From the files of odd science comes news about a benefit from menopause. No Minnie mouse is not in menopause and her voice has come down a notch, although she is old enough. This mouseopause is accelerated menopause in mice to render them infertile and keep their population down.
Before anyone cries about killing mice, rodents are not really killed. Their life span by induced menopause reduces the rodent population. Rodents can eat or damage 50% of pre-harvest rice crops. To countries that depend on rice as a staple food supply this is devastating.
Scientist Loretta Mayer from Northern Arizona University has developed this nontoxic environmentally neutral approach. If the rodent population can be reduced and rice production was to increase by 10%, “this could feed about 380 million people a year,” says Loretta. A side note: Loretta is age appropriate to understand the complexities of menopause, and coined the word mouseopause.
http://x-journals.com/2009/discovery-could-help-feed-millions/
It is a great discovery that the world can benefit from the science of menopause. Researchers were initially looking at potential damage to women exposed to certain chemicals. Chemicals involved with manufacturing rubber tires, polyester and plastics in nontoxic doses turned out to be the key to mouseopause. Who would have thought that a discovery with menopause could help with world hunger!