[HN Gopher] A 'double brood' of periodical cicadas will emerge i...
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A 'double brood' of periodical cicadas will emerge in 2024
Author : Brajeshwar
Score : 94 points
Date : 2024-03-11 16:32 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.scientificamerican.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.scientificamerican.com)
| neonate wrote:
| https://archive.md/49C5h
| rblatz wrote:
| I went through one of these in Ohio in the early 2000s. It was
| intense, there were huge dense clouds of cicadas flying around.
| It was extremely loud, and my windshield was a complete mess.
|
| It really did feel like a biblical plague of locusts.
| the_sleaze9 wrote:
| I was just a kid just outside of the DC metro area in the
| country. I remember my dad and I had to stop the car on the
| side of the highway because the air was so dense with cicadas
| and the wipers weren't up to the task.
|
| The noise when getting out and standing in that cloud was
| difficult to describe. It was so loud, all blended together and
| harmonized into this weird tone that you felt almost like a
| colored liquid. Completely surreal.
|
| One of my favorite memories with my dad, looking back.
| plasma_beam wrote:
| The massive DC/MD/VA ones are the 17 year Brood X and came
| out in 2021.
| ahi wrote:
| I was in DC in 2004 and it was incredible. The sidewalks
| were like a crunchy carpet. At times they drowned out rush
| hour traffic.
| hedgehog wrote:
| I remember the telephone poles being covered and the
| crunching sound while driving slowly on a residential
| street.
| CatWChainsaw wrote:
| The 2004 brood was far more memorable than the 2021
| brood. 2004 was like you said. In 2021 there was only one
| place in my neighborhood where that level of noise
| happened.
| chankstein38 wrote:
| While I don't know that I've ever experienced a double brood,
| I've experienced plenty of cicada hatches in my life and this
| is probably the best way to describe the auditory experience
| that I've seen! I never know how to describe it to people who
| haven't been in it but that's a great way. It feels like
| you're almost swimming in the sound it's so intense. I once
| was driving along a highway during a brood and thought
| something was wrong with my car because of this awful sound
| that had just started, stopped at a rest stop, and was
| instantly immersed in cicada sound. It was wild!
| JonathonW wrote:
| I was in Nashville for the last Brood XIX emergence (2011)--
| where they actually emerge is pretty patchy, but they were
| pretty dense around my office building, to the point where you
| couldn't walk down the sidewalk without stepping on cicadas or
| cicada shells with almost every step. Went to an area
| renaissance fair that same month, and they were just about
| deafening in the forest around the site (thankfully weren't
| swarming too badly where people were, at least).
|
| I'm not looking forward to this May. Not sure what to expect at
| home this time around (still in Nashville, but a different part
| of town)-- hopefully they're not too bad, but I suspect my
| noise-cancelling headphones will be getting a workout while
| they're out.
| tithe wrote:
| Was there a clean-up effort afterwards around town?
|
| At least snow melts and evaporates, but dead bugs all over
| the streets?
| jdblair wrote:
| 13 and 17 year cycles would mean these broods emerge at the same
| time only every 221 years! Thomas Jefferson was president the
| last time this happened.
| pkulak wrote:
| I wonder if two prime numbers evolved as a way to make this as
| rare as possible.
| d--b wrote:
| There is a ton of literature about cicadas and prime numbers.
| Experts definitely lean towards the primes emerging from
| natural selection indeed.
| chowells wrote:
| Yes. Prime numbers come up in nature in a lot of cases when
| cyclic things evolve to minimize coincidence.
| airstrike wrote:
| Sounds like a great time to buy sesame seed futures
| xyst wrote:
| Okay, Peter Gregory. Now can I get the bridge loan to keep my
| company running
| arsenykostenko wrote:
| I came here looking for this comment)
| Workaccount2 wrote:
| Stuff like this is always priced in. Often it's over priced in
| and there is a counter move to correct for the over correction.
|
| To put it another way, event specific trading is just gambling.
|
| I know this is a tongue in cheek comment you are making, but my
| frustrations can't help but explode when I am reminded of the
| fact that I have lost sizeable amounts of money despite having
| the correct hypothesizes in the past.
