This week, we step aside from today’s news to dig into a story millions of years in the making, as I speak with ZOE SCHLANGER about her best-selling THE LIGHT EATERS: How the Unseen World of Plant Intelligence Offers a New Understanding of Life on Earth. What are we to make of a vine that grows leaves to blend into the shrub on which it climbs, a flower that shapes its bloom to fit exactly the beak of its pollinator, a pea seedling that can hear water flowing and make its way toward it? Schlanger‘s research over the last several years reveals a reality that challenges our understanding of consciousness, intelligence, and life itself. You can learn more at zoeschlanger.com

As Congress negotiates a new “Farm Bill” – they do so every 5 years – will health, nutrition, poverty, and nature/climate get seats at the table or will Big Ag and Big Food dominate and dictate as usual? Speaking of food, here’s my 2021 conversation with MARK BITTMAN, longtime fixture at the New York Times, author of 30 books, about one of his latest – ANIMAL, VEGETABLE, JUNK: A History of Food from Sustainable to Suicidal. How did things get so bad and how can we turn things around before it’s too late? Learn more at markbittman.com

The US holds one national popular vote and the Republican party has won that vote once since 1988, that’s 36 years. Yet they’ve held the presidency nearly 12 of those years. Since Nixon, they’ve appointed 15 Supreme Court justices, to the Democrats 4. I speak with ARI BERMAN about his new book, MINORITY RULE: The Right-Wing Attack on the Will of the People—and the Fight to Resist It. I learned a lot about the pulling back from direct democracy by the framers between the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. The GOP exploits the resulting Constitutional weaknesses. This may be the most critical domestic challenge we face today. Learn more at aribermanauthor.com