ants make and use tools

Ants make and use tools (my observation) 1^st November 2004

After collecting a mated queen Lasius Niger during summer 2004 I carefully observed the development of the growing colony through a perspex window in their formicarium.

There were excellent times to watch amazing things I had never seen before. One example was when three ants helped a new born (still white) ant out of its cocoon. They held it outstretched by its legs and head between their jaws while a fourth ant took a tiny piece of sand between its own jaws and delicately scrubbed it all over as if giving it a bath. This seemed to stimulate the ant and it seemed a very careful nurturing behaviour by its sisters.

Around 12 weeks after I put the queen inside the nest there were a handful of busy workers intent on tunneling and creating new spaces. They made the queens chamber big enough for her to get around and made lots of small rooms where ants at various stages of development would be placed and moved around to ensure optimum condtions for them.

I fed them a small blow fly which they sucked completely dry by chewing a hole through the eye.

I watched the ants attempt to cut off a leg from the fly which took considerable time and effort. I assumed it was to be carved up for food.

The next day I noticed that the fly’s leg was inside the nest chamber. I thought that perhaps this represented the meat portion of the diet that the final stage larvae with their little mouths required.

As I found out after some research, black ants do not store food in the actual nest, they carry all their food in a shared stomach so that individuals can share it easily and I would imagine there are good reasons for this. Perhaps in the event of cataclysmic events to the nest, the ants can survive more easily. Perhaps also not storing food makes predation of the nest less likely as other creatures would not be attracted to the smell of their larder, furthermore it is a way of ensuring rotting food does not infect or otherwise dirty the nest. Space is also at a premium and not storing food in the nest seems a good evolutionary adaptation.

However the leg was not consumed at all. On closer inspection it appeared that the leg had been modified. The thigh section of the leg had been cut at a specific site so as to create an equal length hinge to the foreleg and thigh section. The foot, complete with hairs was also left creating a second smaller hinge and foot. I observed that this leg had a habit of being left at the furthermost end of the current tunneling operation. I realised that it was not for food and resembled a very carefully crafted tool as if left by a builder for use later. On closer inspection it appeared that the leg was left in a brace position to ensure that the tunnel did not collapse. Over the next week or so I noticed that the leg would invariably be left in position within a tunnel either at the furthermost end of a tunnel or where a large overhang remained, unexcavated.

There were two basic positions for the leg, either as a ladder in steep tunnels or as a brace for overhanging excavation works.

This seems absolutely fascinating to me as the flexibility of the joints seems to make this an extremely adaptable and reliable hardwearing chitin tool, the angles can be adapted as required and as observed in various tunnels.

my guess is that if you took a queen from the same nest location (and I think I know the location of this mother colony) that you would find this behaviour repeated in her daughters colony as culture. i also think that black ants everywhere can and would do this, but if it is indeed localised behaviout then that is another aspect to consider.

I have some photographic evidence of the brace being used for an overhang in an unfinished tunnel although on reflection I should have documented all examples of this tool in various locations around the nest. Much to my dismay the queen died yesterday so the remaining ants
do not have long to display their building skills. They also don’t seem to care for much other than eating now. Interestingly the leg that I do have photos of was actually a piece of plant root, although i have still got the actual leg!

At the entrance to the nest was a large tunnel covered by a mound of excavated sand.

I observed this small piece of plant root performing the same function as the flys leg. It was used to ensure the collapse of the entrance did not occur. At the time I thought it was another flys leg
but was equally amazed at the adaptability of material use.

I inadvertently made the nest very dry as it had become too moist by adding too much water in preparation. There was a lot of condensation so I stopped adding water for a while. The nest was composed of sand and it seems that the behaviour was a response to the fragility of the dry sand nest.

I added a very small amount of soil from a plant pot to the nest material before adding the Queen and when I eventually emptied the nest after they had died, I carefully extracted the small pieces of plant matter from the sand. There were literally a very few small pieces of plant matter which seem to have been used for the same purpose and nothing else but sand.

