Wether it's a human trying to figure out the quickest way to the airport, a salmon returning to the waters where they were born, or a dog trying to figure out the perfect place to poop, almost everyliving thing uses some sort of innate or technological navigation system every day. 

 

Follow us on Twitter @SciShowTangents, where we’ll tweet out topics for upcoming episodes and you can ask the science couch questions! 

If you want to learn more about any of our main topics, check out these links:

[Truth or Fail]

Orientation of mental maps:

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0135803

Humans sensing magnetic fields:

https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/can-humans-sense-the-magnetic-field--65611

[Fact Off]

Marine chronometer

http://www.jgiesen.de/LunarDistance/index.html

https://www.jstor.org/stable/3087198?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents

https://timeandnavigation.si.edu/navigating-at-sea/longitude-problem

https://archive.org/details/principlesmrhar00unkngoog/page/n22

https://www.timeandwatches.com/p/the-detent-escapement-from-marine.html

Etak navigator

[Ask the Science Couch]

Sunstone/calcite:

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2011/11/viking-sunstone-revealed

https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/04/mysterious-sunstones-in-medieval-viking-texts-could-really-have-worked/

https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsos.172187

https://www.nature.com/news/2011/110131/full/news.2011.58.html

Image of calcite: https://www.sciencesource.com/Doc/TR1_WATERMARKED/6/9/f/3/SS2509789.jpg?d63642476241

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