A chemical engineer down under has invented a garment so loud it makes Hawaiian shirts seem subdued. “It’s not rocket science—it’s rockin’ science,” quips Richard Helmer, a weekend guitarist in a local rock band and researcher at Australia’s government-funded Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization.

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For pharmaceutical companies, the antihistamine Seldane is a textbook example of what you don’t want in a new drug. Seldane hit the market as the first nondrowsy allergy medication in 1985. It was a stunning success, quickly becoming one of the top 10 most-prescribed drugs. But the U.S. Food and Drug Administration started to get some alarming reports about the drug.

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It was a problem that had baffled civil engineer Marc Edwards for a decade. By the time the Virginia Tech professor finally figured out the answer, he had stumbled across a health issue that ended up pitting him against the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the utility that supplies Washington, D.C., with its drinking water.

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Tags: environmental engineering, Water pollution

What do you do for an encore when, as a mechanical engineering grad student, you helped develop a system that reduced Ford Navigator emissions by 80 percent?

Well Marcus D. Ashford accepted an appointment as an assistant professor in the mechanical engineering department at the University of Alabama-Tuscaloosa. He’s been teaching since only last fall—initially a graduate course in thermodynamics—but is thoroughly enjoying the experience.

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World Bank Institute head Frannie Léautier gives new meaning to the word persistence. She had to overcome incredible obstacles to get an engineering degree in Tanzania.

It wasn’t the kind of protest that Frannie Léautier was used to. Sure, she had had her share of negative reactions to the fact that she was a female engineering student—the only one in the University of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania—in the early 1980s.

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