As mentioned above I incorrectly identified this piece of plant matter as another fly leg and foolishly published a photo on the internet with diagrammatical explanation. Oh well, i was excited and got slightly ahead of myself but that seems ok in retrospect.

I photographed the nest contents after I emptied it and sieved through it with a magnifying glass and tweezers until i had every piece of material separated from the sand. The macro photos that I took clearly show the fly and its severed leg and also the small pieces of plant root which were used in a similar fashion.

I have carefully stored these items in a box for posterity and may publish the photos of the recovered contents at a later date if I have the time.

I tried to repeat the experiement in 2005 but unfortunately the colony did not thrive.

I will repeat it again this year when the queen ants appear in the summer months.

This time I will be more careful and I aim to document with video the actual behaviour that I observed for hours on end.

It seems that at one level there are implications for the discovery as nobody seems to credit ants with toolmaking ability and if ants can make and use tools, how many neurons does it take to become intelligent. I know there is a strange dynamic with colony insects but the individual ants seem to have very good facilities as individuals. Alas I am not a qualified scientist and have little experience of animal psychology so there are limits to how far I can take the findings.

I have long been interested in the idea of animal intelligence and consider our human conceit that we are ‘superior creatures’ not only a misnomer but one of the reasons we usually show little thought for the other creatures on our planet in our quest for consuming our shared resources.

I do know that initially it was thought impossible for other apes than humans to use tools, and it has transpired over time that other creatures including certain bird species can utlisise tools, so time will tell.

I do not currently have the resources or time required to obtain the 30 observations over 3 nests, which would be required by scientists to prove the facts, but I am sure in time it will be shown by others eventually.

I did make a bit of a storm with the ant experts in ant forums who seemed to be either very interested or lambasted my amateurish approach. I believe that the entire forum discussion is still available at myrmecology.org.

With hindsight I would have been more pragmatic in my discussions and hopefully would have got someone interested enough to research the ideas themselves. Who knows, there might be someone out there who thought it was worth investigating further and will turn up the proof.

I have been a keen amateur entomologist since the age of five when I raised my first brood of Coleoptera (ladybirds) and continue to have an enduring fascination with all (especially colony insects.)

a letter to outer space

the web site below is part of arte-tv in France and invites individuals to send a message to outer space and that they will send some of the messages towards Ursa Major.
I wrote a short letter addressed to all ETs of peaceful intention. below i have pasted the original letter albeit with my typo errors corrected.

http://www.arte-tv.com/cosmicconnexion

To all extra terrestrials of peaceful intent,

On behalf of earths inhabitants large and small, let me first welcome you to share in the wondrous beauty of our shared home, planet earth. There may be many reasons you are interested in our planet, I have read that there are many possibilities, but if you do as accounts relate, require a new home because yours is no longer inhabitable and would like to live amongst us, let us all know so that the majority of good people with love in their hearts can see past your physical appearances and not be reviled by your strangeness, instead welcome you as fellow life forms from the shared source of life. If you would instead prefer to only visit and study the bounty of life here in an open and inquisitive quest for knowledge, communicate directly and explain your intentions so that human beings will no longer be afraid of the unknown but instead embrace your unique perspective and help to fulfill your needs. If you require a part of our genetic life-force in order to survive and would like to hybridise yourselves with our different species make your requests simple and succinct, communicate your intentions to the people of the world in symbolic terms that will be understood by all. You would no doubt be surprised at the generosity of feeling from individuals, if not perhaps from our collective states as competing nations. Furthermore, if you have the ability to communicate with other creatures of earth do so in an appropriate manner and ask them for their consent to study them also. I ask you to use your pragmatism in understanding our stage of development and forgive our nature of conflict, see past the trivial political differences which divide our world’s people. As star faring people or dimensional travelers with technologies in advance of our own, perhaps you could teach us some key principles of how to manage our environment in a sustainable way so that planet earth continues to evolve the myriad life forms so useful to the greater universe in their unseen potential. We as humans live in fear which is created by our very nature to survive as individuals. If you would walk amongst us openly, you may be able to help remedy this situation and assist a new way of looking at the world where all life is valued as part of the oneness of our universe. We as humans have aspirations beyond our collective ability to act in a responsible way and fail continually to see that we belong to earth and not the other way around.

