How many technological advances have happened since the last brood of cicadas emerged seventeen years ago?

It’s strange how the Internet, this large 800 pound gorilla, somehow just sat down in our living rooms, our basements, our offices, without most of us even realizing it was making itself at home. It was gradual enough that it all seemed rather natural.

Now we take it for granted, and we communicate on a daily basis with people (many of whom we have never met), and possibly even post our stray thoughts for strangers to read.

I did a search on Usenet for the earliest post discussing cicadas and dug up one from 1990 in the alt.horror group:

Ecology of Alien(s)

What will the world be like the next time the cicadas emerge?

Despite being absent from my blog for a week or so, cicadas are still very much a part of our lives.

The main thing we’re experiencing now is the extreme volume of the male cicadas, who are generating noises in order to attract females.

The sound is not deafening everywhere, but can get quite loud when you’re under a tree that’s particularly thick with them. The cicadas are generally only making noise during the day — it’s quiet at night (perhaps a little too quiet?)

Even when you’re not very near a tree full of cicadas, there is a kind of eerie background noise in Brookfield, similar to the sound of the alien ships in the 1953 War of the Worlds. According to its trivia page, the spaceship noises in the movie were actually created by backwards electric guitars (maybe cicadas playing backwards electric guitars?).

I saw some news reports on the teevee last night which indicated parts of Chicago and its outlying suburbs are finally starting to see cicadas emerging.

You may want to consider checking out some online maps devoted to showing cicada hotspots.

Chicago Tribune map

Lake County Forest Preserves map

Unfortunately, these maps are reporting just on stuff entered by people online.

What would be really cool is if cicadas excreted some unique set of chemicals that could then be sensed by some satellite and then there could be detailed, accurate maps of the bugs, and, and, and, and we could all be wearing hoverpacks, flying over the cicada parks and then, and then cicadas would launch at you but you’d have your anti-bug laser pistol handy and…. oh well.

Apologies to the cicada-challenged people reading this.

There was a rumor going around that people could bring in 1 pound of cicadas to the Brookfield Zoo and receive five(!) bucks.

Sadly, I have confirmed with someone at the zoo that this is not the case. They are not paying for cicadas, nor are they even taking them from an eager bug-toting public.

However, there is a grain of buggy truth in the rumor. Many zoo animals are eating the cicadas.

Hey, it even made the national news!