Bill Hansson

The world is full of smells: salmon swim into their natal river to spawn according to their scent, male moths are attracted to the scent of females, dogs use their sense of smell to hunt, seabirds use it to find suitable feeding places, plants use scents to warn of danger, and even in humans, smells evoke certain reactions. All these examples show that most living creatures depend on olfactory information to survive and reproduce. This is because those who perceive the chemical environment can adapt to it. In the lecture, Bill Hansson takes us on his adventures and research trips around the world and tells amazing stories about fine moth noses, sweaty Neanderthals and the hole in the ozone layer.

The neuroethologist Prof. Dr. Bill Hansson, born in Sweden in 1959, is director at the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology in Jena and honorary professor at the Friedrich Schiller University there. His research focuses on how plants and insects communicate using scents.

Language: English

In the framework of the International Science Festival - Geist Heidelberg

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