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.

Yachtold 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. For Scientific American Science quickly, I'm Rachel Seltman.

Last Friday, the U.S. State Department formally notified Congress of its plans to dismantle the U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID.

This move came as no surprise, as USAID has drawn the attention of Elon Musk's U.S. Doge service since the current administration took office.

While some of USAID's programming will reportedly be folded into the State Department by July 1st,

it's clear that the U.S. federal government is pulling back from the goals of USAID in a major way.

To name just one example, the administration plans to cease U.S. support for Gavi,

an immunization program that has saved the lives of an estimated 19 million children over the past 25

years, according to the New York Times. U.S. AID is a massive agency that provides all kinds of

assistance all over the world, So the implications of its dissolution

are vast and complex. Here to talk us through it is Tanya Lewis, a senior health and medicine

editor at Scientific American. Tanya, thanks so much for coming on to chat with us today. Yeah,

thanks for having me. So to start us out, what exactly is USAID?

So USAID is the U.S. Agency for International Development.

It's basically an organization that was founded by President John of Kennedy back in the

60s.

The main purpose was to provide foreign aid to other countries.

And this takes the form of health assistance and

economic aid and other things. But for the purposes here, we'll focus on the health impacts.

...