Bad Ass Engineer Of The Day: Back in 2000, British engineer Tal Golesworhty was told he suffered from Marfan Syndrome, a heart disorder of the connective tissue that often causes a ruptured aorta.

The standard treatment was an extreme 5-hour surgery that required a heart-lung bypass to replace the aorta with a graft and a medical valve. Then, the patient had to get on a regimen of highly risky blood thinners. Needless to say, to a process engineer, this was not a prognosis, it was a guantlet getting thrown down!

So, for two years, Golesworthy combined medical imaging with his computer design skills to develop and construct a prototype that would only require a simple operation to be put in place. He was the first recipient of his own invention. There have been 23 more successful surgeries since, and now there's a long line of people waiting to get in on this.

That my friends, is how you get bragging rights for a lifetime.

[PopSci]