Putting a stop on menopause: Italian scientists recently unveiled a promising new fertility treatment involving ovarian tissue preservation and transplant.
In the process of looking at the research I discovered that human beings are actually almost unique in the mammal world. While a number of species do have a life phase involving menopause, only three species have menopause relatively early in the female’s life span: Killer whales, pilot whales and, well, us.
(By the way, the original Shamu was female, but the Shamu who drowned a trainer was male – so you can’t pin that one on a mood swing.)
I’m going to leave the debate about “how old is too old to have a baby” to you all (feel free to comment) although since I, at 41, just spent a weekend making sure my little monkey-emulating toddler survived each day, I’m going to say whichever age it is, make sure you’ve planned in how fast it takes you to get off the couch.
I will guess, however, that the killer and pilot whales are not slicing up ovarian tissue for future use.