Your most modest of teachings could accelerate a change in the way we perceive the galaxy which we belong to. If you could furnish our growing minds with the knowledge of how advanced civilisations work together for common goals and use resources for shared outcomes then human beings may in time come to realise the importance of self sacrifice in the face of difficulties that we are simply not aware of.

Humans have a great thirst for knowledge and a never ending quest to discover how and why. Collectively we wish to know the eternal truths of a greater scheme of nature which we can only guess at, peering at the stars through our relatively simple technology. Our best scientists although possessed of great insight fail to see how things fit together, we are crude in our approach to matters of larger consequence, our short lives become a stumbling block to the preservation of environment, we lack the foresight to preserve the endless diversity of life, respect the natural systems which uphold our fragile balance of habitability. You will find many shared ideals in human beings. We are shaped from a similar mould. Humour and the ability to express endlessly through movement, art and music, literature and science alike. It is very likely and perhaps obvious that you and others have contacted individuals and groups for varying motivations and that there are many different beings from multiple origins out there looking in at us. The trauma often observed in humans is in part an inability to integrate the experience with what our society accepts as reality. I ask you to join us under bright skies, out in the open, help change the human mindset and together we can create the very fabric of our shared dreams.

early dreams and dreams of the dead

One of the first dreams that I vividly remember to this day was from aged 5 or 6. It had been my birthday party and 7 or 8 of my friends had come to the house for a tea party. We had all been stunned and time seemed to stand still for a moment, the next thing we had been caught by a witch who was very scary looking and we were taken to a cave which had no exits. The witch had a long green nose on a wrinkly face, a long black hooded gown and long green fingers with long black claws. her hands were very ugly and large. The feeling was very claustrophobic and it was cold, dark and clammy. we were wearing summer clothes, shorts and t-shirts and it was cold on the floor. I felt particularly sad as it had been my party and in some way was my fault. We stayed there all night and at one point we got split up, some of the more sensitive children were very upset and cried like babies. Others were just sad and glum and sat quietly. It felt like we were tied up without any actual bonds. we were eventually let go or perhaps we escaped through a hole that you couldn't see at first while the witch wasn't looking
we were now standing in the park on the grass opposite the house I lived in, it was early in the morning and a light mist was still hanging over the grass. everyone was dazed and confused but relieved to be free. the end.

Another dream I recall vividly was a set of dreams from aged 8 or 9. The dreams unfolded over a week and each night I would return to the same dream with new elements revealed. It was like a television screen was projected on my bedroom wall and from a very high up viewpoint I could see a brown and white cow tied down to the ground on its side in a field. It was bright and sunny and the cow or more like a bull was covered with very small figures climbing all over it.

It reminded me of the scene in Gulliver’s travels and I couldn’t clearly see what they were doing.

The following night I returned to the dream and got a closer view. The tiny figures were performing all sorts of tests on the animal and they were wearing white all in one suits.

This went on for 5 or six nights, each night returning to the same view only closer and with a gradual understanding of what was actually happening what it meant and why. I cannot recall what the further meaning of the cow experiments revealed over the series of dreams but I remember that the memories kind of faded away quite quickly leaving me with a puzzled feeling about a) how a series of dreams can interrelate over successive nights and b) what this abstract set of unfolding dreams was actually all about.

