Heidi Makrinioti

student, postdoctoral research fellow, general paediatrician

[Hen Mazzig @HenMazzig]

I didn’t expect Elizabeth Banks to share a Dvar Torah but I'll take it!

[The Obama Foundation @ObamaFoundation]

For nearly two decades, Lilly Ledbetter showed up for the nightshift as a supervisor at Goodyear Tire Plant in Gadsden, Alabama, until an anonymous note arrived that changed everything. She found out that she was paid 40% less than the male managers doing the exact same job. She sued, and won, in 2003, only to watch the Supreme Court overturn it in 2007 based on a technicality.

Most people would have accepted defeat, but Lilly kept on fighting, launching a grassroots movement to make pay equity a reality for all. When then-Senator Obama caught wind of her efforts, he championed her throughout his presidential campaign. Nine days after taking office, he signed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act into law, with Lilly standing right there next to him.

Lilly Ledbetter’s courage and persistence changed history. As we celebrate the anniversary of the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, we are reminded that change can only happen when we don’t give up.

[Panagis Galiatsatos, MD, MHS @panagis21]

@Girl81Runner 💪

[YonkerLab @LaelYonker]

An update!

I’m thrilled to have joined UT Southwestern Medical Center and Children’s Health!

Stay tuned, lots of work in progress, exciting times ahead!

[Naftali Kaminski @KaminskiMed]

More on telomere pathway related mutations and pulmonary fibrosis - Adult male patients with DKC1 mutations present early-onset pulmonary fibrosis and severe prognosis https://t.co/LvABXyUQb8

[Kareem Carr, Ph.D. @kareem_carr]

Studying chemistry is extremely helpful for your understanding of science, because you realize what we call "science" is just the best theory so far, until something better comes along.

[Global Insight Journal @GlobalIJournal]

One of Einstein’s students asked him: “What does logic mean?”

Einstein said: “I will answer you with a question.”

“Suppose two workers enter a chimney to clean it. One comes out with a dirty face and the other with a clean face. Who will go wash their face?”

The student immediately and without hesitation replied, “Of course, the one with the dirty face.”

Einstein said: “Your answer is incorrect. The one who will wash their face is the one with the clean face, because he looked at his colleague’s face and assumed that his own face was as dirty as his colleague’s. The one with the dirty face will not wash his face, thinking it is clean like his colleague’s.”

The student said: “That is correct and logical.”

Einstein replied: “No, it is not correct, because the question itself is illogical. It is not logical for two men to enter the same chimney at the same time and for one to come out clean and the other dirty.”

In a few words, logic itself can collapse, so sometimes the problem is not in the answer but in the flawed question itself.

[Steven Pinker @sapinker]

"Why do we care about mattering?" with Rebecca Goldstein: Inner Cosmos podcast interview with neuroscientist David Eagleman https://t.co/BzaDsnKdaC

[Buddha Project @JoshBulriss]

"Breath is the bridge which connects life to consciousness, which unites your body to your thoughts."

[ATS_Assemblies @ATS_Assemblies]

Deadline extended! There is still time to apply to this program!

[ATS_RCMB @ATS_RCMB]

5 more days to nominate your exceptional colleagues for RCMB Assembly Awards! These prestigious awards recognize outstanding mentors, early stage investigators, and international members, among others. Learn more here: https://t.co/h3pNOkVD6h Deadline Wednesday, December 31st!

[Naftali Kaminski @KaminskiMed]

Is this letter published on ERJ open this week, the most important Pulmonary Fibrosis paper of 2025? “Neutrophils in idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis patients are phenotypically distinct from controls”
Kudos Drs Chong, Porter & team
#HappyNewYear2026
https://t.co/31IjtgWfDz

[Steven Pinker @sapinker]

They got the same DNA. Genes are the same. Same mother, same father, same older siblings, same younger siblings, same number of books in the house, same number of TVs in the house, same teachers, same everything. So they should be absolutely indistinguishable. They should be, you know, clones. Well, if you know a pair of identical twins, you know they’re not indistinguishable. They have separate personalities. I know this intimately, having two identical twin uncles, Barry and Mark, who are more similar than people picked off the street at random, but no one in the family had any doubt which was which. They each had their own personality, and that’s true of all individuals. Well, that leads to a real puzzle that I think psychologists have not really thought through enough, which is: how can they be different? It’s not their genes. It’s not their environment—at least not anything stable about the environment, like who your mother is or what neighborhood you live in.

@thinkableevents

[Valerio Capraro @ValerioCapraro]

Fascinating paper just published in Science.

The authors analyze the career trajectories of top performers across multiple domains, including Nobel laureates, elite chess players, Olympic gold medalists, and more.

Their central finding challenges a common belief.

Intensive, single-discipline training at a young age does confer an early advantage, but this advantage fades over time.

By contrast, individuals exposed to multidisciplinary practice early in life tend to start more slowly. Yet, over the long run, they are more likely to reach world-class performance, eventually overtaking early specialists, who often plateau just below the very top.

An important reminder that breadth early on can be a powerful investment in long-term excellence.

Link to the paper in the first reply.

[Kareem Carr, Ph.D. @kareem_carr]

something people don't understand about academia is modern professors are so hyper specialized that they're more like technicians than scholars

they're no better at reflecting on life and society than your car mechanic

[Kareem Carr, Ph.D. @kareem_carr]

Even if you don’t care about disparities themselves, the differences between groups are a natural laboratory for uncovering the mechanisms that shape health outcomes.

[Kareem Carr, Ph.D. @kareem_carr]

The problem with a race-blind approach to public health is most major US health outcomes vary by race and ethnicity

[Kenneth Roth @KenRoth]

The federal watchdog system at the Department of Homeland Security that oversees complaints about civil rights violations, including in immigration detention, has been so gutted it could enable the Trump administration to “abuse people with impunity.”
https://t.co/jr3QuGEUpo

[Breathing Matters @Breathingmatter]

Post-yoga deep breath = a reminder that not everyone can. This #Breathtember, let’s honour every hard-earned breath. https://t.co/6RScLyjjG8 #PulmonaryFibrosisAwareness #EveryBreathMatters #IPF #PulmonaryFibrosis #BreathingMatters #PFAwarenessMonth