Heidi Diedrich

Humanitarian. Unapologetically leads with heart. Country Director @AlightSudan. Believes in humanity first. Opinions are my own.

[OCHA Lebanon @OCHALebanon]

Continued hostilities and new displacement orders in southern 🇱🇧 are taking a heavy toll on civilians, with the number of casualties rising.

Access constraints hamper the movement of people and aid operations in border areas.

🔗Humanitarian Update: https://t.co/QoTG96jGUW

[Imran Riza @Imran_Riza]

Thank you, #Norway 🇳🇴, for your generous contribution to the Lebanon Humanitarian Fund. Your support provides vital assistance and protection to communities in need affected by the conflict. Together, we #InvestInHumanity.

[Heidi Diedrich @heidid]

@united : a loyal customer here that had the most awful, upsetting experience with contract airline @RepublicAirlines & its pilot & flight attendant. Not the @united I know & love. The unprofessionalism & threatening attitude shocks and offends. No thanks to rebooking.

[World Vision Lebanon @wvlebanon]

🔴 More than 100 airstrikes were reported across Lebanon today, deepening an already devastating crisis.

World Vision calls for immediate de-escalation, protection of civilians, and safe humanitarian access.

🔗 Read the full press release: https://t.co/d9iT80NHHl

[Heidi Diedrich @heidid]

https://t.co/bxeESpSI3u

[Heidi Diedrich @heidid]

https://t.co/5Z8jv84Ouo

[Heidi Diedrich @heidid]

https://t.co/FEqQzYg5Ax

[World Vision - Middle East & Eastern Europe @WVMEERO]

Today’s escalation of violence in the Middle East is putting millions of #children and their #families at immediate risk of injury and death.

#WorldVision urgently calls on all parties to de-escalate the violence, #protect children and families, and ensure safe and unhindered access for #humanitarian aid to reach those in desperate #need.

Read our full press release: https://t.co/3Raprf2ZMb

#MiddleEast #MiddleEastCrisis #CallforPeace #PrayforPeace

[GP Q @argosaki]

BREASTMILK
She thought she was studying milk.
What she uncovered was a conversation.

In 2008, evolutionary anthropologist Katie Hinde was working in a primate research lab in California, analyzing breast milk from rhesus macaque mothers. She had hundreds of samples and thousands of data points. Everything looked ordinary—until one pattern refused to go away.

Mothers raising sons produced milk richer in fat and protein.
Mothers raising daughters produced a larger volume with different nutrient balances.

It was consistent. Repeatable. And deeply uncomfortable for the scientific consensus.

Colleagues suggested error. Noise. Statistical coincidence.
But Katie trusted the data.

And the data pointed to a radical idea.

Milk is not just nutrition.
It is information.

For decades, biology treated breast milk as simple fuel. Calories in. Growth out. But if milk were only calories, why would it change depending on the sex of the baby?

Katie kept digging.

Across more than 250 mothers and over 700 sampling events, the story grew more complex. Younger, first-time mothers produced milk with fewer calories but significantly higher levels of cortisol—the stress hormone.

The babies who drank it grew faster.
They were also more alert, more cautious, more anxious.

Milk wasn’t just building bodies.
It was shaping behavior.

Then came the discovery that changed everything.

When a baby nurses, microscopic amounts of saliva flow back into the breast. That saliva carries biological signals about the infant’s immune system. If the baby is getting sick, the mother’s body detects it.

Within hours, the milk changes.

White blood cells surge.
Macrophages multiply.
Targeted antibodies appear.

When the baby recovers, the milk returns to baseline.

This was not coincidence.
It was call and response.

A biological dialogue refined over millions of years. Invisible—until someone thought to listen.

As Katie reviewed existing research, she noticed something unsettling. There were twice as many scientific studies on erectile dysfunction as on breast milk composition.

The first food every human consumes.
The substance that shaped our species.
Largely ignored.

So she did something bold.

She launched a blog with a deliberately provocative name: Mammals Suck Milk.
It exploded. Over a million readers in its first year. Parents. Doctors. Scientists. People asking questions research had skipped.

The discoveries kept coming.

Milk changes by time of day.
Foremilk differs from hindmilk.
Human milk contains over 200 oligosaccharides babies can’t digest—because they exist to feed beneficial gut bacteria.
Every mother’s milk is biologically unique.

In 2017, Katie brought this work to a TED stage. In 2020, it reached a global audience through Netflix’s Babies. Today, at Arizona State University’s Comparative Lactation Lab, she continues reshaping how medicine understands infant development, neonatal care, formula design, and public health.

The implications are staggering.

Milk has been evolving for more than 200 million years—longer than dinosaurs walked the Earth. What we once dismissed as simple nourishment is one of the most sophisticated communication systems biology has ever produced.

Katie Hinde didn’t just study milk.
She revealed that nourishment is intelligence.
A living, responsive system shaping who we become before we ever speak.

All because one scientist refused to accept that half the story was “measurement error.”

Sometimes the biggest revolutions begin by listening to what everyone else ignores.

[Bill Madden @maddenifico]

On, Renee Nicole Good. 🥹🥹🥹👇

[Senator Chris Van Hollen @ChrisVanHollen]

I have watched the video of the horrible ICE shooting of Renee Good in Minneapolis over & over.

It is grotesque to hear Kristi Noem justify her killing as a response to "domestic terrorism” & for Trump to spread further lies on social media.

We need immediate answers & accountability — we cannot trust a word coming out of this Administration.

[Jason Kint @jason_kint]

The 8hr video of Jack Smith’s testimony was released by Congress on New Years’ Eve in between Epstein and Venezuela. It’s an extraordinary display of Smith’s integrity and attention to justice and fairness on 1/6. Allison Gill deserves praise for curating the key clips. 1/4

[Jim Acosta @Acosta]

Reporting from the scene of the crime. Trump has slapped his name on the Kennedy Center. But we will never call it the Trump Kennedy Center:

[Senator Chris Van Hollen @ChrisVanHollen]

The U.S. has the leverage to help stop the RSF's atrocities in Sudan, RIGHT NOW. But to do that we have to use it.

Today, Republicans blocked my effort to pass legislation to suspend arms sales to the UAE until we can verify they are no longer arming the genocidal RSF. Shameful.

[Cameron Hudson @_hudsonc]

He told the world what was happening in El Fasher. Then they sought him out. How Sudan lost ‘a true hero of the war’ https://t.co/ewPtUHZBx1

[Munchkin @BSonblast]

A list of worldwide protests for Sudan. Check if your city is included! 🙌🏾

#KeepEyesOnSudan

[Cameron Hudson @_hudsonc]

Extremely strong statement from House Republican Chair of @HouseForeignGOP: "This is not war, it is a calculated, systematic genocide, perpetrated by the same Janjaweed forces responsible for genocide in Darfur 20 years ago." https://t.co/puGyCxbNzj

[Cameron Hudson @_hudsonc]

450+ patients and their families killed in the Saudi maternity hospital in El Fasher. Each day brings new, more shocking revelations. More shocking is the utter lack of serious international effort to stop/slow/condemn what is happening before our eyes.https://t.co/EftbSOCEY0

[Cameron Hudson @_hudsonc]

Bipartisan support for naming the RSF a foreign terrorist organization is growing. The other thing the Hill should do is drag @US_SrAdvisorAF before a Congressional committee to understand just what his strategy for Sudan is. https://t.co/7YCmej4Nqa