Can a sweaty t-shirt influence who will become your spouse?
Cccc
"Experimental results suggest that humans carry a transmitter and receiver for immunological information that could influence mate choice. We are more attracted to a potential partner whose immunity complex would contribute the most robust balance in our offspring."
Human Chromosome Six carries over 100 MHC genes (Major Histocompatability Complex), the immune systems way of identifying foreign bodies invading our anatomy.) https://www.nytimes.com/1998/06/09/science/studies-explore-love-and-the-sweaty-t-shirt.html
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/library/01/6/l_016_08.html
In the first "sweaty T-shirt" experiment, a Swiss zoologist, Claus Wedekind, set up a test of women's sensitivity to male odors. He assembled volunteers, 49 women and 44 men selected for their variety of MHC gene types. He gave the men clean T-shirts to wear for two nights and then return to the scientists.
In the laboratory, the researchers put each T-shirt in a box equipped with a smelling hole and invited the women volunteers to come in, one at a time, and sniff the boxes. Their task was to sample the odor of seven boxes and describe each odor as to intensity, pleasantness, and sexiness.
The results were striking. Overall, the women preferred the scents of T-shirts worn by men whose MHC genes were different from their own.
