A new article in the "New York Times" just attempted to answer the question: What's the worst smell in the world? And they narrowed it down to two possibilities.
The first is something called "U.S. Government Standard Bathroom Malodor."
A scientist who was developing a stink bomb for the Department of Defense in 1998 tested tons of scents, and found the smell of the latrines from military fields was the most universally repulsive. So she developed her stink bomb recipe off that.
The second is a substance called thioacetone. (Pronounced thigh-oh-ASS-tone.) It was invented in Germany in 1889, and apparently, the smell was so bad when a small amount spilled in a lab that it made an entire city sick.
But no one's exactly sure what the chemical makeup of what they spilled is . . . so for now, the best bet for the worst smell in the world is a battlefield toilet.
(New York Times) Image © 2020 Getty Images