I've been doing this for years, but you don't see me bragging about it

That's a smart idea - surely everyone has at least one pair that they get out the wash and think why did I wash these instead of throwing them out?

Disposable organic material (they specified cotton) and when dug up they could see how fast it decayed.

This is important in cold environments to measure how "alive" should is with micro organisms.

Something like a peat bog has zero oxygen, so doesn't support microorganisms, hence little to no biological decay.

Just seemed like a good idea at the time.

If my underwear got buried, it would dig its way out of the ground and say "send more cops".

I love the idea of including many of the volunteers as co-authors. Great way to get the community interested in science