Welcome to Let Kids Be Kids, Inc., advocacy blog "We All Deserve Better." Our goal is to post relevant information that will spark action,discussion and interaction, creating a catalyst for solutions and ideas to impact the challenges we face in our society. We welcome comments, suggestions and submissions in support of those seeking a voice. "...Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgement that something else is more important than fear..."
Jon Stewart is joined by Ambassador Wendy Sherman, who negotiated the 2015 Iran nuclear agreement that Trump later withdrew from, and CNN's Chief International Anchor Christiane Amanpour. Together, they analyze Trump's decision to choose war over diplomacy, assess what the administration is trying to accomplish through military force, and examine the possibilities ahead for the Iranian people and the region.
Researchers worked with members of the Tambrauw and Maybrat Indigenous communities to confirm the existence of the two creatures. They describe the discoveries in two papers published March 6 in the journal Records of the Australian Museum.
Both the pygmy long-fingered possum and the ring-tailed glider were believed to have disappeared more than 6,000 years ago, which makes them rare examples of “Lazarus species,” named after a Biblical figure who was brought back to life. The chances of finding one Lazarus mammal species is “almost zero,” says Tim Flannery, a zoologist at the Australian Museum who co-authored both papers, to the Guardian’s Adam Morton. But finding two is “unprecedented and groundbreaking.”
Other researchers were similarly shocked and thrilled. “In a world awash with bad news, and no more so than for the environment, it is always joyous when species once thought extinct turn out not to be,” Euan Ritchie, a wildlife ecologist at Deakin University in Australia who was not involved with the research, tells Peter de Kruijff of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC).
Until now, scientists have only known about the animals from fossils. But they suspected the creatures might still be alive, because the remote, difficult-to-navigate region where the fossils were discovered hadn’t been thoroughly surveyed for marsupials.
The animals were recently photographed on Bird’s Head Peninsula, also known as the Vogelkop Peninsula—which means “bird’s head” in Dutch—an area in the northwest corner of New Guinea. Scientists think the peninsula was once a part of the Australian continent that broke off and became incorporated into the island.
The pygmy long-fingered possum is about 14 inches long from nose to tail tip, and about half that length comes from the tail. In addition to its long digits, the creature has “a whole lot of specializations in their ear region,” Flannery tells New Scientist’s James Woodford. He thinks the creatures listen for low-frequency sounds made by wood-boring beetle larvae, then rip open the rotting wood and use their long digits to “fish out the grub,” he tells the outlet.
The ring-tailed glider, meanwhile, eats tree sap and leaves, and possibly fruit and invertebrates. The nocturnal animal’s body is “about the length of two open palms (hands),” according to tribal elders, the researchers write in the paper describing the species.
They are closely related to Australia’s three species of greater gliders, which belong to the Petauroides genus. But the researchers recently determined the ring-tailed glider represents an entirely new genus, which they’ve dubbed Tous to honor how Indigenous peoples refer to these animals, “Tous wansai” or “Tous wan.” The scientists think Tous is an ancient branch of the possum family tree that dates back millions of years, though the ring-tailed glider is the only known member alive today.
Some Indigenous groups living on the peninsula, including the Tambrauw and Maybrat peoples, revere the ring-tailed glider, as they believe the animals represent their ancestors’ spirits, per the Guardian. They also have deep respect for the old-growth forest where the animals live and say it’s “the place where all of the living things came from,” Flannery tells ABC.
Scientists don’t know much about either species, but they suspect they’re both threatened by habitat loss, primarily driven by logging. David Lindenmayer, an ecologist at the Australian National University who was not involved with the research, tells New Scientist he is “hugely concerned” about the extent of land clearing underway in New Guinea. Now that the creatures have been found alive, the researchers want to learn more about exactly where they’re living, as well as their ecological needs, in hopes of protecting them.
In the meantime, they’re keeping the animals’ location under wraps to prevent wildlife traffickers from trying to capture the cute critters.
