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Nature has been inspiring man for thousands of years. From medicine to tools to building material, understanding the design of nature has helped mankind to improve various aspects of life. Most of us don’t realise it until we take a closer look and try to constantly learn. Let’s start with the first inspiration – the story of Velcro. To view the image, move the slider from the right hand side towards the left on the image.

The idea for velcro (such as the one on your shoe strap) comes from burrs (the burdock plant). The burdock plant normally has hooks on its seeds. The seeds attach to the fur of animals with these hooks, and get transported to other places for pollination.

A Swiss engineer named George de Mestral while on a walk with his dog, realised that it had picked up hundreds of little seeds and were stuck firmly to its fur. He realised that this ‘technology’ could be turned into something useful. George spent the next 10 years trying to imitate the hooks of the burdock seeds and the result was founding the company “Velcro” along with the patent for the technology. The name “Velcro” is a combination of the French words “velours” meaning “velvet” and “crochet” meaning “hook”. Today, we use this everywhere from industrial to personal use and on a daily basis when it comes to shoes, bags and even clothing!

[Images: Public Domain / Wikimedia Commons]

One interesting way of representing nature and travel are by highlighting photographs and paintings. In this series, we will look at those where a particular color of the subject is highlighted to make it stand out. To view it, move the slider from the right hand side towards the left on each image.

1. Bird with a dash of red.

2. A shade of blue jeans and umbrella.

3. Orange and not the new black.

Don’t they stand out from the background? You can use this technique when you want to color, paint or edit photos as well. Especially when a particular aspect has to be highlighted!