| seuraughty wrote:
| Could you talk more about correct hypotheses resulting in
| loss in trading? I feel like I've called a couple things
| correctly and sometimes think of getting into trading to
| capitalize on such predictions. But I don't want to cause you
| any frustration, so no worries if you'd rather not get into
| it :-)
| filoleg wrote:
| > Could you talk more about correct hypotheses resulting in
| loss in trading?
|
| Not the person you are asking, but I can answer this.
|
| You can have a correct hypothesis, but still fail if enough
| market participants had the exact same hypothesis that they
| acted on. Because it would lead to the effects of that
| hypothesis being priced-in.
|
| Made up example: you have a hypothesis that a seemingly
| unrelated event A will lead to a price increase in sesame
| seed futures, so you decided to purchase them (expecting
| them to go in price due to event A, so that you can sell it
| later at a profit).
|
| The issue you might encounter is that many other market
| participants recognized the potential effects of event A,
| so when you buy those sesame seed futures, that potential
| profit from event A is already priced-in (due to others
| recognizing it and trading accordingly, thus increasing the
| price of the futures by the time you buy it, which means
| that the future gain you expect on those futures has
| already happened), so you won't make any gains from that.
|
| As a bonus, if that event A doesn't manage to factually
| affect sesame futures once it happens, or it won't happen
| at all, you can expect the priced-in portion of the
| futures' value pretty much vaporize. Which makes it really
| lucrative to trade against priced-in events, but it is also
| risky.
|
| You might ask "but wouldn't that mean that almost
| everything is priced-in", and the answer is "kinda yes",
| which is where the origin of the "everything is priced-in"
| meme comes from (note: it isn't really true, but it is also
| really kinda is true).
| em-bee wrote:
| so you when many people have the same idea you only win
| if you are the first. couldn't you check that by looking
| at the price development up to now?
| filoleg wrote:
| > so you when many people have the same idea you only win
| if you are the first
|
| Not necessarily. Being "priced-in" is not a binary event,
| it can be more or less priced-in. You can still make good
| profit even if you weren't one of the first people, you
| will just make less than the first people, and that's ok.
|
| > couldn't you check that by looking at the price
| development up to now?
|
| This ties into my statement above. You can look at the
| price development, but it won't tell you "how much it is
| priced-in" at the moment. It could be fully priced-in
| with no more left to go. It could also become less priced
| in (aka more room for you to make profits), as new
| developments outside of the market occur (e.g., the
| certainty around event A occurring and affecting sesame
| seed futures gets increased due to some recently
| published study).
|
| Price developments also don't tell you much, as it is a
| blackbox. Movements could be occurring due to it being
| relevant to your hypothesis, they could be occurring due
| to some meta moves (e.g., fed interest rates changing or
| fed unemployment rates being published), or due to
| something entirely unrelated whatsoever. It could be just
| some noise, or it could be something relevant to your
| hypothesis. In case it is relevant to your hypothesis, it
| could be that the market reacts fine, but it could also
| be the case that the market ignores it for a while or
| overreacts to it.
|
| Markets aren't a solved problem, and there are no hard
| and fast rulesets on how to trade successfully. Just make
| sure you are constantly reassessing your risk profile
| while utilizing as many relevant variables (which could
| affect it), and you will be less likely to make terribly
| naive trades.
|
| That also means, sometimes, not listening to what the
| prevailing majority (or vocal minority, depends on how
| you look at it) says. A lot of mainstream reporting on
| finance these days is not much better than mainstream
| reporting/"journalism" in general, with the stories based
| off a few cherry-picked numbers or a couple of tweets.
| That isn't to say there is some conspiracy or intentional
| malicious play happening, there isn't (on any meaningful
| scale that would actually matter). It's just the usual
| quick-and-fast profit-chasing reporting with the lowest
| common denominator writing quality. Luckily, when it
| comes to finance, all the factual happenings have to be
| disclosed in quarterly earnings reports, so following the
| source material is very easily doable and helpful (which
| isn't the case for a lot of contexts outside of finance,
| sadly).
