Scientists Solve Mystery Behind Body Odor (theguardian.com) 126
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Researchers at the University of York traced the source of underarm odor to a particular enzyme in a certain microbe that lives in the human armpit. To prove the enzyme was the chemical culprit, the scientists transferred it to an innocent member of the underarm microbe community and noted -- to their delight -- that it too began to emanate bad smells. The work paves the way for more effective deodorants and antiperspirants, the scientists believe, and suggests that humans may have inherited the mephitic microbes from our ancient primate ancestors.
Writing in the journal Scientific Reports, the York scientists describe how they delved inside Staphylococcus hominis to learn how it made thioalcohols. They discovered an enzyme that converts Cys-Gly-3M3SH released by apocrine glands into the pungent thioalcohol, 3M3SH. The bacteria take up the molecule and eat some of it, but the rest they spit out, and that is one of the key molecules we recognize as body odor. Having discovered the "BO enzyme", the researchers confirmed its role by transferring it into Staphylococcus aureus, a common relative that normally has no role in body odor. "Just by moving the gene in, we got Staphylococcus aureus that made body odor," one of the researchers said. "Our noses are extremely good at detecting these thioalcohols at extremely low thresholds, which is why they are really important for body odor. They have a very characteristic cheesy, oniony smell that you would recognize. They are incredibly pungent."
Writing in the journal Scientific Reports, the York scientists describe how they delved inside Staphylococcus hominis to learn how it made thioalcohols. They discovered an enzyme that converts Cys-Gly-3M3SH released by apocrine glands into the pungent thioalcohol, 3M3SH. The bacteria take up the molecule and eat some of it, but the rest they spit out, and that is one of the key molecules we recognize as body odor. Having discovered the "BO enzyme", the researchers confirmed its role by transferring it into Staphylococcus aureus, a common relative that normally has no role in body odor. "Just by moving the gene in, we got Staphylococcus aureus that made body odor," one of the researchers said. "Our noses are extremely good at detecting these thioalcohols at extremely low thresholds, which is why they are really important for body odor. They have a very characteristic cheesy, oniony smell that you would recognize. They are incredibly pungent."
Never more topical (Score:5, Funny)
Never has a more topical article been posted to this site.
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Re:Never more topical (Score:4, Funny)
Modesto? And who made fun of me?
Those bitches are just fans.
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"Indeed, the smell of armpits is an unpleasant moment in life, it often happens to me, I start to sweat in many situations, especially when I am going to leave the house on business or to the store"
Then use the alcoholic solution you disinfect your hands with on your arm pits, I have been doing this for years.
Kill the bacteria and the stink goes away for a couple of hours.
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Apparently I've had an overabundance of S. hominis most of my life (the body chemistry of some people are more friendly to specific bacterial types than others). It was bad enough that when I lived in Florida a drunk came up to me in the bar and said, "Man, you stink worse than the dumpster out back!" While he was probably just looking for a fight it was still devastating to me.
Later I learned that it was actually the bacterial colony that caused the smell, and started slopping hydrogen peroxide under my
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"Cheesey Oniony smell" ... what? Is that what BO smells like to people?
If you eat cheese and onions maybe. To me people tend to smell like four things:
a) wet socks (as in wet dog smell), or the related wet dog/wet cat smell itself if they own pets.
b) urine (as in unclean toilet/restrooms), indicating they recently went to a public washroom
c) feces (as in farts), indicating they probably passed gas
d) alcohol (as in perfume/cologne), which means they're wearing a perfume or cologne, and this to me can only be
Use it to make cheese (Score:3)
Trying to think of other uses, but a real smelly cheese could definitely be one of them.
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Some fridges have do-odourizers built in now... Usually ion based, they kill off the bacteria that create the smell and keep your fresh stuff fresher for longer. Not sure how that affects cheese, might "ruin" the smell.
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Cheese taste and smell is mold-based, I don't think ionizers have much effect there.
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One of the demos they do for the ion generators is to show mold growth with and without the ions, so it should work.
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Oh? Learn something new every day (hopefully).
Reminds my of Idiocracy (Score:2, Insightful)
While I do think Idiocracy is massively over rated in terms of insightfullness (although I did find the first 2/3rds funny) this reminds me of the montage of the decay of society where top scientist were overwhelming engaged in researching dick pills rather than solving society's problems.
