Women rely partly on smell when choosing friends

> Wedekind found that the women overwhelmingly preferred the T-shirt smells of men who had the most dissimilar MHCs to their own.

Is deodorant making people more likely to have kids with closely genetically individuals? It would be funny that being cleaner and polite increased genetic diseases. And I do not mean close relatives, but non relatives that just by chance are genetically similar.

Is there any study about how generic diversity has changed thru the centuries?

Read about this singles dating event in Russia where they took cotton swabs swiped underneath each person's armpits and put them into little glass jars. Everyone then went around smelling each one and matched with each other based on which jar scent they liked the most. Wish I still had it. Definitely a novel if not more primal way to choose a partner.

This is a successful replication; I first recall hearing of the same result in the 90s. Check PubMed, if it's still up at time of reading.

Previously posted 7 days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43731609

The part about the effect of oral contraceptive was intriguing, but they say no more about that.

Nice try.

This is true of most people. If you meet someone and they don't smell very good, you're unlikely to become friends. Science.