BBC Online :
The inventor of Kevlar, the lightweight fibre used in bulletproof vests and body armour, has died aged 90.
Stephanie Kwolek was a chemist at the DuPont company in Wilmington, Delaware, when she invented the stronger-than-steel fibre in 1965.
It was initially intended to be used in automobile tyres.
In a statement, DuPont chief executive Ellen Kullman described Kwolek as “a creative and determined chemist and a true pioneer for women in science”.
Kwolek is the only female employee of DuPont to be awarded the company’s Lavoisier Medal for outstanding technical achievement.
“I knew that I had made a discovery,” Kwolek said in an interview several years ago. “I didn’t shout ‘Eureka,’ but I was very excited, as was the whole laboratory excited, and management was excited because we were looking for something new, something different, and this was it.”
