A single tress of human hair is not a large amount—it's about 1.5 inches wide and 16 inches long—but when all was said and done, Dyson engineer Annmarie Nicolson says the tech company had used 1,010 miles of human hair. That's enough to stretch from the northernmost tip of California down past the Mexican border.

Dyson bought all these strands because, after years of building vacuums, hand dryers, fans, and air purifiers, the company has decided to make a hair dryer. Dyson doesn't do half-hearted product development (we've noted previously the company's tendency to over-engineer), and testing its high-tech hair dryer on miles of human hair was essential to getting the device ready for market. Four years after its conception, it's ready: the British electronics company unveiled the Dyson Supersonic hair dryer today. It will become available in the United States later this fall, through Sephora.