How can geckoes walk on the ceiling and basilisk lizards run over water? What are the aerodynamic effects that enable small insects to fly? What are the relative merits of squids' jet-propelled swimming and fishes' tail-powered...
Optimization theory is designed to find the best ways of doing things. The structures of animals, their movements, their behavior, and their life histories have all been shaped by the optimizing processes of evolution or of learning by...