Many or perhaps all of the smells produced by your body are produced by the bacterial ecosystems living on and in you. Some of these smells are things we can detect; others we're unaware of. Certain strains of skin bacteria attract mosquitos. By altering the ecosystem on our skin, we can repel mosquitos. Cool!

With genetic engineering, we can do even more. We can replace the bacteria that turn sweat into unpleasant smells with bacteria that turn sweat into floral scents! No more deodorant!

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2 comments:

Anonymous wrote at Wednesday, April 9, 2014 at 5:28:00 PM PDT

Why replace them? They play an important biological role in modulating effects of foreign bacteria and the health of your skin. Disrupting skin microflora has been linked to acne and other skin conditions. Not something well understood enough to mess with for deodorant.

CheeseBiscuit wrote at Monday, January 1, 2018 at 6:41:00 AM PST

but our olfactory response is entirely learned. i.e. we only find the smell of sweat repulsive because we are socially conditioned to associate that smell with a lack of hygiene.All that would happen is we will learn to be repulsed by floral scents!