Ive come to the conclusion that ants don't actually have a hive mind. Even as you observed in your post, individuals acted differently. I wonder if we can do a hivemind experiment. We already know that ants communicate with chemicals. But in a true hivemind, each ant would simply be a body part of the one mind. In order to test the hivemind you will have to seclude many ants, seclude some groups, and try some things to them. Document their behavior. Then do those same things to the hive. My hypothesis is that like humans, ants have good communication and can quickly respond to societies needs, however I believe they still act as individuals. -yuri
Yeah.. I don't think it is literally a single mind, but a hive mind in the same way we would have a hive mind when living together, sharing information and spreading it. Ants have always been a thing of fascination for me.. had a black ant colony and red ant colony as a kid, and I could always tell that they are individuals, but like all individuals, are guided by chemicals in the end. I forget the species of ants, but there is one that they have to swim a good bit in their environment and it was shown that they swim differently and some even seemed like they were having fun. Also read about some ants will play when they are young, usually the ones who were born to be their fighters.. they'd play fight til they grew up. Speaking of my ant colonies.. I took eggs from the red ants and put them in with black ants.. and then took black ant eggs and gave them to the red ants. They both took them in and raised them, mostly seemed like they were slaves doing bitch work.. but eventually they mated and created this crazy ant that was part red, part black, and much bigger and more aggressive than the others. I destroyed them, but think they did what I did out in nature anyway cause I ended up finding colonies of these half breeds out in the woods. Red ants took the fields, black ants took the woods, and the half breeds were on the border. I like to think I created a new ant, but pretty sure nature beat me to it anyway.
Dare I say it. Semantics! Naw but really I guess it depends on how you define hive mind. To me a hivemind is literally one mind controlling the inviduals as though they were body parts. And each individual brain works more like an individual neuron Ants ftw I also have had an ant obsession ever since childhood. I was never able to have an ant colony but still plan on it eventually That's pretty sweet. I'd like to point out though that ants are known to take other ants as slaves in nature. -yuri
You compare ants to humans and then say "I'd like to point out though that ants are known to take other ants as slaves in nature." I feel offended somehow lol.
Thing is.. what he said is true and comes from nature. Ants take other ants as slaves. They typically take the eggs from other ant colonies they raided.. and when they hatch, they're forced to do duties. Pretty sure I remember reading about an ant species that relies on slave labor and without it, would die off. The only known species besides man to enslave their own kind. Ants are to insects as humans are to mammals.. they march and wage wars, take slaves, farm, tend to their cattle.. aphids, build megacities with ventilation.. and group think, probably a few other comparisons I am missing.
Here is a fun and easy one. Download a strobe app for your phone and grab some items to rotate like flicking a quarter. A top is too well balanced and isnt as interesting. I used a glass lense removed from a magnifying glass. Spin it and start your strobe. Try different strobe speed. You can also do it to a fanblade. ⚡
Fill up the sink, or use the toilet, and soak a cotton ball with rubbing alcohol and drop it in the water. I use 91%, but I imagine the 70% would have a similar effect. Not sure what is happening other than the possibility that the water is just pulling the alcohol and it is evaporating away, but you should see small waves coming from the cotton ball.
Great thread! Here's one I did two years ago for a school video project, a few years back and it's really simple. What you need: Bread yeast, a teaspoon, a balloon, a plastic bottle, sugar and 150ml of warm water. Start off by putting the bread yeast into the plastic bottle, then add two teaspoons of sugar into it. The next thing you wanna do is pour the warm water into the bottle and lastly attach the balloon where the lid of the bottle should be. Then wait for an hour or so. When you check the experiment after an hour or so, you'll see that the balloon has inflated. This occurs because the bread yeast eats away at the sugar and produces CO2.
Good one! You can also throw in some silver and high grade hydrogen peroxide. The silver oxidizes one oxygen from escaping the h2o2 to make h2o and o gas.
I have always had a black light in my bathroom, they have always intrigued me and they are impractical for lights in most other rooms. (nice for relaxing lit showers and peeing in the dark, it glows). Anyway, after watching a documentary about bioluminescence i got a bit inspired. I took the glass down off from the light fixture, cleaned it and put it in the freezer. Then i got a little sauce pan and heated up a little coconut oil and sprinkled in a tiny amount of turmeric (and a dab of lecithin hoping it would help dissolve the remaining turmeric particles). I took the globe out of the freezer and poured in the coconut oil and swirled it around, since it is a solid at fairly high temperature, it quickly solidified to the glass dome. I then reinstalled the dome and got this. Enjoy