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

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

This is Scientific American 60-second science. I'm Cynthia Graber. Got a minute?

The term pygmy usually refers to a few groups of short-statured people in equatorial rainforest regions in Africa.

The existence of distinct populations of such people presented scientists with the opportunity to study the mechanisms by which typical human growth patterns have become altered there,

and they discovered that two groups became small in two different ways,

the studies in the journal Nature Communications.

The researchers collected data on some 500 members of a West African ethnic group called the Baca.

They discovered that Baca infants have a similar size range to most other infants,

but have a low growth rate during their first two years, which produces a lasting effect. This mechanism seems to be

different from that of East African groups called the Afe and the Sioux. These peoples have slow

prenatal growth so that the infants are born smaller. The researchers say that the Baca population

appears to have split from the Afei and Sua some 20,000 years ago. The two say that the Baca population appears to have split from the

Efe and Suea some 20,000 years ago. The two different systems for achieving small stature,

which appears to be advantageous in the equatorial rainforest environment, are thus an example

of convergent evolution. The researchers believe the findings say something important about

human evolution and development in general, quote, homo sapiens

could therefore be characterized by its high capacity for growth plasticity during infancy.

This capacity, which may be unique to our species, may have played a fundamental role in the

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