Facebook's foray into virtual conference rooms, the pepper's geographic and genetic journey around the planet, and more.

Ben Palmer's reads

Facebook's latest venture: virtual conference rooms. Virtual reality technology exists, but it has yet to go mainstream, however Facebook is looking to change that. Writing for the New York Times, Mike Isaac takes a look at Facebook's newest venture—Horizon Workrooms, a product for owners of the Quest 2 that creates a virtual conference room where people on headsets can meet as if they were gathered in person.

The rise of adults-only vacations. After spending over a year at home with their children, adults-only vacations are starting to grow in popularity, as parents seek to spend time on their own. Writing for the Wall Street Journal, Janet O'Grady dives into this trend and takes a look at some luxury resorts taking advantage of it.

Vivian Le's reads

The pepper's planetary proliferation. A "cosmopolitan" vegetable, the pepper comes in thousands of varieties—from the mild red bell pepper to the searingly spicy Carolina Reaper pepper—but all of them have a humble origin in the Capsicum spp. Writing for the New York Times, Veronique Greenwood traces the geographic and genetic origins of the ever-popular pepper in all its permutations.

The fall of the 'Pfizer Gang.' In April, a light-hearted forum—r/pfizergang—appeared on Reddit, aimed at celebrating being vaccinated and joking about which vaccine was better. But soon after, the posts slipped into debates about side effects and the vaccine's safety, later spiraling into misinformation and frustration that led to the forum's eventual shutdown. Writing for The Atlantic, Kaitlyn Tiffany examines the difficulty of navigating vaccine information online as sincere worries get mixed with more conspiratorial commentary.