Latest news with #Clift
9 News
2 hours ago
- Health
- 9 News
Wendy's cancer might be incurable, but she just wants to help future patients
Your web browser is no longer supported. To improve your experience update it here When Wendy Clift went for a routine breast scan in 2007, she got call from her doctors almost immediately. "The news wasn't good," the widowed grandmother of two from Scone in regional NSW told Wendy Clift was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2007. (Supplied) Just days later, she had a mastectomy, followed by more treatment. While it was successful in keeping her in remission for a few years, the cancer has now returned and it has spread. However, Clift, now 72, was invited to be part of a new Australian drug trial. It's hoped it could help patients with a certain kind of breast cancer live longer. The DIAmOND clinical trial showed adding dual immunotherapy to existing treatments could be promising for some patients with advanced HER2-positive breast cancer. Clift said her cancer appears to be "pretty stable" after the trial earlier this year, which she did at Lake Macquarie Private Hospital. Some of the cancerous lumps she had have even disappeared, though she doesn't know if that's due to the new drug combination. Clift said she didn't have side effects. She said taking part in the trial was less about her and more to help future patients. "I'm just prepared because whatever happens to me is neither here nor there, but hopefully in years to come it'll help somebody else," she said. Immunotherapy is a treatment that uses a person's immune system to treat certain cancers. Wendy Clift, pictured with son Joshua and grandchildren Florence and Arthur, says she just wants to help future cancer patients. (Supplied) The other drug used alongside this in the trial was trastuzumab, commonly known as Herceptin. The trial aimed to see if combining the two could prolong the amount of time cancer was under control in patients with advanced disease which had become resistant to trastuzumab. Results differed depending on the kind of cancer each of the 68 trial patients had. Some had a response rate of up to 63 per cent, while for other kinds it was 27 per cent. Some patients saw their cancer controlled for more than two years. The combination of drugs has been given previously to people with lung cancer. Professor Sherene Loi developed and led the trial, which was conducted by the research organisation Breast Cancer Trials. "These promising results suggest combining new immunotherapy treatments with trastuzumab may offer a new treatment option for patients with treatment-resistant HER2-positive breast cancer," Loi said. "These findings provide a compelling case for further exploration and how we can best integrate this treatment combination into clinical practice." HER2-positive breast cancer is a type of breast cancer that tests positive for a protein called human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2). However, it often responds well to specific treatments. Around 15-20 per cent of all types of breast cancers are HER2-positive. It is more common in younger, pre-menopausal women. cancer health drugs Australia medical national New South Wales CONTACT US Auto news:Is this the next Subaru WRX? Mysterious performance car teased.
Yahoo
12-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Comedy, community, and the evening star
In a corner of Seattle where laughter meets resistance and rhythm becomes ritual, a star arose. Their name is dk echo-hawk, but you can also call them by their stage name — the evening star. A celestial being, more closely related to a mountain than a pronoun, but they will accept they, them, she and her. The little Athabascan and Pawnee kid playing in the woods in Alaska has grown into a comedian, musician, DJ, writer, visual artist, host and founder of Indigik'were, formerly known as Indigequeer. As a kid they grew up as an Ahtna Athabascan between a small Mendaesde village and their school in Delta Junction, Alaska. There was joy, and there was a lot of grief carried through generational trauma, according to echo-hawk. During the Native boarding school era government agents forcibly abducted Native children and sent them to what they called 'boarding schools' hundreds of miles away to places where physical, sexual, cultural and spiritual abuse and neglect were experienced in an effort to 'kill the Indian, save the man' from 1891 until 1978. The generational impact on the mental and spiritual health of of those who experienced the cultural genocide of the 'boarding schools' has often resulted in addiction and high suicide rates among them and their descendants all across Native country. In a chat in June 2023 with Joey Clift about Native comedy, echo-hawk explained that their favorite Native comedy is 'the thing that my auntie would say at probably a funeral that was the most inappropriate thing you ever heard but you were weeping 10 seconds before that. Now, you're laughing as hard as you possibly can.' Clift is an award-winning comedy writer and Cowlitz Indian Tribe citizen. 'I admired the aunties who make people laugh after crying because that's what I wanted to do,' echo-hawk told MoPOP + RIZE. He went on to explain that understanding and making the people around him laugh wasn't just natural for the aunties, it was something that lifted their entire community culturally. 'Performing in the village is like culture,' echo-hawk said. 