Bird Navigation by G. V. T. Matthews. Cambridge UP, £2 cloth (15s. paperback).

Speeding Up Cloth Simulation

Simulating the motion of cloth is an important component in virtual character animation. Believable animations are now expected in feature films. Games and virtual reality are next, but the computational costs are still high. In this thesis we present a number of methods which reduce these costs, without losing accuracy or generality. To this end, we introduce a novel adaptive implicit-explicit...

Imperfections in crystalline solids. By Wei Cai and William D. Nix. MRS-Cambridge Materials Fundamentals. Cambridge University Press, 2016. Paperback Pp. 532. Price GBP 44.99. ISBN 1107123135.

This book is a very good textbook of more than 500 pages that bridges the gap between Introduction to Dislocations by Hull & Bacon (2011), and the famous Theory of Dislocations by Hirth & Lothe (1968). It is based on the lecture notes of one the authors (WDN), who originally taught in the Materials Science and Engineering Department of Stanford University. It is mainly aimed at senior undergrad...

Thinking Functionally with Haskell by Richard Bird, Cambridge University Press, 2014

Magnetoreception and its use in bird navigation.

Recent advances have brought new insight into the physiological mechanisms that enable birds and other animals to use magnetic fields for orientation. Many birds seem to have two magnetodetection senses, one based on magnetite near the beak and one based on light-dependent radical-pair processes in the bird's eye(s). Among the most exciting recent results are: first, behavioural responses of bi...

Bird Navigation: A Clear View of Magnetoreception

Experiments with robins wearing frosted goggles have revealed a tantalising relationship between object vision and magnetoreception, shedding further light on the close interconnection between the two senses in migratory birds.