Understanding the human body is a team effort. That's where the Yachtel group comes in.

Researchers at Yachtolt have been delving into the secrets of probiotics for 90 years.

Yacold also partners with nature portfolio to advance gut microbiome science through the global grants for gut health, an investigator-led research program.

To learn more about Yachtolt, visit yawcult.co.

.jp. That's Y-A-K-U-L-T.C-O.J-P. When it comes to a guide for your gut, count on Yacult.

This is Scientific American's 60-second science. I'm Christopher in Talata. Got a minute?

Every winter, some 20 million tons of salt are dumped on America's roads. And that sodium chloride

melts ice or prevents its formation, helping to prevent accidents. But road salt has its downsides.

This is actually not very economical because salt is mainly corrosive.

Seda Kizelel, a chemical engineer at Coach University in Istanbul, Turkey.

She says salt's corrosive effects don't discriminate.

They affect cars, vehicles, and also for nature, plants, microorganisms.

So Kizelel and her colleagues designed a road substance that

can de-ice itself. They started with a polymer called SBS, commonly added to strength and asphalt.

They whipped up an emulsion of SBS with potassium formate, an alternative salt that's been studied

as a more environmentally friendly de-icer than regular road salt.

And then they added that emulsion to bitumen, the sticky black stuff in asphalt.

They subjected their creation and regular bitumen to the winter weather conditions that typically lead to black ice.

And it turns out the hybrid compound delayed ice formation 10 minutes longer than the control, and the samples continued

releasing salt for more than two months.

The study is in the journal Industrial and Engineering Chemistry Research.

Of course, 10 minutes of de-icing is a nice head start, but it's not going to put salt

...