DNA analysis

You've probably noticed that 1 t-shirts stink more after a workout, compared to cotton. But hey—it's not the 2 fault. It's the microbes that hang out on synthetics, that create that 3 stench. That's 4 to a study in the journal Applied and Environmental Microbiology.Twenty-six volunteers—half men, half women—worked out on spinning bikes for an hour. And they did so outfitted with shirts of cotton, 5 , or a cotton/synthetic blend. Then researchers stuffed the sweaty shirts into plastic bags. The next day, a trained panel sniffed them, rating their funk. Unlucky job. Because yes—the polyester shirts were indeed more musty, sour, and ammonia-like than the cotton.DNA analysis revealed that Micrococcus 6 were to blame. They aren't actually all that common in the armpit itself. And they don't flock to cotton. But researchers say they thrive on the open-air lattice of synthetic fibers—where they sit chomping on the long-chain fatty acids in our sweat, turning them into shorter, stinkier molecules.These findings might just explain one of the most vexing questions of adolescence: why do stinky shirts smell so unpleasantly different from the body odor in the armpits 7 ? Could be because your favorite shirt has a microbiome of its own.