For centuries, menstruation was managed with homemade solutions--until the world changed in a hurry. Patented in 1931, the first Tampax tampons were sold in 1936 as the first widely marketed internal menstrual product. Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent every weekday. About half of us will use them at some point in our lives. But few of us like to talk about them, at least in public.

Don't tell Frank Herbert (or the people at Thinx), but he actually came up with a pretty genius pair of menstrual underwear. Only, well, his was outerwear--and it did a lot more than collect blood and endometrial lining. Herbert's invention is, of course, the stillsuit. One of the iconic pieces of tech in his novel Dune--and an iconic piece of sci-fi tech, period--it's an invention born of necessity. Arrakis, where most of the novel takes place, is a desert; to survive, the planet's native Fremen construct form-fitting suits that collect all of their moist excretions--sweat, urine, feces, droplets from exhaled breath--and recycle them into potable water.