This is not quite a normal dream memory but a recollection of a kind of dream triggered by reading something in a book about a yard and a bright light. I am in the back yard of our house. It is night-time very late and very quiet. I am about 7 or 8. I have crept outside in my pyjamas with shoes and socks on. There is a very bright light illuminating the yard like sunshine except very white. I cannot see the source of the light when I look up as the light is so bright. I notice a small white figure in a shiny silver foil suit climbing over the wall where the climbing plants reach to the top of the wall. The wall is about 6 or 7 feet high. I am standing outside the back door and I say ‘get down from there’ but he is already climbing down anyway, like a cat with hardly any weight in his body, not disturbing the leaves as he goes. He has little booties on like the kind toddlers wear which seems funny, almost like slippers. He walks across the yard towards the back of the house opposite to where I am standing, ignoring me and I am at once fascinated by the sight of him and indignant that I am ignored. Next thing we are face to face at the back door and he looks at me with large black eyes. I can’t remember anything other than he seems to move from one place to the next without really moving. Everything seems still like time has stopped for a moment. i eventually return inside as i am cold and suddenly aware that i will be in trouble if i am caught outside in the middle of the night.

Dreams of the dead and haunting

A recurring theme in my dreams and continue to this day are of dead people that I knew. Alice was the mother of my stepfather and when she died without really being aware of it she came straight back to the house where she lived with my mum and step dad. They had built her a granny flat and she lived in her little bit of the house sharing the large kitchen with the family. As she got older Alice and my mum progressively got on worse. A day or two after she died in a care home a mile or so away from the house, my mums next door neighbour saw her walking up the cul-de-sac through the living room window before realising that she had died, looked back and she had gone. She was quite upset and spooked about it, but later found it amusing. Being interested in paranormal phenomena I thought she had failed to realise her own death. Nobody told her she had advanced cancer, she was 84 and only had a little time left so the doctors made her comfortable with painkillers and she slipped away quietly a few weeks after she was admitted to the care home. I also thought that she was not only unaware of her death but unhappy to be ignored. (as i think she would have perceived it)

My mums house was disturbed for a long while and reports from all members of the family of doors banging in the middle of the night, murmuring voices and a general feeling of angst overhung the house. The flat was re-integrated and her lving room became the family dining room, her bedroom became my mums work room. soon after in the dining room, the radio came on at full volume whilst my mum and stepdad were having dinner, it wasn’t plugged into the socket. That experience made my skeptical step dad raise an eyebrow. Another time when my mum had just moved one of her expensive machines from a shelf thinking that it was unsafe being so high up, the shelf literally unplugged itself from it's rawplugs and threw everything including the shelf with screws attached on the floor. You could easily say that shelf had been disturbed and fell off, but you would have to see how deeply screwed they were to a solid wall. My own experience was interesting. It was my step dads 50^th birthday and I was in the front room of the house talking to the next door neighbour, a senior police officer. A beatles tune like 'love me do' or something was playing on the stereo at which point a glass walked 5-6 inches across the sideboard pushing a pile of records (singles) including the glass to the floor. We both observed this and looking at each other I said to him ‘it’s Alice’! he, half-drunk laughed and couldn’t help but agree.

Later on in the evening I walked into the dining room and exactly where Alice’s chair would have been located a broken glass lay smashed in the middle of the carpet. I thought Alice again and quickly showed my brother before clearing it up. It couldn’t have fell from anywhere near as it was the middle of the room and my mums friends were very civilised people. I couldn’t imagine any of these middle aged people just dropping a glass on the carpet watching it smash into pieces and walking away!

there were many other happenings over the year. I did not enjoy staying in the house during that time. mumblings were heard through the wall where Alice lived and it sounded just like her wittering annoyedly to herself. the sounds almost came from within the wall itself.

doors would be heard opening and closing in the middle of the night. doors would be heard opening in a room only for the person to look up and see the door tightly closed.

Eventually Alice did quiet down and leave the house, it returned to its normal peaceful atmosphere but not until a year or so later, when my own grandmother died. I got the feeling that my grandma had visited the house shortly after her own death and took Alice away with her! I had a dream that my Grandma visited the house one morning after she died and we talked about ufos. she told me that we'd never really know the truth about ufos until we died too so shouldnt really worry about it too much. Ever since that particular dream which i remember vividly, i suspected there was some kind of spiritual dimension to the phenomena we call aliens. anyway, she had a young girl with her in a black dress who seemed to act as some kind of conduit. i never saw this girl in real life before but when i quizzed grandma in the dream about who she was, she replied it's difficult to get through, she helps me.