“They would be incredibly difficult to keep in captivity because their diet is so highly specialized,” Flannery tells New Scientist. “Advanced warning for anyone who’s thinking of keeping one as a pet: It won’t live long.”
A horse’s whinny is a distinctive and instantly recognizable sound, which the animals use to communicate with each other and express emotions. But this unique vocalization has long puzzled scientists, since it includes both high- and low-pitched components.
Now, researchers say they may have solved this equine mystery. A horse makes the low-pitched part of its whinny by vibrating its vocal cords—similar to how humans speak and sing—and the high-pitched part by whistling with its voice box, scientists report in a new paper published February 23 in the journal Current Biology. This marks the first known example of a creature that can make these noises simultaneously.
The whistle came as a bit of a surprise. To make this sound, a horse contracts the muscles around its voice box, or larynx, and forces air through a small, slit-like opening. Mice and rats can do this too, though their vocalizations are too high-pitched for humans to hear.
“It’s the first strong, experimental evidence of an aerodynamic laryngeal whistle production in any animal outside the rodent family,” says Ben Jancovich, a biologist at the University of New South Wales in Australia who was not involved with the research, to New Scientist’s James Woodford.
Humans tamed the ancestors of most modern domestic horses around 4,200 years ago, and we’ve been living closely with the creatures ever since. But researchers still don’t fully understand how the animals communicate.
In 2015, scientists reported that a horse’s whinny contains two distinct sounds—one high-pitched, one low-pitched—that the animal produces simultaneously. The realization that horses can make high-frequency sounds was perplexing, because vocal pitch tends to be related to body size in a specific way: Large animals generally make lower-pitched sounds, whereas small animals make higher-pitched ones.
“The rule of thumb is that the lower the frequency the animal can produce, the more the animal sounds like, ‘I’m fit, I’m big, I’m bad, you don’t want to mess with me,’” Peter Scheifele, a neuroaudiologist at the University of Cincinnati who was not involved with the new research, tells Amy Briggs of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
For the new study, scientists decided to probe this trend-bucking phenomenon even further. They set out to understand the physical mechanisms at play in a horse’s two-toned whinny.
Scientists slid an endoscopic camera through live horses’ noses to get an up-close look at their larynxes as they made sounds. The animals’ vocal cords vibrated whenever they made lower-pitched sounds, but didn’t move when they produced higher-pitched ones, reports the New York Times’ Kate Golembiewski. But during high-pitched vocalizations, the muscles above the vocal cords strongly contracted, per ABC.
Based on these results, the researchers suspected the high-pitched part of the whinny was an aerodynamic laryngeal whistle. To confirm that hunch, they blew compressed air and helium through larynxes removed from horses that had died, then compared the frequencies of the sounds produced by the two gases.
Noises made via whistle—in which a gas passes through or by a hole, creating tiny, high-speed swirls—should be different in helium compared to those in air, because the sounds travel at different speeds due to the gases’ distinct densities. Sounds produced by physical vibrations, by contrast, move at the same speed through both mediums.
As expected, the low-frequency part of the whinny was the same whether the researchers used air or helium. But the high-frequency component got much higher when they used helium, confirming the sound was indeed a whistle.
“I’d never imagined that there was a whistling component,” says Jenifer Nadeau, an animal scientist at the University of Connecticut who was not involved with the new study, to Adithi Ramakrishnan of the Associated Press. “It’s really interesting, and I can hear that now.”
The findings open the door for a wide variety of future research projects. For instance, are horses somehow controlling the whistle sound by altering the shape of their vocal tracts or by moving their tongues, jaws or lips? How and why did the creatures evolve this unique vocalization? Do they use the distinct elements of the whinny for different communication purposes?
“It could be that the high pitch is for long-distance communication and the low pitch for short distance,” study co-author Elodie Mandel-Briefer, a biologist at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark, tells ABC.
Dietary supplements are wildly popular, but large clinical trials and other research by Fred Hutch Cancer Center scientists show that many common dietary supplements offer little proven benefit for cancer prevention, and in some cases may even increase cancer risk.
