In 1867, in the Duchy of Limburg (now divided between Netherlands, Belgium, and Germany), Rudolph Banks invented a new type of cheese called Limburger cheese. The cheese, which has a mild flavor, is well known for its pungent odor which is a result of the bacterium, Brevibacterium linens, used to ferment the cheese. Brevibacterium linens is used for other rind-washed cheeses and is the same bacterium found on human skin and is partially responsible for body odor. Today the cheese is a specialty cheese.
In 2006 Bart Knols of Wageningen Agricultural University, in Wageningen, the Netherlands; and of the National Institute for Medical Research / Ifakara Centre, Tanzania, and of the International Atomic Energy Agency, in Vienna, Austria and Ruurd de Jong of Wageningen Agricultural University and of Santa Maria degli Angeli, Italy won the Ig Nobel Prize, a parody of the Nobel Prize for science "that cannot, or should not, be reproduced", for proving that the female malaria mosquito Anopheles gambiae was equally attracted to Limburger cheese as it was to human feet.
Today, as a result of that research, Limburger cheese is placed in strategic areas to keep malaria outbreaks under control.
-Professor Walter
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