What role does body odor play in choosing friends?

Scientists have found a link between body odor and same-sex friend selection.

A study published in Science Advances tested the hypothesis that body odor contributes to same-sex friendships.

According to the Israeli researchers, people with similar body odor can indeed become friends.

"The gist is that people who 'click' with each other have similar body odor," Inbal Ravreby, a doctoral student in the department of brain science in Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, told UPI. She is the study's lead author.

Researchers also found that friends can smell even more identical than romantic couples.

In addition, the researchers found that an electronic nose, which detects odor similarities, can predict which pairs of strangers will eventually get close during social interactions.

According to the researchers, they spent six months using social media to find 20 friends among members of the same sex who experienced a mutual sense of friendship "at first sight."

Researchers then tested the participants in the experiment with an electronic nose.

Researchers found that the more similar the body odors were, the more the experiment participants liked each other, understood each other and felt they could be friends.