‘Smart underwear’ measures how often humans fart

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When it comes to farting, what is normal? Scientists have devised “smart underwear” to figure it out. Pete Ryan By Tina Hesman Saey 2 minutes ago Share this:Share Share via email (Opens in new window) Email Share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook Share on Reddit (Opens in new window) Reddit Share on X (Opens in new window) X Print (Opens in new window) Print Everybody farts. The question is how often? And how much gas is too much gas to pass? Those are questions that arose from frustration with a piece of lab equipment. To see the fart sensor in action, make sure to check out the video at the end! Microbiologist Brantley Hall of the University of Maryland in College Park and colleagues study the metabolism of gut microbes. They tried unsuccessfully to measure hydrogen production from gut microbes with a sensor in an oxygen-free chamber. Frustrated, “we took the sensor out of the chamber, and we were like, ‘Screw it. We’re going to try to measure a fart.’” So Hall stuck the device down his own pants and let rip. “And the signal was enormous.” Sign up for our newsletter We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday. Inspired by that incident, the team devised “smart underwear” that can track toots, specifically the hydrogen part of farts. Hall and colleagues described their device — a small hydrogen sensor about as big around as a quarter that snaps to people’s regular underwear — in the December 2025 Biosensors and Bioelectronics: X. In a test of the device, healthy college-age volunteers who wore sensors farted an average of 32 times a day. But that figure varied from a minimum of four flatus daily to a maximum of 59. Eating high fiber gumdrops caused 36 of 38 participants to break wind more often, the researchers found. Hall now wants to expand the study to a much larger and more diverse group to find out how often people normally fart — and whether that changes with age, diet or other circumstances. No one really knows because until now, no one has measured flatulence in people’s daily lives. “We know what the normal heart rate is, we know what the normal level of cholesterol is, but if you go to the doctor, they don’t know the normal number of farts,” Hall says. “If you tell them, ‘I’m farting 50 times a day,’ they don’t have really a baseline to compare that to.” The team was “shocked by the lack of measurements of intestinal gas,” Hall says. For instance, no one knows how much people fart at night because most studies have used rectal tubes in medical settings or relied on people to record their own farts, which they can’t do while asleep. “Basically, because of the limitations of measuring farts [there is a] complete gap in our understanding,” he says. “We just genuinely don’t know. Isn’t that funny? [In] 2026 we don’t know if people are farting at night or not.” Hall’s team launched the Human Flatus Atlas in February to build on the pilot study and pinpoint the normal range. For the Atlas project, the researchers are asking volunteers to wear the sensors in their underwear around the clock (minus 15 minutes charge time while they shower) for at least three days and up to 30 days. Volunteers also agree to photograph their food with an app on their phones. Most people don’t even feel the device once they’ve located the right spot to attach it, Hall says. In the pilot study, people were more likely to lose or wash the device than to think it was uncomfortable and drop out of the study. And people ca