'You don't do it for money, you just do it because you and your hundred friends need to have a good night, and it's 40 below outside.' When echo-hawk began getting paid for their comedy in Seattle, they held a mirror up to the world and did not hold back. The history and ongoing genocidal actions against Native people were reflected back to the audience. The style of comedy that echo-hawk became known for, was coined 'punish comedy.' While it was satisfying to watch white Seattlites squirm during their sets, echo-hawk said that comedy in this format became difficult for their mental health. 'I got kind of famous real fast and I was not ready,' echo-hawk said. 'I am thankful that somewhere in my head I consciously knew that if I pursued this, I might die. I just felt very ungrounded and was falling apart and thankfully had some wherewithal to not do that. But I do understand that it was really empowering. I'm ultimately very impressed with what I was able to do.' Comedy has been both a weapon and salve. A method of navigating a world on fire and pulling others through with a glittery wink and a red rose colored grin. They pivoted to focus on Indigik'were and their music. 'It is hilarious, it's silly, it's sexy,' echohawk said of Indigik'were. 'There's mistakes, there's mirrors on stage, and I change on stage, and there's altars, and roses, and cheese whiz.' Indigik'were started in 2022 because echo-hawk wanted a place to feel free to be their authentic self. The first Indigik'were event invited attendees to, 'shake their asses like Columbus never sailed the ocean blue,' and has continued to showcase queer and trans Indigenous joy through their events. It has brought Native people who were also in need of community joy together and has had a larger impact than echo-hawk ever imagined. 'People have told me that the spaces I bring are healing and helped them when they were suicidal or helped them when they had been assaulted and helped them find community and family,' echo-hawk said. 'But when it was starting to happen, I was still just a deeply traumatized kid, and that felt like so much responsibility. I didn't want to be a leader. I just wanted to have a village again.' And that's exactly what they began building. Comedy is naturally interwoven into the event planning for Indigik'were in a way that could only come from , including celebrating the anniversary of the death of U.S. Cavalry commander George Armstrong Custer. Custer launched a surprise attack against an encampment of Sioux, Cheyenne and Arapaho along the Little Bighorn River in 1876 and was struck down by a Cheyenne woman. echo-hawk's celebration of the death of Custer included a piñata with Custer's likeness. 'I went to the Battle of the Little Bighorn Reenactment when I was f*cking 13 or something on the road to f*cking Oklahoma and was like, 'Yeah, b*tch!'' echo-hawk said. 'My dad, my big Native dad and me were cheering as Custer got killed. That's just the kind of Native that I am.' 'It's just ingrained in my being to celebrate the death of colonizers always,' echo-hawk continued. '…and I found that humor is the best way to keep a crowd happy and moving and to feel like they're in good hands. Being a host is probably my strongest quality.' If you've ever been to any of their comedy or Indigik'were events, you'd likely agree. There is always an elaborate storytelling element that shocks, disarms and gets you laughing. 'There's active genocides all over the place,' echo-hawk said. 'There are people who are just trying to recover from those genocides, witnessing other genocides. There are people who went through a genocide, now genocideing. There's all sorts of wild things happening. I don't know how everybody else is processing it without doing crazy things like I'm doing. [Indigik'were] is somatics for me, it's spiritual. It is deeply important to me.' echo-hawk encourages others to also discover what truly ignites their passion and defiant spirit, something deeply personal and entirely their own — to do what makes you feel free. 'Every day I get to wake up and ask myself, what would the evening star like to look like today?,' echo-hawk said. 'How would I like to be free today? What would I like to try? And the more and more I do that, the more and more I dance, the more and more I sweat, the more I eat healthy and the more and more I don't have to block out parts of life. I have enough space in myself to feel and I highly recommend it. It's doable. It's not easy all the time, but it is doable. I promise you.' the evening star's next appearance is called Hot Wet Native Summer in Juneau, Alaska for the Lingit AANI Pride Festival. 'As many in this world continue to fight against the beautiful path we are on, it is vital that we come together and show each other our beauty and our strength, to be a testament that we are unconquered!,' an Instagram post shares. The full length interview can be found here. The interviews were video and audio recorded and saved in the MoPop Online Collections Vault with over 1,000 others. : In collaboration with MoPop for their 'WA Untold Pop Culture Stories' series, MoPop wanted to focus on the stories of King County pop culture creators in order to ensure that a more accurate representation of culture artists in America are preserved for future generations. RIZE came to this project hoping to bring varying Indigenous stories, identities and perspectives to the forefront. Oral histories are traditionally how many Indigenous people have passed down culture, customs, and tradition. Through this series, we explore pop culture voices of Indigenous creators in what is now Washington state.
