Breast option available?

This article from comes to us by the lovely Adrienne So, who writes for Wired magazine.

I’ll do a FJM style observation of parts of the article that I thought were, uhm, interesting, but you really should check it out for yourself. Some of the comments are funny as well. Hit the jump for the good stuff..

“As a woman who loves sports, I’ve always found the concept of breasts bothersome. If all goes according to plan, they will fulfill 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 favorite target of Frisbees and soccer balls. Finding sports bras is a chore. Shirts don’t fit.”

Wow. This first paragraph is solid gold, strictly from a male’s point of view.. I’m sure there are women out there who have difficult days, but come on “Shirts don’t fit.” Really? (sheepishly) Um can I have your number Miss(?) So….

“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.”

Some people (Hef) would say that it was unfortunate that you didn’t become an “Asian Dolly Parton,” I however, like you just the way you are….

“Then one day recently I had an idea. As I rode public transportation 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 time seemed perfect—perhaps even overdue!—for a bra that could harness the untapped power of breast motion.”

“Putting the girls to work” I wonder how many men have asked their significant other if they would do this.. you know, for them..

Skipping ahead we come to my personal favorite paragraph which states:

“Lawson explained 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 said. Measurements compiled by Lawson and her colleagues show that a D-cup in a low-support bra can travel as much as 35 inches up and down (35 inches!) during exercise, while a B-cup in a high-support bra barely moves an inch.”

WHOA! 35 inches??? are you kidding? If there are 12 inches in a foot, then 35 inches is equal to a little over 2.9 feet… that’s almost 1 yard! Granted it’s not all in one direction, think of it as an arc 3 feet long-so a woman’s D-cup breast size could theoretically move ~1.5 feet in any direction. Also I love how they mention that marathon runners with small breasts won’t be able to generate enough power to run an ipod… so how many “gigawatts” are we talking about here? Well according to Apple’s product info: the ipod power supply outputs 12 Volts and 1.0 Amps, which if my memory of physics is correct equals 12 VAs or watts (P=VI) it’s easy to get that kind of power from a wall outlet, but the article only mentions actual power output of the materials that are talked about twice: “A square meter of fiber produces about 80 milliwatts of power, which is enough to run a small device like a cell phone.” (8th paragraph) and again in reference to a “Lightning Pack” (sounds safe): “The Lightning Pack uses a rotary generator… which produces up to 7 watts of energy…” Hmm still not quite there…

The author ends the piece by saying she is going to “start looking at her breasts in a different light.”

You know I think I will too…

(Update: added picture of Hilary Swank, then I wondered how many watts she would generate)