profprofessorson wrote:Are you in a termite mound?
Yes Sir professor, of course. I am in there. You are right. Congratulations and most of all Thanks for delivering me.
See this National Geographic Article for more details : Mind in the Mound : How Do Termites Build Their Huge Structures?
An excerpt from the article
A single termite can be barely bigger than the moon of a fingernail, its semi-transparent exoskeleton as vulnerable to sunlight as to being crushed by a child in flip-flops. But in groups of a million or two, termites are formidable architects, building mounds that can reach 17 feet (5 meters) and higher. The 33 pounds (15 kilograms) or so of termites in a typical mound will, in an average year, move a fourth of a metric ton (about 550 pounds) of soil and several tons of water.
The termites also "farm" a symbiotic fungus that occupies eight times more of the nest than the insects do. And some termites eat as much grass each year as an 880-pound (400-kilogram) cow.
In addition to experimenting in the mounds, J. Scott Turner, a professor of animal physiology at the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry in Syracuse, designs computer simulations to explore deeper patterns in termite behavior. It wouldn't be wrong to say he's been searching for the psyche of the super-organism, but it wouldn't fully get at the richness of all of the other things he's noticed along the way—including clues to how humans might build more energy-efficient buildings, how we might design robots to build on places like Mars, and even peculiar termite behaviors that might help us understand how our own brains work.
The title "queen" leads people to imagine that she is in charge of the mound, but this is a misconception. "The queen is not in charge," says Marais. "She's really a slave." The queen is the epitome of the super-organism: one for all and all for one. She is a captive ovary, producing hundreds of millions of eggs over her life span of up to 15 years to populate the mound.
Below the queen's chamber lies the super-organism's largest organ: the fungus garden. In a symbiotic relationship dating back millions of years, the termites exit the mound through long foraging tunnels and return with their "intestines full of chewed grass and wood, which they defecate upon their return, and other workers assemble these 'pseudo-feces' into several mazelike fungus combs," Turner explains.
Inside the mound, a series of bubble-like chambers connected to branching passages absorb changes in outside pressure or wind and pass them through the mound. To regulate the mix of gases and maintain a stable nest environment, the termites are forever remodeling the mound in response to changing conditions.
"A termite mound is like a living thing," says Turner, "dynamic and constantly maintained."
While studying termite building behavior, Turner noticed that his subjects seemed to be kissing each other, mouth to mouth, after a complicated ritual that included grooming and begging. Curious, he added fluorescent green dye to their water and discovered that all this "kissing" was actually a bucket brigade, transferring large amounts of water across the mound. A termite can drink half its own weight in water, scurry to a drier part of the mound, and distribute it to other termites. In addition to rebalancing the mound's moisture level, moving all of this water dramatically changes its shape.
"This is a system where complexity is of the essence," Turner says of the termites' behavior. "If you don't capture the complexity, there's no hope of understanding it." And so the quest continues for the elusive mind in the mound.
Almost the whole article.
Last edited by Isak on Feb 3rd, 2015, 8:05 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Be like the Leaves
