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 Yacolt.

This is Scientific Americans' 60-second science. I'm Steve Merski.

Aflatoxins. They're produced by funguses that infect crops, and they can cause liver cancer,

immune damage, and other health problems. Rare outbreaks related to peanuts or corn happen in the U.S.

But aflatoxins are a big problem in the developing world.

Pretty much every study that's out there shows the vast majority of the food system is contaminated

with aflatoxin ranging from a fewfold to thousands of fold above the legal limit in the United

States.

Justin Siegel, a biochemist at UC Davis.

He's part of a team.

It's an exciting set of uncommon collaborators with Mars, Incorporated, Thermo Fisher,

and a bunch of great universities.

That wants to try to create an enzyme to attack a phytoxins at a vulnerable point,

a part of their molecular structure known as a lactone ring.

So it's been shown in studies a long time ago that breaking this lactone ring

decreases toxicity by several orders of magnitude.

So it should render the molecule non-toxic at that point.

Some soil microbes make compounds that can bust apart lactone rings.

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