Not that I’m shocked or anything like that, but apparently Alyssa Campanella, our new Miss USA, is a huge science geek, and she believes in evolution!
More responses on whether evolution should be taught in school from the contestants:
Via ThinkProgress
Images via cotinis and myriorama on Flickr (their images can be found here, here, and here (depicting an emerging cicada that will later darken)). The map, depecting Brood XIX’s range, is via the University of Michigan Museum of Zoology.
The thirteen-year cicadas have emerged, and some areas of the South are being inundated with the droning roar that’s being produced by tens of thousands of male thirteen-year cicadas, which are in pursuit of a mate. The sound might be annoying to some ears, but I believe it’s a fascinating sound that’s produced by an unusual event that only occurs five or six times during the average American’s lifespan.
When I first heard the constant droning noise emanating from the forests surrounding my sister’s home, it sounded as if it was from some large drilling operation, but I later learned that the noise was originating from thirteen-year cicadas, which hadn’t appeared since 1998. They’ll return again in 2024. By that time, I’ll be celebrating my 48th birthday. Sheesh!
Anyhow, there are also seventeen-year cicadas, but they’re “found largely in the Northeast and Midwest.” There are also cicadas that emerge yearly, and they’re appropriately called annual cicadas. The periodical cicadas can be distinguished from the annual cicadas by their “bright red eyes.’” This brood of thirteen-year cicadas is known as the “Great Southern Brood” or “Brood XIX.” Wikipedia has more information on brood numbering:
Periodical cicadas are grouped into 30 broods, based on the year they emerge. Broods are numbered using Roman numerals; broods I–XVII are the seventeen-year cicadas, while Broods XVIII–XXX are the thirteen-year cicadas. Some broods are known not to exist, but they are retained in the numbering scheme for convenience. This scheme was put forth by C.L. Marlatt in his classic study of 1907. Since then the actual number of broods has been recognized as 15 rather than 30.[5]
More via Reuters:
The cicadas are not dormant during their long life underground. “They are actively growing,” Hinkle said. “The little nymphs are down in the ground, they’ve got their mouth parts attached to tree roots and they’re sucking the juice out of tree roots.”
Mysteriously, when year 13 arrives, the nymphs burrow through the soil to the surface to become adults. They shed a layer of skin, leaving a shell behind. Then they inflate and dry their wings, allowing them to fly.
The roar begins as males attract females by furiously vibrating membranes in their abdomens, producing a loud drone.
“It is one of nature’s great oddities,” said Seabrook.
There are several theories behind the cicadas’ strange and lengthy life cycle.
One is that it is nature’s “shock and awe” approach to produce an overwhelming number of cicadas at one time so that predators can’t possibly eat them all.
Many animals love to munch on cicadas, including turkeys, raccoons, skunks and coyotes.
. . .
But the fun, the feast and the noise will soon be over. After mating, females lay eggs on tree branches and, within a week or two, most of the adults die or get eaten. Little cicadas hatch, fall to the ground and burrow into the soil.
“We won’t see them again until 2024,” said Hinkle.
Continue reading this article at Reuters.
The thirteen-year cicada, yet another reason to conserve nature.
Video: Cicadas: the familiar sound of summer
Video: After 13-Year Wait, Major ‘Mating Party’ To Begin
Video: 2011 TENNESSEE CICADAS: The Emergence of Brood XIX
Video: Amazing Cicada life cycle – Sir David Attenborough’s Life in the Undergrowth – BBC wildlife
Video: 6-Story Wall of Cicadas
On the Net:
In the video below, a cuttlefish tackles a color pattern that never occurs in nature — black and white stripes. Despite the challenge posed by the artificial background, the cuttlefish works hard to do its best to match the black-and-white striped background.
Cuttlefish readily change their color and shape to evade predation. However, although cuttlefish are apparently colorblind, they have the ability to blend into their aquatic environment on a whim. It’s unknown how cuttlefish achieve colorblind camouflage. Perhaps the cuttlefish can perceive color through some unknown mechanism.
Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 are about to pierce the heleosphere, which protects our solar system from cosmic radiation, and enter interstellar space. The probes have already collected a wealth of data about our solar system, and they’re now collecting data about the edge of our solar system and soon, they’ll collect data about what lies beyond our solar system.
In addition to collecting information about our solar system and what lies beyond, each probe also contains a special record that contains information about our planet and humanity. Via NASA:
Each probe is famously equipped with a Golden Record, literally, a gold-coated copper phonograph record. It contains 118 photographs of Earth; 90 minutes of the world’s greatest music; an audio essay entitled Sounds of Earth (featuring everything from burbling mud pots to barking dogs to a roaring Saturn 5 liftoff); greetings in 55 human languages and one whale language; the brain waves of a young woman in love; and salutations from the Secretary General of the United Nations. A team led by Carl Sagan assembled the record as a message to possible extraterrestrial civilizations that might encounter the spacecraft.
“A billion years from now, when everything on Earth we’ve ever made has crumbled into dust, when the continents have changed beyond recognition and our species is unimaginably altered or extinct, the Voyager record will speak for us,” wrote Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan in an introduction to a CD version of the record.
This Japanese town was obliterated within minutes of the tsunami:
Via VideoSift
This video was taken from the Aceh province of Indonesia, which is located on the island of Sumatra:
Via YouTube
Since the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami, the people of Aceh have rebuilt their homes:
Via YouTube
On the Net:
