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 Yachtold, visit yawcult.co.

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.

This July, just one year after turning pro, 15-year-old Cocoa Gough beat tennis superstar Venus Williams in the first round at Wimbledon.

She went on to win two more rounds against highly ranked players during the tournament.

Similarly, in 2009, 17-year-old Melanie Odin beat a series of top-ranked opponents, making it to the

fifth round of the U.S. Open. How did these newcomers do so well? One factor, in addition to

stellar play, could have been their meteoric rise in status, both prior to and during the tournament.

Opponents seeing the newbies' names climb in the rankings might have been somewhat psyched out.

It's a phenomenon that Duke University researcher Haymont Cocker calls status momentum.

If that person is carrying momentum, you tend to feel more threatened or intimidated by their

momentum and as a result your performance is impaired.

Cocker and his colleagues analyzed more than 100,000 matchups between tennis pros and millions

of amateur chess games.

They found that players fared worse when facing opponents who

are rising in rank, and it's not just that the rise in rank reflected higher skills.

Our research shows that you will be more threatened by someone who has improved their ranking

from 10 to 8 to 4 than who was always at 4. Even though the two players have objectively the

same rank,

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