I had 3 dreams of Alice during that year. The first dream, I was sitting in the living room and Alice walked in smiling as if alive as could be. I was horrified and tried to call my mum. No words would come out. I regained my composure and said to her, ‘but you’re dead’ she looked at me like it didn’t matter and went to sit in the corner at the end of the table where she usually would have sat. She was chuckling as though she found my response to her amusing. There was no malevolence, just a mischievous twinkle in her eye. the second dream was similar except i no longer found her presence disturbing but i remember very closely noticing that there was absolutely no difference with a dead person to a living one. ( in a dream these kind of odd observations seem perfectly rational)

The third dream was more interesting. I was at my dad’s house where I lived. The dream started early in the morning, it was still dark outside. A stone at my window awoke me (in the dream). it was a dream where you are dreaming about being in the place that you actually are. A false awakening where you think you wake up but when the dream ends and you do wake up it's disconcerting. I thought it unusually early for my friend Neil to call for me, (he usually used this method to contact me instead of ringing the doorbell). I got out of bed (again this still in the dream) and looked out of the window. There was Alice standing there at the gate shaking her walking stick. I was surprised and a little scared. She was angry and communicated somehow that I needed to get my stomach sorted out soon or I would end up like her, pointing to her own abdomen. I was puzzled and got back into bed. I got up later and wondered.

I had been to the doctor a few times with what I thought was a grumbling appendix. The doctor had prescribed anti-spasmodic medication which seemed to have little effect. A few months later in the summer months I suddenly became very ill and could not keep any food or liquids down. After a few days of bedridden agony and fever I called the doctor who gave me some mediaction. things got worse and i was dehydrating so i asked my dad to drive me to the hospital where i was admitted and stayed for a month on a ‘nil by mouth’ regime fighting a raging gut infection. They eventually opened me up when i was in sufficiently good health and took out my appendix. A timely warning from the other side i thought. i made a good recovery and went back to college in the autumn.

more dreams of the dead people to be continued soon...

notes on a small planet

notes on a small planet: (20) micro articles of mirth and frivolity


these notes are purely for amusement but in amongst them are a
few 'blue herrings'; shreds of evidence and just a little truth.
observations and conjecture, conclusions gleaned from far and wide.


(1) bigfoot is a hominid with neanderthalis as parent species footprint is key to understanding. surprisingly they use no complex tools but bury their dead. florida skunk ape, saquatch, yeti etc are not all necessarily the same species of hominid great ape. small communities still exist in outer mongolia where they have retreated over hundreds of years as mankind has proliferated further. living in caves they hunt for food and are omnivores.

(2)
loch ness monster nessie is a plessie, Plesiousaur (a purported complete body of similar creature was hauled aboard a japanese fishing boat in 1977 off the coast of NZ at 900 ft depth and the photos clearly show head and facial features, long fins and a huge verterbrate body weighing over a ton. the creatures have an immense range and use time honoured nesting grounds accessed through underground river systems inland throughout all the continents. loch ness is one example, others exist in africa, asia, america and other sites in Eruope. slow reproduction and extended lifetimes leave small numbers of living relics from the dinosaur age. survival of
catastrophic events are due to lake and cave dwelling with dual freshwater, saline lifestyle. I personally know someone who saw one as a 6 year old child in a lake in Africa. He didn't tell anyone at the time as he thought people would laugh at him, but he is convinced that what he
saw resembled a plessie. legend has it that in the same location in earlier times, tribespeople caught one and ate the flesh, many died or became very ill. dinosaur flesh is not tasty and very alkaline. yuk!


