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Olfactory landmarks and path integration converge to form a cognitive spatial map
This paper on olfactory landmarks is interesting as it covers the idea that the distinctive smell of a place can help navigation by creating a new landmark for helping an animal navigate. The recognition of a spatial landmark by its sensory features poses a problem for neural circuits. Fischler-Ruiz, et al. show how this problem…
Path integration
Adelaide Sibeaux 1 , Cait Newport1, Jonathan P. Green1, Cecilia Karlsson 2, Jacob Engelmann 3 & Theresa Burt de Perera1 have recently published a paper showing that fishes as well as other animals use path integration to find their way home. I believe this is very important and probably the main way we navigate. Path integration maybe the way…
In Praise Of Walking by Shane O’Mara
The new science of how we walk and why it’s good for us This is a snippet from the book, In Praise of Walking by Shane O’Mara, which examines the science behind one of the basic skills that defines us as human beings. Scientists are slowly working out how our sense of direction works. It’s…
BTO Cuckoo Tracking
Please note that the BTO (British Trust for Ornithology) carry out a brilliant Cuckoo tracking project. We think that we need to be sure that we are clear how fledglings make the journey to their wintering grounds. As they have never been there before, how do they know how to get there? If any of…
Chicken Head Tracking
Our Editor Antonio Nafarrate has sent us this: Hello all and happy 2015. Please check enclosed forwarded video that is definite proof that birds have in their brains a Schuler tuned gyroscopically stabilized inertial platform. Best wishes from Antonio Nafarrate. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_dPlkFPowCc
The efficiency of varying methods and degrees of time compensation for the solar azimuth
This paper on navigation using the sun is an interesting one by Richard Massy and Karl R. Wotton. Already Tristan Gooley the natural navigator and one of our heroes walked across Crete to prove that the brain can in fact compensate for the movement of the sun during the day and keep a course by…