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But we have solved other problems in the meantime. How to keep toast from going moldy (seriously, I do not even want to know why that stuff doesn't get mold in the moist, warm climate in SoCal) and how to keep fries from going brown.
If we could only solve the problem of cornflakes staying crunchy even in milk, we'd be closer to perfection.
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Overrated and over-referenced. But if it helps to jailbreak a few minds from fantasy land, that's good. Maybe some people need the bad news broken to them in that film's forced/simplistic way. Once they grasp the idea that retards durr-durring to other retards is how the world works, they can delve deeper into all the gory details.
Left right (Score:2)
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I am sure this depends on whether you use you right or left hand to do a specific body activity.
We knew this already. (Score:5, Informative)
Dam' thiols! (Score:2)
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There are definitely worse smells. In general, take an organo-sulphur compound and replace the sulphur with selenium to make something that smells even more awful.
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There are definitely worse smells
Yeah, like 1,4-diaminobutane. So simple, yet so rotten!
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Wait until you walk by the Indian guy at work who doesn't bathe and eats curry by the spoonful.
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You haven't had the pleasure of a skunk getting trapped in a basement window well. I came home one night and it was an eye watering chemical smell. Nothing like the typical skunk smell you get when driving.
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You've clearly never had a rotting skunk corpse explode in your basement before. It took three weeks, 3 box fans, 4 gallons of vinegar, 2 gallons of hydrogen peroxide, a bottle of Dawn dishsoap, and 20000 mg of ozone to get rid of the smell. When it first happened, I had serious thoughts about arson because I couldn't get close enough to the carcass to dispose of it without gagging, and I couldn't imagine actually getting the smell completely gone. I figured it'd be easier to just start over from scratch.
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I was going to post a personal anecdote but holy crap! There's no way I could top that (nor ever WANT to!)
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--
.nosig
I smell... (Score:2)
Hang on... (Score:2)
So we had one type of microbe responsible for body odor... and now they too a common harmless microbe and made it be responsible for body odor too. Now we have two.... ?
So...why (Score:2)
They mention that we have evolved a particular sensitivity to these smells, why?
For example, it's clear why would evolved to be sensitive to the smell of feces; as any parent who's changed a diaper can tell you, it's hard to get that smell off your hands and no matter how much you try it feels like it's "stuck" in your nose. It makes sense that we'd want to be very good at detecting something so potentially bad for us.
So why the sensitivity to BO? What does BO warn us about? Men clearly smell more strong
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So why the sensitivity to BO?
The presence of the BO microbe is a proxy for overall hygiene. If you've got one species of bug living on your skin which can be reduced by bathing, odds are that you've got lots more.
Women tend to be more sensitive because they are at higher risk when carrying and or raising a child.
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But what evolutionary advantage is there to emitting a stinky enzyme?
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Why bother inserting the gene in something else? (Score:2)
Their conclusion: (Score:2)
"Take a goddamn shower."
"community" (Score:2)
the scientists transferred it to an innocent member of the underarm microbe community
Spokespeople for the "the underarm microbe community" were outraged. "This is like when Biden said 'clean and articulate!', one said."
yesh (Score:1)
Musk! (Score:1)
So, now we are heading to more effective sex-tractants?
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I would love to, thanks... but either stuff doesn't work for me or else more commonly, I start reacting to it badly before I've been using it a week, and it gives me a rash that itches to the point of being painful, usually taking about 3 days to fully clear up. I have tried every commercial brand of deodorant that is on the shelf.
And yes, I've been to a doctor. I've gone through several prescribed ones. At this point, there's shit all that can done. I just have to keep myself clean and shower three
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https://www.peoplespharmacy.com/store/body-care/aluminum-free-mom-milk-of-magnesia-roll-on-deodorant [peoplespharmacy.com]
I had similar nasty reactions to many deodorants, but this stuff works great. It's just milk of magensia, so you don't even need the roll-on applicator (though it's super handy)
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Stop using soap on problem areas, just use water to remove sweat. Ideally stop using it on anything but your hands (perhaps face). Your skin's bacterial load will change to be less offensively smelly. If you can find a pure antiperspirant you don't react to, that won't mess up your bacterial mix.
Soaking in a bath will deal with problem days showering can't control.
Changed my life when I finally tried this.
