NOVA scienceNOW S05E04 How Smart are Animals? (2011)

×

NOVA scienceNOW S05E04 How Smart are Animals? (2011)

Close

This NOVA scienceNOW poses the question - How Smart are Animals? - and host Neil deGrasse Tyson tackles one of science's major challenges in each episode. He will guide us as he explores dramatic discoveries and the frontiers of research that connect each central, provocative mystery.

Program episodes include:

How Smart Are Dogs - New discoveries are revealing that "man's best friend" is smarter than we ever thought, with a brain that resembles our own in ways we never imagined. Travel to Wolf Park, where scientists are tracing the evolutionary path that turned wild animals into our cuddly companions…and meet a superdog with a vocabulary of over 1000 words!

How Smart Are Dolphins - Off the coast of Honduras, on Roatan Island, a legendary experiment in dolphin communication is being attempted for the first time in 20 years one that could prove that dolphins can coordinate with each other and be creative on cue.

How Smart Is an Octopus - Octopuses and cuttlefish are some of the weirdest creatures on earth. They perform fantastic feats of camouflage, boast surprisingly large brains, and can even solve problems like how to get tasty shrimp out of a twist-top jar. But are these remarkable behaviors truly a sign of intelligence?

Profile: Irene Pepperberg & Alex - An unlikely scientific team, Irene Pepperberg and her talking parrot, Alex, revolutionized scientists' ideas about animal communication and intelligence. Yet even after Alex's premature death, Pepperberg still struggles to convince some critics that Alex's accomplishments counting, reasoning, identifying shapes and colors are more than mere party tricks.

×

NOVA scienceNOW S05E04 How Smart are Animals? (2011)

Close