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 Yacult.

This is Scientific Americans' 60-second science. I'm Karen Hopkin.

Do you have skinny genes? I'm not talking about the pants you wore in college but can't fit into anymore.

No, skinny G-E-N-E-S genes are factors found in folks who are naturally spelt.

And researchers have just identified one that appears to tell the body's adipose tissue

to burn more fat. We all know these people who can eat whatever they want, but never gain any weight.

Yosef Penninger is a geneticist at the University of British Columbia. He says that individuals who

are effortlessly trim may hold the key to understanding obesity. See, scientists interested

in learning how we control our weight have traditionally focused on the things that make you fat,

like diet or metabolism. But not really studied why people actually stay skinny. So we thought

we just turn around the fields and study genetics of sinness.

Penninger and his colleagues started out by searching a database, maintained by a genome center in

Estonia, for its most slender registrants. And they weeded out people who were listed as having

anorexia or other conditions that alter body fat. Then, they looked for genetic markers that

track with these skinny peats. One gene in particular caught their eye. Al-K, or the gene for

anaplastic lymphoma kinase, is a stretch of DNA whose mutant form has been associated with human

cancers. But its normal function had never been established.

So the scientist made mutant fruit flies and mutant mice.

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