Mike writes from Miami: Seed oils have been a hot topic among the cousins at our family's Christmas and New Year's gatherings. Caitlin Owens, the author of Axios Future of Health Care, spun up this explainer:

Seed oils are being targeted by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and influencers who claim they're linked to chronic illness. But many health experts say the oils are simply caught up in the real problem — Americans' diet and overconsumption.

• Why it matters: The debate over seed oils ultimately ties back to Americans' over-reliance on processed foods and other, broader dietary habits that many people want the government to confront.

Oils made from seeds — including canola, soy and sunflower — have been dubbed the "Hateful Eight."

• RFK Jr. — President-elect Trump's choice to lead HHS, and leader of the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement — says Americans are being "unknowingly poisoned" by them. He claims beef tallow is healthier.

But many nutritionists say seed oil concerns are overblown, lack context, or aren't based on science. Studies have repeatedly found they're safe to consume — and may even be associated with lower risks of cardiovascular disease, cancer and Type 2 diabetes, The New York Times found.

• Nutritionists say they're also much healthier than other sources of fat, like butter and lard, The Times reports in a separate piece.
• Seed oils are mainly made up of unsaturated fats — high in heart-healthy omega-6 fatty acids, and low in omega-3 fatty acids.

A recent study found that ultra-processed foods high in seed oils may increase the risk of developing colon cancer, which is rising among younger people.

• An excess amount of omega-6 fatty acids found in ultra-processed foods may be to blame, Scientific American reports. Seed oils are used in lots of packaged and processed food.

🔎 Between the lines: It's not that omega-6 is bad for you. It's that Americans tend to eat too much of it.

• "Omega-6 is an essential fatty acid. You've got to have it — but ... it's like everything else: It should be in moderation," Timothy Yeatman, a co-author of the study and a professor of surgery at the University of South Florida, told Scientific American. "But the problem is we've massively overdone the amount of seed oil in foods."

Although seed oils themselves are typically processed, "even worse than that...is they're usually used to make ultra-processed foods — think fast food burgers and fries and anything you'd eat at a state fair or get in a package in the grocery store," a Cleveland Clinic post says.

• "Outside of your own home, you're most likely to consume seed oils when you're eating something that's already pretty bad for your health — something that's also full of fat, sugar and sodium."

🧠 The bottom line: Using seed oils — in moderation — to cook healthy meals at home is probably fine. The real takeaway is that eating lots of fast food and heavily processed foods isn't.

• Go deeper ... Share this explainer.

South Korea's deadliest air accident ever killed 179 of 181 people onboard, with two crew members surviving.

How it happened: The 15-year-old, twin-engine Boeing 737-800 was seen skidding down the runway with no visible landing gear before crashing into navigation equipment and a wall in an explosion of flames and debris, Reuters reports.

• The flight, operated by low-cost carrier Jeju Air, was arriving at Muan International Airport from Bangkok, the capital of Thailand, with 175 passengers and six crew on board.
• The two surviving crew members, a man and a woman, were rescued from the tail section of the burning plane and were being treated at hospitals with medium to severe injuries.

"Only the tail part retains a little bit of shape, and the rest of [the plane] looks almost impossible to recognize," Muan fire chief Lee Jung-hyun said at a press briefing.

• Investigators are examining bird strikes and weather conditions as possible factors. Yonhap news agency cited airport authorities as saying a bird strike may have caused the landing gear to malfunction.

Context: Today's tragedy was one of the world's worst landing accidents since a crash in São Paulo in 2007 — 17 years ago — killed all 187 people on board and 12 others on the ground. In 2010, 158 people died when an aircraft overshot a runway in Mangalore, India.

• Get the latest.

President-elect Trump told the New York Post he backs H-1B visas — siding with Elon Musk after the tech billionaire vowed to "go to war" to defend the program, and condemned "hateful, unrepentant racists" in the GOP.

• Why it matters: Trump's support for the visas is his first intervention in an online civil war between his techno-optimist advisers and MAGA diehards.

"I've always liked the visas," Trump told the Post by phone, referring to H-1B visas, which allow highly skilled workers to work in the U.S. under a "nonimmigrant status."

• "I have always been in favor of the visas. That's why we have them. ... I have many H-1B visas on my properties. I've been a believer in H-1B. I have used it many times. It's a great program."

Reality check: Trump has in the past criticized the H-1B visas, calling them "very bad" and "unfair" for U.S. workers. During his first term, he unveiled a "Hire American" policy that directed changes to the program to try to ensure the visas were awarded to the highest-paid or most skilled applicants. (AP)

💣 From the other side of the visa fight, Steve Bannon said yesterday on his "WarRoom" podcast: "We are going to win this. They are going to surrender." (Fox News Sunday)

• Go deeper.

Researchers are building an AI system they hope will allow humans to understand the many languages animals use to communicate with each other, Axios' Ina Fried reports.

• Why it matters: Translation is something generative AI has proven to be quite good at. Sometimes that's translating from one human language to another. But it also works across species.

NatureLM is an AI language model that can identify the species of animal speaking as well as other information including the approximate age of the animal and whether it's indicating distress or play.

• Created by Earth Species Project, NatureLM has even shown potential in identifying the dialogue of species the system has never encountered before.
• NatureLM is trained on a mix of human language, environmental sounds and other data.

🐦 How it works: Researchers know, for example, that birds make different sounds when they are singing songs as compared to sounding a warning call.

• They also have determined that many species have individual names for one another. Some, like prairie dogs, have a system of nouns and adjectives to describe predators.

🔭 The big picture: Earth Species Project is one of many endeavors looking to tap AI to address planetary concerns.

• Microsoft this month announced SPARROW, an AI system designed to measure biodiversity in some of the earth's most remote reaches.
• Developed by Microsoft's AI for Good lab, the effort uses solar-powered systems to collect data from cameras, acoustic monitors and other sensors.

YouTube: Axios AI+ Summit ... Share this story.

Peter Attia in "Outlive" — his very useful bestseller about lengthening your healthspan, the period when you can enjoy life in good health — quotes his friend Ric Elias, a passenger who survived the US Airways "Miracle on the Hudson" emergency landing in 2009:

"I think people get old when they stop thinking about the future ... If you want to find someone's true age, listen to them. If they talk about the past and they talk about all the things that happened that they did, they've gotten old. If they think about their dreams, their aspirations, what they're still looking forward to — they're young."

A Pop-Tart mascot reveals his flavor before the Pop-Tarts Bowl between the Iowa State Cyclones and the Miami Hurricanes yesterday at Camping World Stadium in Orlando, Fla.

The cinnamon tart celebrates before getting toasted after No. 18 Iowa State rallied past No. 15 Miami, 42-41.

The tart is still dancing as it sinks into the giant on-field toaster and becomes ... breakfast!

• More photos.