Sometimes our mothers know things that later proved to be with scientific basis. This is one of those things. SINCE I was a kid, there was a question to which I did not find an answer. That is, until lately. So many years hence! And the question is: Why is it that in the evening mosquitoes tend to hover on certain persons’ head, and not on others? I asked my mother about this, and her reply was: “That will happen to children who have not taken a bath for a day.” I thought of that answer more as a persuasion to not resist taking a bath each day in the morning. But then after reading a research report published in PLoS One in December 2010, I have to admit that her answer makes scientific sense. Bacteria are instrumental in the production of human body odors. Newly secreted sweat is odorless. But the presence of bacteria on the human skin results in the formation of volatile acids with distinct, and oftentimes unique, smell. Have you ever wondered why no two persons smell much like t
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