In the September issue of the Notices of the AMS is a book review of Invisible in the Storm: The Role of Mathematics in Understanding Weather by Ian Roulstone and John Norbury. The review is by Peter Lynch. The book is a history of the development of mathematical models for weather prediction and at least from the review, it sounds like a valuable source for non-mathematicians and mathematicians alike. You can read the review here.
There have also been two items recently highlighted by the AMS in their “Mathematical Sciences on the Newswires” section that are of particular interest to MPE2013 community. Both were published in Science Daily. The first is the article “Simple Math Sheds New Light On a Long-Studied Biological Process”, and it focuses on some very simple basic mathematics that surprisingly helps explain the adaptation of bacteria.
The other story is “Stabilizing Aircraft During Takeoff and Landing Using Math” and again emphasizes that the right mathematical model provides insights in the design features of aircraft and helps adjust for optimum stability.
Estelle Basor
American Institute of Mathematics