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If I only use water, my armpit BO doesn't go away. I have to use shower gel. Could be that the microbes can't be simply washed away and there's a need for a surfactant to get the job done.
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It doesn't happen instantly, you're trying to change the balance of skin flora. Keep at it and you should notice big improvements within a week. It's also much more effective if you can soak for even 10min in hot water occasionally.
You will still smell when the skin flora adapts but it will be weaker and not offensive, my wife actually likes the slight musk smell I have.
If you want to be antiseptically clean, get used to non-stop washing with detergents, it never improves.
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It's my experience too. When I stop using deodorants due to allergy I expected to spend the rest of my life smelly. The reverse was true.
Some goes for shampoo. It destroys the natural balance of your hair.
I know I sound like a hippie, but I'm not.
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Well... no. Your nose just cuts out the smell and YOU don't smell it anymore.
But trust me: We do.
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Good to finally meet some fellow deo-allergics. I've been allergic to the stuff for decades, the same rash-problem you describe. Thankfully after a year or so my BO disappeared by itself. So I've been happily living BO-less since then.
Other research indicates that BO is connected to a certain type of bacteria. If they gain the upper hand you smell. If the non-smelly bacteria take over you don't. You can actually transplant the good ones from a lucky person.
https://www.popsci.com/microbi... [popsci.com]
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Diet can make a difference as well, people with a mostly-vegetarian diet tend to smell less because their skin excretes different chemicals than mostly-carnivores.
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That's rubbish. Read the article. It's a bacteria that secretes an enzyme.
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Right. Your skin secretes chemicals that the bacteria metabolize. Vegetarian diets cause the skin to secrete a different set of chemicals, incentivizing a different set of bacteria to grow. An additional benefit, I've never performed cunnilingus on a vegetarian woman who didn't taste wonderful.
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amused at asian countries that claim they don't need deodorant but a crowded train of them on hot day will stink to high heaven with the usual BO smell. Looking at you Japan, and a couple of your neighbors. You stink, just like everyone else. Get some deodorant, thanks.
Maybe they are all wearing masks. Might not completely cancel the BO, but will make their society much more likely to be around longer than yours.
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So do you, nerds and geeks. :P
Re: speaking of BO, I'm amused (Score:1)
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Most Japanese have a gene that reduces body odour, but also they love odour killing technology that makes use of ions. Most of the major electronics companies have odour killing products, e.g. Sharp Plasmacluster or Panasonic Nanoe, and often higher end cars have them built in.
Some trains use them too, maybe not the daily commuter ones, I'm not sure. Thing is most of the smell is not coming from the body, it's from clothes, and because these devices are very common in offices and because the trains are air
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How is it racist to tell nation they have the same problem as all other humans?
Get that chip off your shoulder, virture signal-boy. Sprout a brain.
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These days I'm actually proud to call myself a racist and to be called a racist is a compliment. It shows that I'm doing something right.
Ethnocentric is new, but I'll take that one as well, thank you.
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What's next, proud pedophiles?
Too Late:
North American Man/Boy Love Association [wikipedia.org]
Kinderbevrijdingsfront, which translates to 'Children's Liberation Front' in English [nltimes.nl]
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Not to be confused with the North American Marlon Brando Look-Alikes [fandom.com].
Re: speaking of BO, I'm amused (Score:4, Insightful)
That's a problem. It's a problem for reason, for free speech, and for democracy. People can be silenced with a false accusation, and if you point out the accusation is false and the word doesn't even mean what the accuser thinks, it only gets worse.
From Merriam Webster, racism is: "a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race."
Dictionary.com is wordier: "a belief or doctrine that inherent differences among the various human racial groups determine cultural or individual achievement, usually involving the idea that one's own race is superior and has the right to dominate others or that a particular racial group is inferior to the others."
The OP's comment about Japanese trains cannot possibly fit that definition. He is specifically saying that Japanese people are the same as everyone else, not different because they are Japanese.
The most disgusting component of all this is that the same people who throw accusations of racism around without any clear understanding of what they're saying very often cross over into making explicitly racist claims themselves. The concept of collective guilt for an ethnic group, for example, is explicitly racist. They defend that with a lie, insisting that in the definition of racism is an (inherently racist) exception that means some groups can't be racist or that being racist towards a specific group isn't actually racism because they have some sort of special status.
