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

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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 60 Second Science. I'm Suzanne Bard.

The Sahara Desert, where daytime temperatures can reach 140 degrees Fahrenheit.

Not many organisms can survive in this harsh environment, but an insect called the Saharan

Silver Ant thrives. They scurry out onto the sand from their protected nests

to gather up the carcasses of less fortunate insects that have died from the heat.

The hotter the day, the more insect bodies they will find, the more food they have.

Sarah Pfeffer, an animal behaviorist at Ulm University in Germany. She says that to avoid sinking into the Saharan sand dunes, where they could meet the same fate as their lunch, silver ants have to be fast. To document just how quickly the ants move,

Feffer and her colleagues set up high-speed cameras above a channel between the entrance to the

hungry ants nest and a food source. The researchers recorded top speeds approaching 35 inches

per second. But if you really look how big the animals are and you calculate the body

length per second, you come up with a walking speed that is astonishing 108 body length

per second. That figure makes them the fastest known ant on the planet. By comparison, Cheetahs

top out at about 16 body lengths per second. The videos revealed how the ants achieve such prodigious

speeds. As they accelerate, their leg movements

become synchronized. They increase their stride length by bringing all six feet off the sand at

once, which Pfeffer describes as a gallop. Really all legs are lifted from the ground. They are

in air, but it's not jumping. It's a very smooth run that they

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