In the Vox podcast In a Nutshell, hosts Jara Majerus and Antonia Leise take a deep dive into the university's most interesting, strange, and exciting research. Every two weeks, they invite Radboud researchers to talk about their favourite topics – explained in bite-sized episodes. In today's episode, Antonia is talking to PhD candidate Bas van Woerkum-Rooker about the way animals think – with and without brains.

How can a spider ‘think’ with its eyes? What can we learn about thinking from baking bread? And how have the weird environments humans built around them changed the way we think?

The twelfth episode of In a Nutshell is all about animal intelligence – and how understanding animal intelligence can teach us something about human intelligence too. Together with this week’s guest Bas van Woerkum-Rooker Antonia takes a dive into alternative forms of thinking – some of which don’t even require a brain.

Bas van Woerkum-Rooker is a Ph.D. candidate at the Faculty of Philosophy, Theology and Religious Studies. He has previously graduated with a research master’s in Philosophy of Mind and in his Ph.D. project, Bas strives to develop a less human-centred view of animal minds.

Would you like to know more about how animals think? Follow Bas’ tips and read Beyond the Brain by Louise Barrett or An Immense World by Ed Young or watch the animated movie Wolfwalkers.