|
| Case in point: when Meta stock died heavily a couple of
| years ago during the whole metaverse hype, I remember
| thinking that the metaverse bet by Zuck was a bit too
| optimistic and forward-thinking (i legitimately think it
| was just too early for its time, given the current state
| of tech and internet coupled with Zuck's optimism). I was
| certain that the market overreacted massively, and I also
| remembered that every time Zuck was clowned for his
| controversial strategic decisions before, he would always
| have the last laugh (just check all the news articles
| related to Instagram and WhatsApp acquisitions, or
| articles about IG copying Snap Stories feature). Coupled
| with strong earnings reports and forward-looking guidance
| presented during those, I was certain that betting on
| Meta would be a big payoff. The market had priced-in
| failure for Meta already, and the possibility of the Meta
| doomer hypothesis being wrong seemed very likely to me.
| So I bet big on Meta around that time.
|
| Sure, for the first year of that, I was losing money (I
| bought-in after Meta went down to slightly below
| $200/share) as the meta tanked down to $100. But I held,
| as I was certain of this just being an overreaction, and
| it paid off. Would it have been much better if I waited
| until Meta went down to $100/share before I bought in?
| Sure, but I can't time the markets perfectly, and I am
| more than ok with the outcomes I got. Remember that
| perfect is the enemy of good.
| echelon wrote:
| > Stuff like this is always priced in.
|
| But sometimes you truly are the first to know or think about
| something. Maybe not in this instance, but probably others.
| Especially if you read a lot of diverse information on many
| topics.
|
| Sometimes you just have to be ahead of the mean, too.
|
| I made good money on WFH, GPUs, shipping, oil, and energy by
| being just a little bit ahead of everyone else.
| Workaccount2 wrote:
| Right, there is a meta-game at work where you also need to
| know how many other people are betting on your hypothesis.
| Sometimes this is somewhat clear, but generally it's
| impossible to know because of the countless variables that
| would need to be accounted for.
| kulahan wrote:
| Biggest loss for me was reading about Nikola's "HTML
| SUPERCOMPUTER" driving their trucks. The easiest short I
| ever could've taken part in. So obvious. So painful. I
| discovered it as the story broke, but MAN, if I'd read that
| just a few weeks earlier...
| em-bee wrote:
| i believe all stock and futures trading, and any investment
| done on speculation is essentially gambling. even real estate
| investment can be considered gambling.
| hehhehaha wrote:
| This reminds me of the legendary wall street bets guy who bet
| on gourd futures
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/wallstreetbets/comments/kzoh1c/i_am.
| ..
| bagels wrote:
| Do you think it was a true story?
| pkulak wrote:
| Has to be a creative retelling of a Simpsons episode.
| lukeinator42 wrote:
| and then feast on some BK
| dghughes wrote:
| The cicadas use prime numbers as their emergence period time I
| thought they mention it in the article. I think that fact is the
| most fascinating part.
|
| >2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19, 23, 29, 31, ... and so on
| knowaveragejoe wrote:
| I recall that this has something to do with the ebb and flow of
| their predator's populations, over the eons it has aligned with
| periods of declining predator population.
| dylan604 wrote:
| There are youtube videos that talk about this. Using 2,5,7
| while being prime, just didn't offer enough separation to offer
| the best protection from predators. A smaller prime number
| allows the possibility that a predator could be around for more
| than one emergence. Evolutionary pressures found a balance at
| the 13/17 year gaps to mimimize that from occurring.
| madcaptenor wrote:
| I've also heard - but don't remember why - that there's some
| reason why primes of form 4n+1 would be preferred to primes
| of form 4n-1, which is why you don't see 11-year or 19-year
| cicadas.
| dylan604 wrote:
| After further thinking back on this, it wasn't just
| survival from predators. It also had to do with the sharing
| of resources with different broods. At 13/17 combos, the
| overlap seems to balance out that each brood has the
| resources to continue with low risk of sharing. Every
| couple hundred years seems to be far enough that the
| species is not at risk of competition ending one of the
| broods.
| LgWoodenBadger wrote:
| What does it matter whether their cycles are primes when their
| predators all have cycles of 1?
| weberer wrote:
| It becomes a problem if broods emerge two years in a row.
| Then the predator population would not have enough time to
| die down before the second emergence.
