Last week western Mass  came out en masse to show incredible generosity to the Food Bank via the means of a 43 mile walk.

But today we’ll hear about yet another quirky event that helps to inspire generosity from the community over a much shorter distance: The Hot Chocolate Run for Safe Passage, happening for the 21st time in Northampton this Sunday. We’ll talk with Safe Passage Executive Director Marianne Winters about the organization's mission,  as well as development director Natasha Ulrich about how over two decades of support for the organization through this specific event is helping to prevent domestic violence and is helping survivors thrive.

 We’ll also learn about the confluence of physics, biology, pure mathematics and Journalism, through a new book. We talk with Smith math professor Chris Gole and author Nancy Pick about "Do Plants Know Math" and explore the photo exhibit of some of the photography they included in the book while exploring how spirals and sequences naturally occur all around us. .

And Word Nerd Emily Brewster from Merriam-Webster give us the etymology of her moniker when we learn the history of the word "nerd", and other names that have evolved from their much squarer origins.