Women

Let's talk for a minute about the female orgasm. For a lucky minority of women, these exist in abundance, ready to be plucked ripe off a well-fruited vine at a moment's notice. If you're one of these girls, you can stop reading now and get back to washing your hair with that herbal goop that makes you bellow like Meg Ryan. If you're at the other end of the scale, where orgasm is a fleeting, furtive animal that must be hunted with patience and skill, then this device might be up your alley … so to speak. Read More

It is well-documented that our bodies give off coded chemical signals via sweat, excretions and pheromones that convey messages to other members of our species. Yet the significance of odorless human tears has continued to draw a blank since Charles Darwin first suggested that emotional displays were originally motivated by functional purposes. One hundred and fifty years later, new research from scientists at the Weizmann Institute’s Neurobiology Department suggests that in fact, tears may be a chemo-signal, as a chemical in women's tears seems to discourage sexual arousal in men. Read More

As Breast Cancer Awareness month draws to a close, some promising news has emerged from the University of Manchester's School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering. Professor Zhipeng Wu has developed a portable breast scanner that offers concerned patients real-time video images that clearly show the presence of a tumor. The lunchbox-sized scanner uses similar radio frequency technology as mobile phones, but at a fraction of the power and lends itself to being used in doctor's surgeries for instant screening or even continued monitoring at home. Read More

Girls rejoice! Salvation has arrived in the form of biodegradable ballet flats dispensed from venue vending machines as an antidote to the agony of wearing heels on a Big Night Out. As we breathe a collective sigh of relief, we ask “Why did no one think of this before?” Read More

We recently looked at a prototype implantable artificial kidney and now, in a move that could yield infertility treatments for cancer patients and provide a powerful new means for conducting fertility research, researchers have built an artificial human ovary that can grow oocytes into mature human eggs in the laboratory. The ovary not only provides a living laboratory for investigating fundamental questions about how healthy ovaries work, but also can act as a testbed for seeing how problems, such as exposure to toxins or other chemicals, can disrupt egg maturation and health. It could also allow immature eggs, salvaged and frozen from women facing cancer treatment, to be matured outside the patient in the artificial ovary. Read More

A couple of times a year, Japan's Triumph International unveils a themed undergarment based on a current trend or issue. Bringing women closer to agriculture is the company's latest inspiration for crazy conceptual underwear, which takes form in the shape of the Rice Bra. Read More

The medical profession has experienced much difficulty and frustration in detecting and treating ovarian cancer, but researchers at the Yale School of Medicine, Connecticut, believe they have made a major breakthrough. They say eliminating cancer stem cells (CSCs) within a tumor could hold the key to successful treatments. Read More

The world's population is aging rapidly, with implications in numerous areas, not the least of which is that the number of male drivers over the age of 70 will double in the next 20 years, and the number of female drivers over 70 will treble. Does this pose a greater risk on the roads? A new in-depth report released today by the UK's IAM (Institute of Advanced Motorists contradicts the common assumption that older drivers are a danger on the roads, comprehensively proving that drivers over 70 are no more likely to cause crashes than any other driver, and are indeed, considerably safer than younger drivers. Read More

The rapid development of personal entertainment and communication technologies is causing quite seismic changes in the weight the average UK female carries in her handbag. Research conducted for UK Department Store chain Debenhams each year for the last two decades shows that the doubling of weight of the handbag between 2002 and 2006, due to the adoption of laptops, has been completely reversed in just three years by the adoption of smartphones, replacing laptops and filofaxes. Read More