| zem wrote:
| if predators breed annually, that means that one year is the
| clock-tick, not the cycle. as a very simplified example,
| let's say there is some fixed availability of prey. so if
| there are a ton of predators born and/or come to maturity in
| one year, they will exhaust the food supply, spend their time
| and energy fighting for food or starving, and have a
| population crash next year. the reduced population that year
| will have a glut of food and a surplus of time and energy for
| breeding, leading to a boom the year after that, for a two-
| year cycle with a one-year tick.
| data-ottawa wrote:
| Stuff like this is so cool.
|
| The golden ratio is really neat too, it works out to the
| longest period between overlaps for leaves and petals, which
| maximizes energy per cost.
|
| An interesting aspect of that is that phi =1+1/phi, which if
| you expand that fraction it becomes 1+1/(1+1/(1+1/(...))), so
| it's actually the irrational number least approximatable by
| rationals. All repeating rotations are rational ratios, and so
| phi, being the least appriximable gives the angle with the
| least overlap for leaves over any number of leaves.
| lupire wrote:
| I hadn't realized that there were different broods with different
| phases of the same period. I wonder if thats convergent
| evolution, or if it's due to "errors" when a few individuals
| randomly over/undersleep and then breed in the "wrong" year,
| growing a new brood.
| mithras wrote:
| They need a critical mass to satiate their predators, otherwise
| all will get eaten before they can mate.
| saalweachter wrote:
| Could it also maybe be related to interactions between 13 & 17
| year cicadas?
|
| https://cicadas.uconn.edu/#Hybrids says that hybrid 13/17
| cicadas would either have a 13- or 17-year-cycle, but hints
| that the subsequent generation may be interesting.
|
| The obvious outcome would be that the grand-children of a 13/17
| year hybrid might re-hybridize back from 17 -> 13, or 13 -> 17.
|
| If enough of the grandchildren stabilize on their new cycle,
| you'd end up with a 13 year brood 4 years later than the
| original 13 year brood, and a 17 year brood 4 years earlier
| than the original 17 year brood.
| jihadjihad wrote:
| > And female cicadas also damage trees directly by slicing into
| twigs to lay their eggs. Although these two types of damage
| rarely kill trees, the effect is enough to reset the clocks of
| trees such as oaks, which typically undergo "mast years" in which
| they produce large batches of acorns every few years in
| synchrony. After accumulating damage during a cicada emergence,
| these trees produce lean harvests for two autumns in a row and
| then a feastlike burst of nuts two-and-a-half years after a
| cicada emergence, Lill says.
|
| That's wild.
| kulahan wrote:
| Those mast years, as I understand it, are tied to passenger
| pigeons - another species that existed in the billions. When
| sleeping in trees, they'd stack up 3-4 high just to have enough
| room. Pretty funny bird.
| jaybna wrote:
| Also, African and European swallows...
| CatWChainsaw wrote:
| This was an engaging read about a researcher trying to breed
| passenger pigeons back into existence.
|
| https://sammatey.substack.com/p/repost-the-weekly-
| anthropoce...
| dugmartin wrote:
| You can tell the mast vs non-mast years here in Western
| Massachusetts (USA) by the appearances of bears in town. In
| good mast years you don't see any. In bad ones you can wake up
| with your compost bin destroyed as the bears get hungry and
| come down out of the hills.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| My understanding was that the main theory behind "Mast years"
| of trees was that it is an evolutionary adaptation to overwhelm
| squirrels and such so that some acorns are not eaten, and
| survive to grow into trees.
|
| Are they claiming that female cicadas are the direct cause of
| mast years? Different cicada broods have different patterns, do
| we see different mast year patterns in trees that correlate to
| the local cicada patterns?
| jihadjihad wrote:
| > My understanding was that the main theory behind "Mast
| years" of trees was that it is an evolutionary adaptation to
| overwhelm squirrels and such so that some acorns are not
| eaten, and survive to grow into trees.
|
| That was my understanding as well.
|
| > Are they claiming that female cicadas are the direct cause
| of mast years?
|
| I don't think so--at least, I took it to mean that the
| typical 2-5 year period between mast years could be thrown
| off due to an active cicada year, which itself is interesting
| and not something I'd ever heard before.
|
| > do we see different mast year patterns in trees that
| correlate to the local cicada patterns?