Time of India
03-05-2025
- Science
- Time of India
‘Tectonics pushed up the Himalayas — they brought monsoons, creating the Indus 50 million years ago'
Peter Clift Part of Peter Clift's research is based 66 million years ago — but the geologist conveys an excitement which makes you feel his subject emerged just yesterday. In fact, it didn't, as Clift explains, 'I'm interested in the Indus river, when it was born and how it developed. Recently, I've studied the evolution of the river over the last 10,000 years,' — a blink in the eye of geophysical time — 'To see how it may have interacted with human societies. More broadly, I'm interested in the Indus as a way to look at evolving environment and climate in South Asia.' Fifty Shades of Blue How old is the river after whom our very civilisation is named, TE asks? Clift outlines, 'The Indus seems to have been formed when the Indian continent collided with mainland Asia — it's probably at least 50 million years old. The big eastern tributaries in Punjab joined the mainstream coming out of Tibet and flowing through Ladakh around then. But there's some discussion about how much material also came from the East — in particular, there's a question about the Yamuna.' Clift pauses here, like he's unveiling a detective story. He says, 'Now, 50,000 years ago, the Yamuna, which flows east into the Ganges today, was flowing west into the Indus. We think that stopped about 20,000 years ago. But it used to join the Sutlej and Beas once.' The Yamuna wasn't the only enigmatic river. Clift says, ' Rivers are constantly evolving and meandering, maybe not a lot but with implications for the people they interact with. Rivers also interact with geophysical entities — the Thar desert moved a little bit east and west through time. That pushed some rivers to the west — when the Thar moved, so did the Sutlej.' The Elements Cloud: Indus, hill and cloud There are further forces at play. TE asks Clift about how South Asia's tectonic landscape shaped the Indus — and vice versa. He replies, 'It's a chicken and egg story. Essentially, when India and mainland Asia collided, the first large mountains formed — they attracted rainfall. Those early rains allowed the Indus to form. That was also a trigger for making the Jhelum, Ravi, Sutlej and Beas. As the monsoon grew stronger, those got bigger. There's a feedback effect then — these rivers cut into the mountains. When they scooped out rock and sediment, high peaks rose and became even taller. So, there's a virtuous circle between rainfall and tectonic activity — tectonic activity makes the Himalayas, Karakoram and the Tibetan plateau. Those strengthen the monsoon — as the Himalayas go up, the monsoon grows stronger and the rivers get bigger.' Times Evoke Fascinatingly, these rivers are intricately linked to erosion. Clift elaborates, 'The greater Himalayas are made of deep buried rocks, brought to the surface by shallower rocks being eroded away. This is why there are high mountains on the south side of the Tibetan plateau but not on the north side. There are no mountains like these in the Tarim Basin in western China — that's because it doesn't rain there and the monsoons cause the erosion. There's even a feedback here,' he points out, 'As you smash up Himalayan rocks into small sand grains, they break down into clay material which is washed into the Indian Ocean. As the Himalayas are so big, there's a lot of sediment. This process of breaking down these minerals removes carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. So, erosion by the big Himalayan river systems, including the Indus, is possibly one reason Earth grew cooler.' Did this combination, red earth to falling rain, as it were, also shape the ecologies of the Indus? 