Link About It: This Week’s Picks

Reclaiming the world's oldest rainforest, gender identity as a human right, redressing design history and more from around the web

Benevolence Farm Opens Pathways For Formerly Incarcerated Women On 13 acres in North Carolina, Benevolence Farm—founded by Tanya Jisa—exists as an employment and residency program that helps recently incarcerated women adjust to life after prison. Through fair wages, housing and a connection to nature, this initiative provides residents with support that the criminal justice system fails to supply. While it’s creating pathways toward a sustainable, …

Research on Chili Peppers + Menthol Could Lead to Non-Opioid Pain Relief

Scientists David Julius and Ardem Patapoutian were recently awarded the 2021 Nobel Prize in Medicine for their essential research, studying how humans sense their environment. Julius used capsaicin (the spice found in chili peppers) to discover how nerve cells respond to increasing levels of spice, while Patapoutian’s work uncovered a fundamental gene that illuminates how bodies translate stimuli. Both scientists, through independent research, relied on …

Reflecting on Toni Morrison’s Life, From Her Point of View

The first African-American woman to win the Nobel Prize, a Pulitzer prize winner for penning Beloved and a mentor to millions, among many other things, Toni Morrison lived unapologetically but with unmatched empathy, intelligence and insightfulness. She famously told Terry Gross (of NPR’s Fresh Air) that she “regret[s] everything” about her life. She explained in a 2015 interview, “Now that I’m 84, I remember everything …