Tool

A tool is an object that can extend an individual's ability to modify features of the surrounding environment or help them accomplish a particular task.

Early human tools, made of such materials as stone, bone, and wood, were used for the preparation of food, hunting, the manufacture of weapons, and the working of materials to produce clothing and useful artifacts and crafts such as pottery, along with the construction of housing, businesses, infrastructure, and transportation.

[1] This has been modified to:The external employment of an unattached or manipulable attached environmental object to alter more efficiently the form, position, or condition of another object, another organism, or the user itself, when the user holds and directly manipulates the tool during or prior to use and is responsible for the proper and effective orientation of the tool.

[8] However, a 2010 study suggests the hominin species Australopithecus afarensis ate meat by carving animal carcasses with stone implements.

This finding pushes back the earliest known use of stone tools among hominins to about 3.4 million years ago.

Based on marks on the bones at archaeological sites, it is now more evident that pre-humans were scavenging off of other predators' carcasses rather than killing their own food.

Many tools were made in prehistory or in the early centuries of recorded history, but archaeological evidence can provide dates of development and use.

[13][14][15]Several of the six classic simple machines (wheel and axle, lever, pulley, inclined plane, wedge, and screw) were invented in Mesopotamia.

[21] The Assyrian King Sennacherib (704–681 BC) claims to have invented automatic sluices and to have been the first to use water screw pumps, of up to 30 tons weight, which were cast using two-part clay molds rather than by the 'lost wax' process.

Wooden components had the disadvantage of changing dimensions with temperature and humidity, and the various joints tended to rack (work loose) over time.

[28][29] Other important uses of metal parts were in firearms and threaded fasteners, such as machine screws, bolts, and nuts.

Personal protective equipment includes such items as gloves, safety glasses, ear defenders and biohazard suits.

Substitution is "makeshift" when human ingenuity comes into play and a tool is used for an unintended purpose, such as using a long screwdriver to separate a cars control arm from a ball joint, instead of using a tuning fork.

[42] Originally thought to be a skill possessed only by humans, some tool use requires a sophisticated level of cognition.

[42][44] Observation has confirmed that a number of species can use tools including monkeys, apes, elephants, several birds, and sea otters.

Chimpanzees have often been the object of study in regard to their usage of tools, most famously by Jane Goodall; these animals are closely related to humans.

[43] Many famous researchers, such as Charles Darwin in his book The Descent of Man, mentioned tool-use in monkeys (such as baboons).

Sea otters will use rocks or other hard objects to dislodge food (such as abalone) and break open shellfish.

Many or most mammals of the order Carnivora have been observed using tools, often to trap or break open the shells of prey, as well as for scratching.

Some birds take advantage of human activity, such as carrion crows in Japan, which drop nuts in front of cars to crack them open.

[42][44][46] Several species of fish use tools to hunt and crack open shellfish, extract food that is out of reach, or clear an area for nesting.

[47] Similarly, a decision-making process "developed to help women and their partners make confident and informed decisions when planning where to give birth" is described as a "Birth Choice tool":The tool encourages women to consider out-of-hospital settings where appropriate,[48] and the idea of a "toolkit" is used by the International Labour Organization to describe a set of processes applicable to improving global labour relations.

It is in the domain of media and communications technology that a counter-intuitive aspect of our relationships with our tools first began to gain popular recognition.