Bacteria are awesome | Jordi Van Gestel | TEDxGroningen

We can learn a lot from bacteria. They are the ultimate innovators: they survive in a complex world by making smart decisions and finding creative solutions. And by studying them, we may have stumbled upon a new way to define evolution.

Jordi van Gestel is an evolutionary biologist, who just obtained a Ph.D. degree at the University of Groningen. He is intrigued by the evolutionary origins of organization and cooperation, features that we often associate with human society. Yet, instead of studying humans, he examines one of the most primitive forms of organization on our planet: bacterial colonies. By combining experimental methods and mathematical modeling, he shows how bacterial cells interact inside the colony and bring about organization. He not only explores how organization evolves, but also how it in turn affects evolution. Can organisms influence the speed of evolution and, if so, do they get better in evolving over evolutionary time? Jordi’s research has been conducted at four international research groups at the University of Groningen, Harvard Medical School and Harvard University.

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at http://ted.com/tedx