
The Tampon of the Future - wallflower
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/03/opinion/sunday/the-tampon-of-the-future.html
======
telesilla
Many men don't realise that women have been "hacking their bodies" since the
invention of the pill - thanks to chemistry advances, a lot of us just decide
we don't want our period anymore, or choose when to have it. If you ask a
bunch of women about the most important invention of the 20th century, the
pill (and its modern friends such as the IUD, Depo Provera and implants)
usually comes up first.

So since many western women are choosing when to have their periods and we do
so often _purely_ for reproductive reasons, such a tampon-analyser would sell
very very well. We're already used to being grossed out by our blood by the
time we want to reproduce so what's the harm in dropping a used tampon in a
cylinder once a month, on top of everything else we do.

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yazaddaruvala
Actually, generalizing this, the idea of collecting regular samples from
regular bodily excrement is fascinating.

Imagine a "lab in the toilet". Every time it is flushed, it runs analysis on
the current contents and produces reports if requested, or alerts if needed.

"You're currently suffering potassium deficiencies, which can cause frequent
headaches. Eat a banana to alleviate concerns."

~~~
Someone
You don't have to imagine it; you could buy one 6 years ago
([http://singularityhub.com/2009/05/12/smart-toilets-
doctors-i...](http://singularityhub.com/2009/05/12/smart-toilets-doctors-in-
your-bathroom/))

And that was version 2.
[http://edition.cnn.com/2005/TECH/06/28/spark.toilet/index.ht...](http://edition.cnn.com/2005/TECH/06/28/spark.toilet/index.html?iref=allsearch)
Shows you could buy one in 2005. From that description, it seems there was
some room for making the thing easier to use then, though.

~~~
granos
Maybe I'm paranoid, but my concern with these things has always been that
Facebook (or Google or some other personal data aggregator) would buy the
company and suddenly my toilet would be calling home to their servers (à la
Occulus Rift). I'm sure they'll find a way to make it need an internet
connection.

~~~
zxcvcxz
That's why you need an open source toilet that runs Linux.

~~~
disconcision
2016 is the year of linux on the toilet

------
sonabinu
As the article also talks of general patents applied for and awarded to women
aside from patents related to the products to handle the menstrual cycle, the
title could have been a little more general. Or does a title that explicitly
refers to 'tampons' getter better readership?

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hackuser
Why don't we hear - on HN or in the startup world - talk of disrupting this
industry?

~~~
Kristine1975
If you mean the tampon industry: It already has been disrupted:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Menstrual_cup](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Menstrual_cup)

~~~
e40
I love this bit:

 _Menstrual cups are safe when used as directed and no health risks related to
their use have been found. However, no medical research was conducted to
ensure that menstrual cups were safe prior to introduction on the market._

Ah, the old assumption of safety.

~~~
nostrademons
Kinda like how saccharine was discovered because a chemist had neglected to
wash his hands after coming home from work, bit into a dinner roll, found it
sweet, and then went around tasting everything in his laboratory until he
found the sweet compound?

Makes me wonder how humanity ever discovered wine. "If you take grapes,
squeeze the juice out of them, let it sit until its been colonized by a fungi,
it'll develop a nerve poison that you should drink because it'll make you sick
less often than water from that stream." To say nothing of beans, nutmeg,
elderberry, or other foods that are poisonous when eaten raw.

~~~
bathMarm0t
I own a small vineyard. I can tell you without a doubt that the process of
making wine is literally BEGGING to happen. The skin of the grape is covered
with yeast cultures that are ready to ferment the sugar inside the grape. The
second that there's a breaking of the skin (aka a deer comes by and grabs a
snack), the process kicks off. After a couple of days, there's enough alcohol
content in the grape that bees can hone in on the broken cluster (via smell or
whatever). Get enough bees around, and they start eating more grapes, and
voila. Bee-booze-chain-reaction. Ruined crop. RIP2015.

------
xiphias
I - as a man - would love to have an automatic full-blown blood test every
month without going to the doctor

~~~
DanBC
Why?

You'd risk massive over-diagnosis and over-treatment, both of which provide a
significant risk of serious harm.

~~~
rosser
I very much doubt users — let alone _physicians_ — would be making treatment
decisions on the basis of an automated testing regime. In the event of
abnormalities on an automated test, you'd see your doctor, discuss, and order
repeat and/or follow-up testing to confirm, refute, or clarify.

Moreover, you'd also gain a very wide, data-rich baseline to compare
subsequent results against, which would probably counter most of the over-
diagnosis and allow for long-term trending of very important data.

It would, IMO, be wholly worth the risks you raise.

~~~
icebraining
The problem is more subtle than simply doing a procedure based on faulty data
- it's the invasive procedures done based on indication of a potential
problem, often done to reduce risk without necessarily improving (and in fact,
occasionally reducing) the health of the patient, simply because the patients
discover they have some anomaly that _may_ cause a real problem (like cancer)
in the future, and they don't want to live in fear.

[http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2015/11/robert_aronowit.htm...](http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2015/11/robert_aronowit.html)

------
deadringerr
As a women who has serious needle-phobia, I can't believe I've never even
considered this possibility.

