The intelligence of nature

The intelligence that nature possesses never ceases to amaze scientists. While just a few decades ago all animals were denied any consciousness, today there is a consensus that even insects have an individual personality, display extremely intelligent behaviour and even dream. Some scientists even attribute consciousness and even intelligence to plants. After all, these green creatures communicate with each other, warn of enemies, call for help, care for their offspring and are not as sedentary as we think. Yet the intelligence of nature is sometimes very different from our human imagination.
The biologist, media producer and lecturer Thomas Brodbeck presents the results of research into nature's intelligence, from its beginnings to the latest and most spectacular. How, for example, chimpanzees were superior to students in some experiments; about intelligent slime moulds that recreate the plan of the Tokyo underground, or how seemingly simple creatures such as ants, termites or bees intelligently organise their complex colonies and how inconspicuous creatures quite naturally use quantum physics for hunting, orientation and locomotion.

The biologist, media producer and lecturer Thomas Brodbeck has been working as a science journalist since 1984. In his work as a documentary film producer, media consultant and lecturer for ARTE, ZDF, WDR, NDR, SWR, BR and 3Sat, among others, several of his productions have been awarded national and international prizes, including the programme ‘BIONIK - Patente der Natur’ (BIONICS - Nature's Patents), which won first prize for science and technology at the XI International Film Festival in Brussels and was subsequently nominated for the Grimme Prize.

This event is a co-operation with the NABU Region Bernkastel-Wittlich