in harmony with nature. —Marcus Aurelius

Velcro was invented in 1948 by Swiss engineer George de Mestral. The miracle material that makes it possible for children to close their sneakers without shoelaces was conceived when he went for a walk in the woods and wondered what he could learn from burrs. Nature made these seed cases prickly for protection and sticky to spread seeds, a combination that made them very difficult to clean off his trousers (and dogs). De Mestral realized he could apply the same design to a synthetic version for industrial use. After years of researching nature’s brilliance, he successfully reproduced this natural function by utilizing two strips of fabric—one side with thousands of minuscule hooks and the other with thousands of minuscule loops. The name Velcro came from a combination of two French words, velours and crochets (“velvet” and “hooks”), and it was formally patented in 1955.

Velcro is quite possibly the most famous example of biomimicry. This field of research and innovation is defined as “the design and production of materials, structures, and systems that are modeled on biological entities and processes.” Or, simply put, copying nature’s brilliance to find solutions to our problems.  When you understand biomimicry, it’s very much a whydidn’t-I-think-of-that? moment. It’s just so obvious. What hubris do we have, thinking our solutions will be more effective than those already in place in the natural world? Why should we know how to capture the sun’s energy better than a leaf? Or fly more efficiently

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