Mike Carruthers

Today, Something You Should Know with Mike Carruthers.

Hi.

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First up today, you know, it's natural for people like you and me to worry and get preoccupied with life and death and the state of the world from time to time.

And research suggests that if that happens, taking Tylenol might help if you're feeling consumed with doom.

That's because feelings of distress and physical pain are both rooted in the same area of the brain.

Acetaminophen, Tylenol, numbs that region and can help to relieve anxiety or feelings of dread in much the same way as it reduces pain.

While popping a pill is not going to solve the problem, it can take the edge off so you can think more efficiently and face the problem head on.

And that is something you should know.

You don't have to look far from where you are right now to see plants.

Perhaps you're surrounded by plants.

After all, plants cover the earth.

There are a lot more of them than us.

And what you're about to hear will amaze you because there's a whole world in which plants live, thrive, communicate, defend themselves, trick predators, and do a whole lot of other cool things you've probably never heard about.

Here to explain all this is Zoe Schlanger.

She is a staff writer at The Atlantic.

Her work has appeared in The New York Times, The New York Review of Books, Time, Newsweek, and a bunch of other places.

She is author of a book called The Light Eaters, How the Unseen World of Plant Intelligence Offers a New Understanding of Life on Earth.