menopause

4 Articles

Whales Help Scientists Investigate The Mystery Of Menopause

April 6, 2022 by 7 Comments

Menopause is the time of life when menstrual periods come to a halt, and a woman is no longer able to bear children. The most obvious cause of menopause is when the ovaries run out of eggs, though it can also be caused by a variety of other medical processes. While menopause is in many ways well-understood, the biological reason for menopause, or the way in which it evolved in humanity remains a mystery. The process was once thought to be virtually non-existent in the animal kingdom, raising further questions.

Surprisingly recently, however, scientists began to learn that humans are not alone in this trait. Indeed, a small handful of sea-going mammals also go through this unique and puzzling process.

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In-vest-ing In Menopause

September 23, 2020 by 28 Comments

Most of us reach for an over-the-counter medicine if we have occasional pain, but menopause doesn’t act like that. Hot flashes don’t build like a headache, dizzy spells don’t wait for a good time, and panic attacks don’t announce themselves. Predicting and addressing sudden hormone shifts is the intent behind Menesto, a vest with sensors, cooling apparatus, and a companion app.

A thermometer and humidity detector monitor the skin for spikes in temperature and moisture to recognize when the wearer is having a hot flash. When an event is registered, a fan blows over a Peltier panel’s cool side and hopefully provides enough chilled air inside the vest. A Peltier panel is a thermoelectric heat engine that moves energy away from one ceramic plate to another, so one half gets cool while the other heats up. Power comes from rechargeable 18650 batteries and all the hardware talks to an ESP8266 on a NodeMCU running Arduino.

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MenoPlay Through The Pain Of Menopause

August 4, 2020 by 7 Comments

Menopause, that fireworks finale of fertility, is like a second puberty that works in reverse. At least, that’s what we hear. Along with mood swings and acne, there are new joys like hot flashes that make you want to jump naked into the nearest snowdrift, or at least put your head in the freezer for a while. Sounds great; can’t wait.

The biggest problem with menopause is that it gives suffers pause when it comes to getting help. This is natural, they think. There’s nothing I can do but ride it out. Those who do seek relief are likely to find expensive products that only treat single symptoms. This dearth of solutions inspired [Moinak Ghosh] to create one system to rule them all, a wearable with a suite of sensors that’s designed to take the pause out of menopause.

MenoPlay will take temperature readings at the neck and pelvis and switch on a Peltier module worn on the back of the neck when it senses a hot flash in progress. Exercise is a natural defense against hormonal imbalance, but step counters are too easy to cheat or ignore. The MenoPlay system will model the user’s movements using 9DoF accelerometers and suggest exercises that fill in the gaps.

We particularly like the automation aspect of this wearable. After decades of manually tracking menstrual cycles and everything that implies, the idea of so much useful biological data being collected automatically and fed over BLE to a NodeRed application sounds wonderful.

Hot flashes may not feel useful internally, but would do a fine job of powering the right kind of flashlight.

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Got Me Feeling Blue

March 29, 2020 by 22 Comments

Sleep schedules are an early casualty in the fight to be productive. Getting good sleep is an uphill battle, so anything that can help us is a welcome ally. We all know about the phone and computer settings that turn down the infamous blue hues at sunset, but what about when you want more blue light? Maybe you want to convince your body to stay awake to pre-acclimate for a trip across time zones. Perhaps you work or live in a place that doesn’t have windows. Menopause introduces sleep trouble, and that is a perilously steep hill.

[glowascii] takes the approach of keeping-it-simple when they arrange six blue LEDs under a flesh-tone patch, which isn’t fooling anyone and powers the lights with a USB power pack. Fremen jokes aside, light therapy is pricey compared to parts some of you have sitting in a drawer. Heck, we’d wager that a few of you started calculating the necessary resistor sizes before you read this sentence. Even if you don’t need something like this, maybe you can dedicate an afternoon to someone who does.

DIY therapy has a special place in our (currently organic) hearts, such as in this rehabilition glove or a robot arm.
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