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Racism is something to be ashamed of. What's next, proud pedophiles?
Racism among whites and the normalization of pedophilia represent two opposite sides of the political spectrum though. One is right-wing the other left.
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Since when have leftists been racists? We were the one who fought for equal rights for people of color. Or are you one of the "if you don't think whites are superior then you're prejudiced against me" herd?
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It's like a wave in the cesspit, washes up every few years leaving a useless stink behind. Possibly the most annoying thing about it is that almost every time it shows up it precedes a pedophilia scandal that mostly involves conservatives like, like the Lawrence King kiddie ring during the administration of Bush the Elected.
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It's much more like a clique or gang thing with conservatives in general and Republicans in particular, they really don't care what the people on their side do as long as they think that they're "winning". It explains a lot of why they'll vote for someone like Brownback in Kansas time after time, even though they **KNEW** he had destroyed their economy and was promising to make it even worse. When I questioned one guy on the Alternet forums why he was going to vote for Brownback again one Kansan just repl
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Re: speaking of BO, I'm amused (Score:1)
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Nah. We call them Antifa.
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Nah. We call them Antifa.
So you are pro fascist?
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Why are you talking about Trump?
Re: speaking of BO, I'm amused (Score:5, Insightful)
I've been called racist simply for criticizing the timing of the ACA. I was told that yes, it is racist to say that passing the ACA during a recession prolonged that recession; that it was racist simply to disagree with Obama in any way. All I said was that he made a mistake. If criticizing race-agnostic policies, even on just their timing, is called racist and people are silenced on that basis, our system of government will collapse. A democracy cannot function under those constraints.
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Your statement may not be racist, but it is wrong. The recession ended in June 2019 [wikipedia.org]. The ACA wasn't passed until passed in March 2010. [healthcare.gov]
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Do you have any facts to support your assertion? What is your definition of a recovery? When is a recovery over?
Choose a metric, any metric and show me how that number correlates with the deliberations, ratification or implementation of the Affordable Care Act. Keep in mind that Obama was elected in November of 2008. He didn't actually become the president until January of 2009. Granted, he almost immediately started pushing for changes to health care. But, as I stated above, the Affordable Care Act wasn't
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Being transgender would not cause bodily or mental problems, if people without any personal relationship or in any way harmed by a transgender person would not meddle in something that's not their business at all. And that includes calling people who in no way harm you, "mentally disturbed". I even wonder why they are so interested in transgender persons, that they have to mention them and arguing about them and a
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Re: speaking of BO, I'm amused (Score:4, Interesting)
Because you made the comment targeting all the Japanese when its clearly not all of them
It isn't even most of them. East Asians really do have a gene that causes them to have reduced body odor.
This gene is located next to the gene for dry earwax and they usually have either both or neither. So the minority of East Asians with wet earwax also tend to have "normal" body odor.
Disclaimer: My spouse is Chinese. She has wet earwax and "normal" body odor.
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At this point I feel like I know far too much about your wife to be comfortable. It will be extremely uncomfortable if we ever meet.
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Sigh. Some mod didn't get the joke.
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Just because people of Asian descent are less
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Nope, they'll still have the same body odor as everyone else in hot weather or after exercise. I've been around enough of Asia to know this. Just saying deodorant would help.
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Is it racist to say that we find the Japanese practices of whaling and killing dolphins abhorrent? Of course not!
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Wrong. The Japanese in the USA don't have this problem. I'm targeting a nation, which is not a race.
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India is part of Asia.
That is all.
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From the dictionary:
AÂsian /ËÄZHÉ(TM)n/
adjective: Asian
relating to Asia or its people, customs, or languages.
noun: Asian; plural noun: Asians
a native of Asia or a person of Asian descent.
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Didn't have to. A few examples came here. But, I must say, that of the examples I've met, some were the cleanest people I've ever met. There have been three examples where people had to actually complain to HR about body odor. It's almost as if there are distinct differences between individuals of a large population.
I know. I know. Citation needed.
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Really? I thought mercredi ended with "i".
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IPA is a race to the bottom. That style of beer is cheap and easy to make and now everyone is seeing who can make it the most bitter. I always preferred a nice British ale.
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Hops aren't free.
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Here is some soap for you:
https://www.amazon.com/Swag-Br... [amazon.com]
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Other problem is they don't use wash clothes.