Hot flushes, night sweats, mood swings - menopause and its side effects can all be blamed on men, experts suggest. Evolutionary geneticists from Canada's McMaster University say men's tendency to choose younger mates meant fertility became pointless for older women. In PLOS Computational Biology, they say this eventually led to the menopause. But a UK expert said that was the "wrong way round" and men chose younger women because older women were less fertile. 'Preferential mating' Researchers have long been puzzled as to why it appears that human are the only species where females cannot reproduce throughout their lives. Previous theories had proposed a "grandmother effect". This suggests that women lose their fertility at an age where they might not live to see a child grow, and instead are available to care for younger women's children. The menopause was therefore seen as the block to older women from continuing to reproduce. But this la...