A TV interview with Tanner Saul of KPAX - https://www.kpax.com/news/a-wilder-view/a-wilder-view-a-look-at-supernavigators
Here’s a link to a talk David did for Kentucky University that’s available on YouTube
Here’s a link to the first episode of a new two-part series about animal migration on the BBC World Service’s excellent Crowdscience. David is one of the contributors alongside Professor Tim Guilford of Oxford University.
Here’s a link to a really good new podcast series called Way Too Interesting. David is the ‘expert’ talking about animal navigation in episode 5. Starting about 26 minutes in.
David was one of five authors interviewed in The Psychologist about the challenges of finding our way around.
An interview on BBC Radio 4’s Start The Week about celestial navigation and the Vikings.
A radio interview, networked in the US, on the show To The Best of Our Knowledge.
An interview for Yale University’s podcast When We Talk about Animals
Here’s David’s interview for the podcast Brilliant Minds of the Animal Kingdom with Discovery Channel's TV host Emiliano Ruprah.
An interview with Marcus Smith of BYU radio, broadcast in the USA in which David talks about the sextant, as well as animal navigation.
Here’s a podcast version of the interview David gave at the Stanfords Travel Writers’ Festival 2020
An interview David gave on the US network NPR’s popular radio show All Things Considered
And another NPR interview, this time on 1A
Here’s an article David wrote for The Scientist
Here’s are three separate radio interviews on ABC (Australia):
https://www.abc.net.au/radio/programs/nightlife/animal-navigation/11031380
https://abcmedia.akamaized.net/radio/local_sydney/audio/201904/nlf-2019-04-18-animal-navigation.mp3
https://radio.abc.net.au/programitem/pgL7K8YmwG
An online interview for Foreword Reviews in the US
Here’s an article David wrote for The Sunday Telegraph about the many threats to migratory birds:
Here’s some national press coverage of David’s talk at the Hay Literary Festival 2019:
From The Times
Why smartphone maps could be bad for our brains
David Sanderson
Relying on satellite navigation aids such as smartphone maps could be damaging people’s brains and may even contribute to the development of Alzheimer’s disease, a navigation expert has warned.
David Barrie, 65, a former diplomat who has written extensively on natural navigation, said that technology was taking away our acute sense of surroundings and place, developed over hundreds of thousands of years.
Speaking at the Hay Festival, Mr Barrie, author of Incredible Journeys, said: “As we become more and more dependent on these electronic gadgets to find our way around we are becoming more and more cut off from the natural world.” He was concerned that GPS systems were preventing people building up the resilience that their brains needed in later life.
It was “very sad” to see people with their heads down following smartphone maps. “This sense of immersion in nature, and losing yourself in the natural world and the extraordinary rewards that come from that, well you lose that,” he said. “There may be deeper problems too. The parts of your brain that may be responsible for your ability to navigate need exercise and if they are not exercised they literally shrink.
“It’s quite possible that people who fall victim to Alzheimer’s disease — which first typically manifests itself in the shape of disorientation — their hippocampus has already shrunk from lack of use or has considerably less resilience for coping with the onslaught of disease. So that’s actually quite a good reason to want to maintain those parts of the brain by exercising them.”
A study published in March suggested that human brainwaves change significantly as a magnetic field moves, indicating that the brain is picking up directions subconsciously.
Recent studies have also found that animals use sight, smell, sound and even the orientation of the Milky Way to navigate.
Mr Barrie added: “The magnetic compass only came into use in the 12th century and maps are very modern indeed. Our hunter-gatherer ancestors relied exclusively on their senses and their wits to find their way around.”
From The Daily Telegraph
Google Maps ‘increases risk of developing Alzheimer’s’
Sarah Knapton
Satellite navigation aids such as Google Maps could be damaging people’s brains and may even contribute to the development of Alzheimer’s, an expert has warned. David Barrie, CBE, a former British diplomat, who has written extensively on natural navigation, said that humans had honed an acute sense of theirsurroundings in the world over hundreds of thousands of years which was being lost as technology takes over. Mr Barrie said he was concerned that GPS was preventing people building up the resilience that their brains needed in later life. In Alzheimer’s the hippocampus is one of the first areas to deteriorate, taking away a person’s ability to remember directions and navigate.
Speaking at the Hay Festival, Mr Barrie said it was “very sad” to see people with their heads down following smartphone maps. “Crucially as we become more and more dependent on these electronic
gadgets to find our way around we are becoming more and more cut off from the natural world,” he said. “This sense of immersion in nature, and losing yourself in the natural world and the extraordinary rewards that come from that – well, you lose that. There may be deeper problems, too. The parts of your brain that may be responsible for your ability to navigate need exercise and if they are not exercised they literally shrink.”
Mr Barrie’s new book, Incredible Journeys, deals with the extraordinary navigational abilities of animals.
An interesting article about navigation appeared in the German daily newspaper, Die Zeit. It includes quite a few quotes from me, though sadly it fails to mention my books.
I was invited to contribute a list of some favourite books to the website Booklisti. Here’s my selection of books connected to the Arctic and Antarctic.