Initially created to treat nutritional deficiencies, dietary supplements are now sold as a panacea for nearly all ills ― including cancer ― and unlike drugs used to treat disease, they face few regulatory hurdles. There's no rigorous vetting process to get U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval; supplements have no FDA approval process. The FDA only gets involved if they're shown to be unsafe, misbranded or adulterated once they're on the market.
Yet in 2025 alone, U.S. consumers spent an estimated $60 billion (or more) on dietary and over-the-counter supplements, their popularity fueled by an aging population and a burgeoning wellness industry replete with charismatic online influencers.
Who wouldn't want to simply take a “magic pill” to boost a flagging immune system, sharpen a foggy mind and/or protect them from ― or even eliminate ― cancer?
Unfortunately, it's not that simple. That's why in addition to researching and developing cures for cancer, Fred Hutch scientists have drilled down into a slew of supplements to see whether they offer any protection against disease. Their data point to a consistent theme: supplements have not been shown to prevent cancer and, in some cases, may actually increase cancer risk.
What's more, some supplements can interfere with cancer treatments, something not all patients realize. Many people assume they're harmless, even beneficial, and don't think to tell their doctors.
Curious about the benefits (and potential harms) of dietary and other over-the-counter supplements?
See the following Study Results
Dietary supplements are wildly popular, but large clinical trials and other research by Fred Hutch Cancer Center scientists show that many common dietary supplements offer little proven benefit for cancer prevention, and in some cases may even increase cancer risk.
“It would be nice if we had a pill that we could take that could protect us from disease,” said Garnet Anderson, PhD, director of Fred Hutch’s Public Health Sciences Division (PHS) and holder of the Fred Hutch 40th Anniversary Endowed Chair. “But it’s not that easy.”
Initially created to treat nutritional deficiencies, dietary supplements are now sold as a panacea for nearly all ills ― including cancer ― and unlike drugs used to treat disease, they face few regulatory hurdles. There’s no rigorous vetting process to get U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval; supplements have no FDA approval process. The FDA only gets involved if they’re shown to be unsafe, misbranded or adulterated once they’re on the market.
Yet in 2025 alone, U.S. consumers spent an estimated $60 billion (or more) on dietary and over-the-counter supplements, their popularity fueled by an aging population and a burgeoning wellness industry replete with charismatic online influencers.
Who wouldn’t want to simply take a “magic pill” to boost a flagging immune system, sharpen a foggy mind and/or protect them from ― or even eliminate ― cancer?
Unfortunately, it’s not that simple. That’s why in addition to researching and developing cures for cancer, Fred Hutch scientists have drilled down into a slew of supplements to see whether they offer any protection against disease. Their data point to a consistent theme: supplements have not been shown to prevent cancer and, in some cases, may actually increase cancer risk.
What’s more, some supplements can interfere with cancer treatments, something not all patients realize. Many people assume they’re harmless, even beneficial, and don’t think to tell their doctors.
Curious about the benefits (and potential harms) of dietary and other over-the-counter supplements? Read on for their findings:
Debunking Common Nutrition & Physical Therapy Myths, Fred Hutch dietitians and physical therapy experts debunk common myths.
What is fiber? Fred Hutch clinical dietitians Ray Palko and Suz Stein explain fiber, why it’s important, and how it can affect cancer risks.
First and foremost, most large research organizations including the American Cancer Society advise against taking supplements as a way to prevent cancer. In fact, not taking dietary supplements for cancer prevention is one of AICR’s(American Institute for Cancer Research) top 10 cancer prevention tips.
Why not get your vitamins and minerals in pill form? Isn’t it more efficient?
“Research shows that supplements don’t offer the same benefits as eating whole foods,” the AICR advises. “When you eat whole foods, your body absorbs a range of vitamins, minerals, amino acids and other compounds that work together to protect your health. But when vitamins, minerals, fiber and other food substances are isolated into supplements, they may not be absorbed as well by our bodies.”