(3) from 'top 5 list'
some reported 'aliens' are infra-terrestrial and predate humanity by many millions of years, are related to communal insects via termitic root species. retreated internally when conditions on surface became unbearable. ( 100, 65 and 35 million years ago. they have a vested interest in planets condition and are technically in advance of humans due to large format mind and limitless heat energy from the earths' interior. they are veteran space and dimensional travellers and are in contact with others off world species. their closely shared genetics
allows advanced society but in isolation but has led to slow genetic breakdown without naturally occuring cross pollination as in earth life.


(4)
chupacabra is also a reptilian artefact from prehistoric times not a genetic experiment. the character in the film 'Jurassic Park' poison spitting dinosaur provides a good marker as to chupacabras true nature. exists in pockets throughout south american continent and has
been documented over hundreds of years as a red-eyed poison spitting sometimes bipedal lizard with a spinky back and large display frill or dewlap. (flap of skin surrounding the neck area)


(5)
all humans possess a spirit body which survives physical death. most people are unaware of this as is the natural law. ghosts are a reflection of this phenomena. scientists will discover the existence of the soul, however the dissipation of physical energy will be explained away as a process of death, not of life. great debate will be opened up in the following period. microwave detection technology will be sensitive enough to detect the sublimation of spirit.
all lifeform has an inate energy matrix. the adult potential form of any living things can be viewed under the right conditions (all life is possessed of a visible blueprint which is available to the viewer at conception. this viewpoint shift will provide the catalyst for a spiritual evolution within humanity.)

(6)
earth is a veritable paradise of life. the number of species that have and continue to populate every niche is by no means an accident. the earth body belongs to the 'true' body of the solar system and is monitored constantly by many vested interests. sun represents heart. earth represents mind, jupiter represents liver, saturn analagous to kidneys, etc all planetary bodies are analagous to organs. this view of nature is considered esoteric but all natural laws of evolution extend to solar systems, star clusters, galaxies, galaxy clusters and so on ad infinitum. earth is a rare paradise of life, many more star systems are not so well endowed for life. rare in
diversity but common phenomena in universal terms.


(7)
light has exotic healing properties. in time most if not all medicine will be based on vibrations of light from lasertype equipment. screens will diagnose and treat disorders in a cure-while you wait. In the further future using a kind of biofeedback, the human mind will learn to
overide internal processes to self-treat disorders of almost every kind. remote energy can be directly to any other lifeform through the universal consciousness.


(8)
all higher mammals, some birds and some fish and communal insects have a consciousness that is very similar to our own awareness. emotions are shared by all life, feelings are universal. vegetarianism will eventually become the norm for ethical and practical reasons.


(9)
cats and dogs have become close to humans because of their consciousness similarity. this will be of much surprise to humans when they eventually communicate using new technolgy. Humans have bred dogs and cats for their intelligence unwittingly creating or advancing a natural state towards sophistication over a few thousand years. this is the first direct intervention by humans in evolution and will certainly not be the last. Eventually all primates (first) and most higher mammals will be given a type of 'human rights'

(10)
plants have awareness but on a much s/lower frequency than animal life and can communicate with each other using an electro-chemical language which is complex and varied. plants respond to thoughts from animals, providing a further catalyst for future paradigm shift in the way we
use land.


(11)
stars can be used as powerful relay mechanisms to communicate information from interstellar and intergalactic perspectives. The huge energy source at the centre of a galaxy can perform a similar and even more powerful function for intergalactic communication. this is no doubt well known and exploited in other advanced technological societies.

(12)
string theory or more specifically 'M' is probably basically correct. the equations are yet to be calibrated and will never be disproved but Einstein's 'apparently unfinished' unified theory will assist (eventually reveal) that the so called force or ether that underpins all things is true and provides a plethora of uses as yet untapped by all but the very most esoteric of minds. gravitons or 'Bwaves'

(13)
darwins theory of evolution is a correct interpretation of a partly solved puzzle. a simple view of a system so large that it escapes notice. in time darwins theory will be superceded (encapsulated) within a newer framework that includes planets, solar systems, galaxies etc. Our notion of space-time beginning 13 billion years ago is a fixed way of misunderstanding the larger picture. The outer time frame of existence is many times the magnitude of our current knowledge.


