Vanilla Fate

An Activist By Fate

Anushe Engineer | Dawn | 11th March 2024

Baloch women protesting enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings in Pakistan. Sammi Deen Baloch began activism at age ten when her father was abducted — taking bus rides alone from Karachi to Quetta for court cases to locate her father. “We completely rewrote the narrative they’ve held against Baloch people, that we’re “terrorists” who want to be separate from Pakistan” (2,100 words)

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How to discover and consume 6,500+ podcast episodes without subscribing to any podcasts? Wenbin Fang shares his episode-centric listening approach with Listen Notes.

The Boy Who Was King Of Vanilla

Elena Kazamia | Nautilus | 1st March 2024

Vanilla was notoriously hard to pollinate, befuddling botanists until 1841 — when Edmond Albius, a 12-year-old Réunion Island slave, invented a way. He used a needle or toothpick to puncture the slim membrane separating the male and female organs of the vanilla orchid — a technique growers use to this day. “Like many brilliant inventions, Edmond’s appears disarmingly simple, but only after the fact” (800 words)