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It's a staple of the modern morning routine: Wake up, hop in the shower, lather with soap.
But is that morning scrub-a-dub really necessary?
One man claims not. David Whitlock, a chemical engineer in Boston, has not showered for 12 years.
Whitlock isn't running an experiment in extreme water conservation. Rather, he believes that humans don't need to shower to be healthy, and that a daily soap scrub may actually remove a beneficial type of bacteria that keeps the bacteria that contribute to B.O. in check.
To boost the presence of odor-eating bacteria, Whitlock has designed a bacterial spray called AO+ Mist, which is now sold by the company AoBiome under the brand Mother Dirt. The company hopes this bacterial spritz could reduce the need for products such as soaps and deodorants and potentially even reduce or eliminate the need for showering for those so inclined.
His theory is that your skin will control odor-producing bacteria if left to its own devices, and that soap kills off good bacteria your skin needs.
(Score: 2) by BK on Sunday November 08 2015, @09:57PM
I'm happy to concede that averaging in the zeros and ones infant mortality does skew the numbers, but the BCE urban societies were almost entirely slave based. Would you care to hazard a guess as to life expectancy of a Greek miner or Roman galley slaves? The ones who lived long were the ones who bathed... In these societies, half or more of the adults were slaves.
The preceding hunter gatherer societies were also unlikely to produce long lives. This is and to say that there weren't individual long-lived members, but rather that they were the exception not the rule. I suppose it's tough to prove it without a time machine, but as we continue to find artifacts and examples of members of the societies, it seems like we don't find very many skeletons of 70 and 80 year old members.
...but you HAVE heard of me.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 09 2015, @12:59PM
Are you suggesting that not bathing were the reason slaves and miners worked to death, starved or several other ways of dying prematurely?