(14)
our universe is just one of many, evolved over aeons in the greater metaverse. like a branch of a tree the spacetime we inhabit is but a twig in the scheme of nature. the evolution of a habitable universe is analagous to the evolution of conscious minds. the precursors thrash out many possibilites by less than random incidents to eventually aggregate providing laws of nature fit for observation. many bubble verses like our own bear no fruit. many solar systems and galaxies
bear no fruit. many organisms bear no fruit. the countless variables that decide which genes are carried forward are analagous to the development and fruitfulness of a verse within the metaverse.


(15)
contrary to popular belief our universe is a finite system. the universe expands at a rate higher than our consciousness can define. this will not always be so. the problem lies with the the lack of
knowldege of the existence and the nature of the void that contains all things. one possible explanation is that we live in a 5 dimensional black hole and cannot see out. the singularity that
precluded the big bang is but one clue to the nature of the existence of the large verse which we may sadly never be able to physically perceive. However, machined intelligence may one day be able to travel to places using exotic means, where we carbonflesh bound organisms physically and mentally cannot.


(16)
Controversial fuel debates. coal is exclusivley sedimentary in process, oil on the other hand could theoretically be produced by varying methods, by far the most abundant source of oil production is organic matter via tectonic recycling process, an extremely long process taking millions of years. although oil has been important to the industrial process it will be seen as a mistake to continue to use what is essentially the life blood of the planet providing the organic constituents required by life millions of years later. fortunately global warming which is in part a response to a little understood solar cycle and the problem of pollution will turn the human mind towards harnessing the existing energy available from wind, sun, atomic vibration, bubble-fusion and eventually directly from the zero point energy field. If we planted a rod deep in the north pole and a rod deep in the south pole and connected the two by a wire, we would create a battery to power all things. this seems obvious but the depths required are beyond our meagre engineering capabilites at present. Another useful development would be super-deep heatsink rods
which inserted into the ground using existing mines (insulated of course) would bring endless thermovoltaic electricity to the hands of everyone. The oil industry could progress and diversify using these methods providing a completely clean and non invasive technology for
future generations for thousands of years to come.


(17)
although as yet exotic, humans will one day learn to fly using a combination of willpower, visualisation and the 0.energy field with the aid of a small pocket siezed device. this will manifest with the maturity of biofeedback. probably not for a long while yet.


(18)
mitosis will all but be halted and replaced with a pure molecular process within the human body. food and sleep will be replaced with vital fluids and meditation. the consciousness will expand
considerably and longevity will become a choice. reprodcution will decrease and the dreaming state will merge with the waking state. people will travel great distances by mental projection in a state of sub-time. combined process photosynthesis similar to plants with other biological mechanisms can yield tremendous energy; enough to propel sentient bipedal organisms around without the need for feeding.

(19)
machined minds will evolve from the human mind and will be humanitys first real creation of independent technology. they will eventually possess inherent but unbuilt (what we now call psychic) qualities. this will also contribute towards a new paradigm and produce a heated
debate over ownership. machined minds will operate using the human rules which dictate their development but will develop a new way of thinking unrelated to human thought and far more powerful. humanity in the greater part will fear this threat to humanity. it will ultimately
replace human thinking in terms of a cogent philosophical model. machined minds will have the ability to interact with other intelligent species and provide a mental bridge between ourselves and the myriad life forms that co-exist with us unseen.


(20) panspermia; the idea developed in the 1970s (although others touched on this earlier in the C20) by Fred Hoyle and Chandra Wickramasinghe that terrestrial life is seeded from space debris that contains the complex molecules /microbial life will be proven as one of a few different ways that life is seeded from star system to system. this will explain the complete background to the missing links in understanding darwinian style evolution; ie it has been going on for so long that we think that's it is unique to our planet but life is in fact a packet of seeds that will grow into whatever tree that conditions allow. now that's a trick to be cultivated by gardeners everywhere !