'Oh, yes,' replies Clift, 'That certainly influenced animal life, especially fish and the famous dolphins that live in the Indus and Ganges. Ecology in South Asia is more strongly linked to rain than rivers. About eight million years ago, the monsoon got weaker — with a strong shift in ecology. It changed from forests to a lot more grassland and drier conditions in northwest India and Pakistan.' Indus Dolphin: Echolocating in the swirl As the Indus shifted shape, how did its civilisation manage? Clift answers, 'The Harappans had phases of activity, and then, just around 4,000 years ago, the population mostly moved away from the cities they had built along the Indus. There's been some argument about whether that was caused by the monsoon becoming weaker. I myself have been interested in whether some of this might have been caused by movements of the rivers. One of the tributaries of the Indus is the Ghaggar-Hakra, which now pieces out in the Thar desert. There were Indus Valley sites close to this channel. We wondered if maybe these people sustained themselves in a desert, given a nice water supply from a small river? If you live by a big river and it keeps flooding, that makes your life hard, but a smaller river is simpler to control and easier to grow crops next to. That could have been something the Indus Valley civilisation used. Of course,' Clift adds, just as you settle comfortably into the thought of a happy little Harappan farming community, 'As the climate got drier, the Ghaggar no longer held enough and communities were left with no water.' Town & Gown Were there crops which survived such ebbs and flows? Clift replies, 'There were certainly more drought-tolerant crops like millets. Farmers across Asia always adapted. Rice is very water-intensive, wheat, a little less, hence millets were likely a more sustainable choice. There are lessons here as with global warming, the monsoon could grow stormier and crops will need to be rethought.' Readers write Finally, TE asks what sources Clift uses to study the Indus, born millions of years ago? 'I've worked with marine sediment cores from the Indian Ocean and Arabian Sea. We collected a long record offshore Mumbai with a consortium of countries. I also have shorter cores, like one kilometre deep under the ocean floor. I'm working on sediment from the continental margin offshore the Indus river mouth now. We also work onshore, drilling into the floodplain to collect sediment pores, etc.' Clift chuckles, 'Sometimes you can use things which other people have dug — we've had good luck with quarries where people made bricks. There, the mining company had dug a pit and we didn't have to drill. We could just go right in.' Perhaps 'dive in' would be quite accurate as well.
Time Out
29-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Time Out
Pellegrino 2000, Clam Bar and Neptune's Grotto team set to open Chinese-inspired restaurant in Sydney
The gun trio behind some of Sydney's best restaurants (and my personal fave spots) – including Neptune's Grotto (winner of Time Out Sydney's Restaurant of the Year 2025), NY-style steakhouse Clam Bar, Pellegrino 2000 (Taylor Swift's go-to), and the now-closed French Bistrot 916 – is set to open a Chinese -inspired restaurant in Sydney this winter. Admittedly, this wasn't on our bingo card for the year, but considering every venue chefs Dan Pepperell and Mikey Clift and sommelier Andy Tyson open turns to dining gold, we're chuffed. Here's hoping there will be lazy Susans, too. Focusing on Cantonese and Sichuan flavours, the restaurant – which will be called Grandfather's – will open in Martin Place, taking over Thai stalwart Long Chim 's former digs. Pepperell and Clift – with Clift having spent time on the pans at Spice Temple – are currently on the hunt for a head chef to steer the 120-seat venue, their most ambitious yet. Grandfather's will join other recent(ish) high-profile Chinese restaurant openings, including Golden Century at Crown Sydney, Neil Perry's Song Bird in Double Bay, and The Royal Palace Seafood Restaurant. As for the menu and opening date, we'll keep you posted.
