I really had no idea bra engineering was so complex.

But as this piece in the New York Times — devoted to recent bra-technology patents — points out:

Bodies differ vastly. Breasts can be pear-shaped, apple-shaped or melon-shaped. They can be asymmetrical. They can be spaced close together or far apart. And breast tissue can range from as little as 8 ounces in one woman to as much as 10 pounds in another.

And so a bra design can pose engineering challenges as formidable as those encountered in building a bridge or a skyscraper. This is why the bra continues to benefit from small, incremental improvements, Professor Farrell-Beck said.

Last week, for example, S & S Industries, a Bronx company, received United States patent 6,468,130 for a new type of underwire — one that is supposed not to poke through fabric, even under stress from laundering. S & S, which says it is the largest supplier of underwire for the brassiere industry, has solved that problem by designing a plastic tip for the ends of the underwire that sits on a little spring, according to Ajit Thakur, a vice president at the company who is a co-inventor of the tip, along with Joseph Horta.

“Poke-through has been a problem forever,” Mr. Thakur said. “Everyone has been trying to solve this. We may have found the holy grail.”