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.j. That's y-A-K-U-Lt.c-O.jp. When it comes to a guide for your gut, count on Yacolt.

This is Scientific American's 60-second science. I'm Christopher in Taliatta.

The risk factors for COVID-19 are many.

Old age, obesity, heart conditions, but early genetic studies have identified another trait

that some people who develop severe COVID-19 seem to share, a cluster of genetic variations

on their third chromosome.

And that DNA sequence likely derives from Neanderthals, says Hugo Seaburg of the Max Planck Institute. It is quite

striking that this variant has lingered on for 50,000 years. 50,000 years ago is the approximate

time humans and Neanderthals interbred. And over the millennia,

those Neanderthal variants have become more common in some Homo sapiens populations than others.

For example, about 16% of people of European descent carry at least one copy of the Neanderthal

stretch, half of South Asians do, and nearly two-thirds of Bangladeshis.

And that's kind of fascinating that it is so high.

I mean, that points towards that it must have been beneficial in the past.

I mean, it's much higher than we expect.

And then it's totally expunged in East Asia and China.

So something has happened, driving the frequency up in certain placing and removing it totally in other places. The details are in the journal Nature.

Seaberg and his colleague write that perhaps the Neanderthal DNA happens to boost the risk of

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