|
| It would be a great area of research! I've got a big bur oak
| in my back yard, I might start a log...haha.
| Scarblac wrote:
| No, we here in the Netherlands have mast years too and we
| don't have any cicadas.
|
| The claim is that they change the mast year pattern for a few
| years after they emerge.
|
| Interestingly, I think the theory behind the periodical life
| cycle of the cicadas is the same as the one behind mast years
| -- there are no predators who have evolved to only be around
| every 13th year, so the number of predators around will be
| the same as in non-cicada years. Giving the huge amounts of
| cicadas in this year a good chance of survival.
| imzadi wrote:
| I moved to Oklahoma for a few years in the early aughts, after
| growing up on the west coast. The first time heard cicadas I
| thought there was a rattlesnake about to get me. The first time I
| saw a cicada it freaked me out completely. I thought it was some
| kind of weird giant bee.
| wellthisisgreat wrote:
| Hey what's a recommendation for someone who wants to witness
| the emergence in its full glory?
|
| Just drive through those states would be enough? Or should I go
| off route somewhat and aim from some idk lake or river bank or
| jodacola wrote:
| I had a similar experience moving from the Bay Area to Kansas
| in the 2010s. I landed in the KC metro just in time for the
| most recent local emergence.
|
| I was amazed at what was such a foreign experience. There were
| so many cicadas flying about that I had them landing on me and
| hanging on while I mowed my half-acre lawn. Free loaders!
|
| Joking aside, the sound was deafening but strangely comforting
| after I got used to it. My dogs also think cicadas are fun-to-
| chase snacks, as we still have some emerge every year, just
| nowhere near the volume during of a brood emergence.
|
| To the sibling poster wondering about how to experience them:
| my experience is they're impossible to miss during a brood
| emergence, even in a metro area like Kansas City. Driving
| through... you'll definitely hit them with your car! But just
| stopping at a local park to see them all hanging and flying
| around trees will net a pretty solid experience, too.
| dekhn wrote:
| Nothing says summer on the east coast to me like the drone of
| cicadas on a really hot day. The numbers for Brood II which seems
| to dominate the area doesn't quite match up with my memories of
| the loudest cicadas. It's a weird sound, sort of a collective
| between many different cicadas which aren't quite all in the same
| phase.
| golergka wrote:
| Is that the one from the Silicon Valley episode with Burger King?
| barbatoast wrote:
| I wonder if cicadas will react to the total solar eclipse in
| April
| saalweachter wrote:
| It's _probably_ too early -- looks like cicadas need 64 degree
| soil to emerge, which the internet says is more of a late April
| /May thing. It's been a warm year, but it's probably too much
| to hope to see cicadas if you travel to the appropriate area
| for the eclipse.
| neilv wrote:
| https://www.boringcompany.com/not-a-flamethrower
| sophacles wrote:
| Fun fact - cicadas are edible and reportedly delicious. Whenever
| big broods emerge you see restaurants serving various dishes -
| popcorn cicadas (deep fried), chocalate covered, etc etc.
|
| I'm trying to work up the courage to give it a try this time
| around.
| coldpie wrote:
| Do it! I've eaten lightly fried crickets a few times. Tasted
| somewhere between slightly stale popcorn and walnuts. Not
| unpleasant at all, and I feel like they could be quite good if
| cooked fresh instead of pre-packaged. I'd definitely try
| cicada.
| h2odragon wrote:
| My hounds and other critters always enjoy cicada years. Cat
| find them amusing toys.
| kibwen wrote:
| Weird, but, honestly, no more weird than eating lobster, crab,
| and shrimp.
| bilsbie wrote:
| It seems like every year there's some breathless report on
| cicadas.
| luckydata wrote:
| Rip Peter Gregory
| 6c696e7578 wrote:
| https://archive.is/49C5h
| 1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote:
| Text-only, works where archive.md and archive.is are blocked:
| x=https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/a-double-brood-of-
| periodical-cicadas-will-emerge-in-2024/ wget -U ""
| -qO/dev/stdout $x \ grep -Eo "<p class=\"article__block-
| KZIY9.+</p>" \ |sed 's/Follow Us:.*//' > 1.htm
| firefox ./1.htm
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