On the east coast, we're bracing for the howling emergence of a massive brood of 17-year cicadas in a couple weeks. Here's a nice piece in the Washington Post about the evolution of this strange life history.
More like this
tags: insects, cicada, streaming video
In case you haven't heard yet, the cicadas are coming this year. In the next few months you will be hearing about the impending emergence of the 17 year cicada, mistakenly called 17 year locusts. If you don't remember the last outbreak, or if you are new to…
tags: cicada, 17-year cicada, Magicicada
"Cicada"
Image: Wikipedia.
After seventeen years underground, immature cicadas are now emerging as full-fledged adults, ready to breed. Adult cicadas live, feed, and breed above ground for approximately two to six weeks before they die. The dark-colored…
After 17 years of patiently waiting underground, Brood X has begun to emerge with a vengeance, eager to populate our planet with their infernal buzzing (we actually like it). It may sound like the plot for War of the Worlds, but it is actually much more benign and very real. This spring and summer…
Unprecedented Data On Circadian Rhythms Revealed:
Fluctuations in light intensity allow restoring the regularity of circadian rhythms. This is the main conclusion of the work carried out by Javier Buceta, group leader of The.Si.M.Bio.Sys. Group(Theoretical and In Silico Modelling of Biological…
Although that is a very interesting article, it should be noted that the prime number issue is fairly unresolved. While Cox & Carlton argue for a hybridization (or, rather, lack of) answer, Lloyd & Dybas favored a parasitoid viewpoint, while Gould wrote about peroidicity in the cicada's predators. Later math work (http://aimsciences.org/journals/dcdsB/Volume1-3/Webb.pdf) supports Gould's claim. Not, of course, that any of these things are mutually exclusive.