Engineering Animals: How Life Works

From an engineer’s perspective, how do specialized adaptations among living things really work? Writing with wit and a richly informed sense of wonder, Denny and Alan offer an expert look at animals—including humans—as works of evolutionary engineering, each exquisitely adapted to a specific manner of survival.

About the Author :
DennyMark : Mark Denny is a retired aerospace engineer and the author of Froth: The Science of Beer.McFadzeanAlan: Alan McFadzean is an independent consultant.

Review :
Both physiology primer and engineering textbook, Engineering Animals covers the basics of how physics constrains animal structure and function, all the while marveling at nature's exquisite and often surprising solutions...Engineering Animals is a celebration of nature's ingenuity...This is an engaging journey through animal adaptation for engineers and non-engineers alike. -- Cian O'Luanaigh New Scientist 20110514 From soaring albatrosses to croaking bullfrogs, different creatures exploit various aspects of engineering to help them fly, hunt, or communicate. In a clear and well-illustrated account, former aerospace engineers Mark Denny and Alan McFadzean describe the principles of physics that underlie animals' sense of smell, their use of sonar, and how they flock, signal to each other, and consume energy. Nature 20110519 Incorporating their knowledge of systems engineering into the study of how animals navigate their environment, authors Denny, a retired aerospace engineer who specialized in radar and sonar system, and McFadzean, an oil and gas consultant, have written a fascinating study sure to delight naturalists, hunters, and communications specialists. The two apply their technical expertise to a range of problems taken from the animal kingdom: how animals target their prey, the population dynamics underlying predator-prey relationships, how bird migratory patterns depend upon sense perception, global solar energy flows, and more. Hunters, science buffs, and techies alike will especially be fascinated by discussions of target acquisition and tracking. The authors provide a wide overview combined with convincing details, while emphasizing the wide gap between our ability to model the behavior of living beings and create robotic devices and the power and precision of nature. After reading this book a walk through the woods will never be the same. Publishers Weekly 20110530 A remarkable book...Written in a light and engaging style, but with plenty of references and footnotes, Engineering Animals is perfect for physicists who, like your reviewer, abandoned formal studies in biology at an early age and have always wondered what they missed. Physics World 20110701 Mark Denny and Alan McFadzean's Engineering Animals: How Life Works provides a generally engaging engineer's perspective on how animals are built and how they function...The authors do a nice job of making how animals work an enticing subject. -- Andrew A. Biewener Science 20110819 This wonderful book is a joy to read and will be of interest to both engineers and biologists...[Denny and McFadzean] have built upon their training in both engineering and physics to produce a superbly written work; the explanations of engineering principles at the heart of animal design are entertaining, intuitive, insightful, and concise. -- M. J. O'Donnell Choice 20120201