In an unconventional nationwide experiment, one thousand Swiss citizen scientists buried pairs of organic cotton underpants to assess the vitality of local soils across the country.

After months underground, researchers retrieved and weighed the remnants to evaluate decomposition rates, discovering that human land management is the single most decisive factor driving microbial activity.

Intensive agricultural plots showed significantly different decay patterns compared to natural grasslands, proving that everyday land use fundamentally dictates subterranean ecological health.