In other words, getting your beta-carotene from carrots and sweet potatoes is fine, but taking beta-carotene in pill form is not. Read on to discover why.
Cancer prevention is a big part of Fred Hutch’s research, and the scientists here have conducted many large randomized clinical trials — the gold standard in science — to determine if dietary supplements are helpful for the prevention of cancer and other diseases. Some of those trials had unexpected results.
The Selenium and Vitamin E Cancer Prevention Trial (SELECT) was launched in 2001 to see if Vitamin E and selenium supplementation could prevent prostate cancer in men. Contrary to expectations, the data showed no protective benefit. Instead, they found vitamin E supplements increased prostate cancer risk by 17% and selenium raised the risk of high‑grade prostate cancer in some men.
The Carotene and Retinol Efficacy Trial (CARET), another NCI-funded trial led by Fred Hutch, was launched to study the cancer prevention capabilities and safety of a daily combination of the antioxidant beta-carotene and retinyl palmitate (Vitamin A) in people at risk for lung cancer. Instead of helping, they found beta carotene and vitamin A supplements increased lung cancer incidence and death among heavy smokers or workers exposed to asbestos.
What does work? Research consistently points to dietary fiber ― found in fruits, vegetables, legumes, whole grains, nuts and seeds ― as the remedy that improves health in a number of ways.
“Fiber has so many roles and provides so many different benefits for our bodies,” said Fred Hutch registered dietitian Suz Stein, MDM, RD, in this video. “In terms of cardiovascular health, fiber can help lower cholesterol by drawing it out of our body. Fiber is also really important in terms of keeping us regular, it helps with blood sugar control, it helps our gut microbiome and is really amazing for cancer prevention.”
Fred Hutch’s Heather Greenlee, ND, PhD, MPH, a professor in the PHS and Clinical Research divisions, said fiber is especially protective against colorectal cancer and advises we eat 30 grams or more of it a day (only around 10% of Americans meet this fiber goal).
“Emphasize plant foods,” she said. “They’re packed with fiber and nutrients, including those that are anti-inflammatory. And plant protein is more affordable than meat. It’s also lower in saturated fat and higher in fiber.”
What about fiber laxatives? A 2014 Fred Hutch study looking at laxative use found soluble-fiber laxatives offered the same protective effects as dietary fiber, which reduces colorectal cancer risk by diluting carcinogens in the stool, encouraging growth of healthy bacteria in the colon and increasing stool transit time.
Non-fiber laxatives, however, were a problem. People who took non-fiber laxatives increased their risk of developing colorectal cancer by nearly 50%. Fiber-based laxatives lowered the risk of colorectal cancer by 56%.
Absolutely, it’s one reason why Fred Hutch cancer researchers have continued to study their use.
A 2008 Fred Hutch study found that up to 81% of cancer survivors use dietary supplements and that up to 68% of those who do, don’t tell their oncologists. That’s a huge problem because, as study author Cornelia Ulrich, PhD, pointed out “some vitamins, such as folic acid, may be involved in cancer progression while others, such as St. John’s wort, can interfere with chemotherapy.”
Research has shown that St. John’s wort reduces the effectiveness of cyclosporine, an immunosuppressive drug used in stem-cell and solid organ transplantation, as well as indinavir, a protease inhibitor used to treat HIV infection. There are other documented interactions, as well, which is why Fred Hutch has continued to investigate dietary supplements and what effect (good, bad or ugly) they may have on people undergoing cancer therapy.
Even the expense of supplements can cause issues for patients.
“Supplements are not inexpensive,” McMillen said. “And the expense of these unproven supplements can impact the dollars people have to spend on real food. It’s a real scenario.”
Greenlee, medical director of Fred Hutch’s Integrative Medicine Program, said some patients don’t realize supplements can potentially reduce the effectiveness of cancer treatment or cause complications, pointing to these potential interactions at the 2024 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium:
Hours ago interview with Barack Obama.
Oh, bookmark this YouTube channel with Brian Tyler Cohen - one of the best.
