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Betty White, 90, would probably be pleased to discover old-people armpits smelled the best in a study by PLoS ONE. (Getty Images)

A study published Wednesday by the journal, PLoS ONE,  found that people favored the “old-people smell,” which can resemble a very ripe prune, over the body odor of young or middle-aged adults.

Researchers took 41 volunteers of all ages and told them to wear T-shirts with “nursing pads” sewn into the armpits. They were told to sleep in the shirts for five nights, and during the day, keep them in freezer bags so that bacteria could not grow.

Odor-free soap, shampoo and detergent mixed with a temporary ban on spicy foods, resulted in a unique sampling of body odor via armpit.

The Los Angeles Times reports the underarm odor of 75-to-95-year-olds was “judged to be less intense” and more desired than any other age group. The Los Angeles Times report, the worst odor came from 45-to-55-year-old men.

The best? Women of the same age.

But the interesting part is the old smell wasn’t distinguished by sex.

Johan Lundstrom, a neuropsychologist at the Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia told the LA Times:

“As you grow older, you smell more and more like a woman,” Lundstrom said. That is due to changes in men’s hormone levels as they age. “It’s almost as if you’re going back to what happened before puberty.”

Scientists have discovered that humans fall short of smelling skills in relation to animals like dogs, bears or sharks. But the skill we do have is often heavily reserved for social situations.

Lundstrom explains that the “nursing-home smell” has many negative connotations. And he thinks if people had known what they were smelling in the study, they might not have had the same answers.

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Have you ever woken up naked with an empty fifth next to you? If so, congratulations, you probably had a good time. But the bad news is, you’re probably also an alcoholic.

Interestingly, people who partake in heavy drinking — even fully clothed — may now be considered alcoholics too.

The New York Times reported Friday that American Psychiatric Association officials have decided to redefine alcoholism by rewriting the addiction manual — the “Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders” or DSM-5.

More qualifying symptoms of  addiction are added to the mix. And drinkers only need to exhibit a few of these symptoms before they’re rubbing elbows with cocaine addicts, according to the Times.

The current diagnosis of “substance abuse” versus “substance dependence” would be replaced with new guidelines to take effect May 2013.

The change has some students of addiction concerned.

Ian Urbina, author of the New York Times article writes:

“The chances of getting a diagnosis are going to be much greater, and this will artificially inflate the statistics considerably,” said Thomas F. Babor, a psychiatric epidemiologist at the University of Connecticut who is an editor of the international journal Addiction. Many of those who get addiction diagnoses under the new guidelines would have only a mild problem, he said, and scarce resources for drug treatment in schools, prisons and health care settings would be misdirected.

Still,  Dr. Charles P. O’Brien, University of Pennsylvania psychology professor, claims the new manual will catch binge drinkers early, which will “stop them from getting to the point where they’re going to need really expensive stuff like liver transplants.”

However, Maria Szalavitz, reporter with Time.com, writes that her experience in covering addiction has made her wary of placing apples with oranges:

In my years of covering addiction, I’ve heard the story dozens of times: someone with a mild problem enters treatment, is convinced they have a more severe case and meets others who help him or her get worse.  One teenage girl told me about meeting someone who turned her on to cocaine while in treatment for marijuana; another young man told me how treatment was the source of his perception that “who I was, was an alcoholic and drug addict.”

Szalavitz also contends the new criteria could diagnose up to 40 percent of college students, or at least those who get drunk, which to her seems like a big stretch.

This definition has an influence on how insurers, like Medicare and Medicaid, will pay for treatment. Other factors it will affect mental health court trials and pharmaceutical research.

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Nov. 10, 2011, Garrett McNamara, of Hawaii, surfs the 78-foot wave at the Praia do Norte beach in Nazare, Portugal. Photo: Nazare Qualifica/Polvo Concepts, Jorge Leal / AP

Think you can surf a 78-foot wave?

Garrett McNamara did, and broke the Guinness World Records for the largest wave ridden for more than a foot.

But the 44-year-old Hawaiian pro surfer had no intentions to do so when he woke up that morning in Portugal, the Associated Press reports.

McNamara soon changed his mind after some encouragement from friends. Luckily he listened, because the 5-foot-10-inch surfer made it through the ginormous wave tube just as the swell smoothed out.

The Associated Press reports:

“I knew it was big, but I didn’t know how big,” he said.

McNamara said he didn’t care at first about whether the wave was a record, but was urged by the townspeople in Nazare, Portugal, to get some kind of confirmation. He said he sent the footage and pictures to surfing legend and Billabong judge Sean Collins, who guessed the wave was 85 to 90 feet tall. Collins died in December.

McNamara’s November ride got him more than a record breaking title; it also $15,000 last week from the Billabong XXL Global Big Wave Awards in California.

Judges examined photos and video footage to determine the award. The AP reports that they used the height of McNamara’s surfing crouch and the length of his shin bone to calculate the size of the wave.

McNamara’s record beat Mike Parsons’ 2008 wave-ridding, record-breaking 77-foot swell at Cortes Bank.