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Victorias Circuit - Bouncing breasts powers bra

Posted in: UK Sex News | Jul 18, 2008 - 6:41:16 PM

Looking for a better way to charge her iPod on the go, Adrienne So had an idea – could she invent a bionic bra to harness the energy of her bouncing breasts?

As a woman who loves sports, I've always found the concept of breasts bothersome. If all goes according to plan, they will fulfil their intended function for about three of the 70 years that I have them.

Looking for a better way to charge her iPod on the go, Adrienne So had an idea – could she invent a bionic bra to harness the energy of her bouncing breasts?

As a woman who loves sports, I've always found the concept of breasts bothersome. If all goes according to plan, they will fulfil their intended function for about three of the 70 years that I have them. The rest of the time, they alternate between getting in my way and embarrassing me. They are a favourite target of Frisbees and footballs. Finding sports bras is a chore. Shirts don't fit.

And these are just the physical discomforts. I am still tortured by the memory of three cousins standing in a circle around me, at the impressionable age of 10, mocking my early development and telling me that I was going to be the Asian Dolly Parton. Fortunately, that never happened, but the possibility haunted my late childhood.

Then one day recently, I had an idea. As I rode a bus to the office, my messenger bag slung uncomfortably across my chest, I thought, "Why not put the girls to work?" Human-powered devices are showing up everywhere, from Rotterdam's sustainable dance floor to human-powered gyms in Hong Kong. The timing seemed perfect – perhaps even overdue – for a bra that could harness the untapped power of breast motion.

The idea of an energy-generating bra isn't as crazy as it might sound. The underwear company Triumph International Japan recently unveiled a solar-powered bra that supposedly will generate enough energy to power an iPod. But I live in foggy San Francisco and prefer not to walk around in my underwear in public. Could someone design an iPod-powering bra for me?

I decided to run the question past some scientists. It turns out that the physics of breast motion has been studied closely for the last two decades by a gamut of researchers – most of them women. LaJean Lawson, a former professor of exercise science at Oregon State University, has been researching breast motion since 1985 and now works as a consultant for companies such as Nike to develop better sports-bra designs. Lawson is enthusiastic about my idea, but warns that it will be tricky to execute. You would need the right breast size and the right material, she explains, and the bra itself would have to be cleverly designed. "It's just a matter of finding the sweet spot, between reducing motion to the point where it's comfortable but still allowing enough motion to power your iPod," she says.

Lawson explains that breasts move on three different axes: from side to side, front to back, and up and down. The most motion is generated on the vertical axis. Naturally, the bigger the breast, the more momentum it generates. "Let's face it – if you're a double-A marathoner, you're probably not going to get that iPod up and running," Lawson says. Measurements compiled by Lawson and her colleagues show that a D-cup in a low-support bra can travel as much as 35 inches (89cm) up and down (35 inches!) during exercise, while a B-cup in a high-support bra barely moves an inch.

Continue this article online at the Independent here...

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