In 250 million years of insect evolution, the appearance of new wings is unprecedented. Transformations and losses of wings, yes, but additions, never. A research team in France has shattered this belief by providing proof that the exuberant helmet of Membracidae, a group of insects related to cicadas, is in fact a third pair of profoundly modified wings. **What's the News:** In another glorious reminder of how weird nature really is, it's time to get ready for the swarm: This May, after spending 13 years underground, huge populations of cicadas will emerge in the southern U.S. to molt, sing their riotous mating tunes, and breed. It's a brief coda to their long adolescence in burrows 30 cm beneath the soil--by July, they will be dead, and their children will be beginning their years of exile from the surface. **What's the Context: ** While there are plenty of cicada species that send a generation to the surface every year, cyclical cicadas (of the genus _Magicicada_) come out en masse after 13 or 17 years. Scientists believe that this strategy evolved as a way to overwhelm predators--when there are so many cicadas around at one time, a good many of them will probably survive. Cyclical cicadas live in tribes called broods that occupy certain geographic areas (see map)--the brood that's swarming this year, called brood XIX or the Great Southern Brood. It was last seen in 1998. (Go ahead, check the math.) Scientists have puzzled for decades over the fact that some ... The humble vibrato of summer will crescendo a bit earlier this year in the U.S. South. Billions of cyclical cicadas will be out in full force starting this May, following a 13-year lull. [More] They've been developing underground for 13 years, and now billions of Brood 19 cicadas are set to emerge with a bang, or a buzz in states including Georgia, South Carolina and Oklahoma. _American Entomologist_ Editor-in-Chief Gene Kritsky lays out what we can expect with host Linda Wertheimer. bpeh123 pointed out an article about generating organically tiled backgrounds inspired by the life cycle of cicadas. The trick is to overlay multiple background tiles with prime widths thus generating a series that does not repeat for a sufficiently long period. This introduces a seeming irregularity and makes the background appear much more natural. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Key Words: cicadas
References:
http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/~3/Gs30d2zmEXA/110506164319.htm
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/80beats/~3/WBn-s4qDsHM/
http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=buzzing-13-year-periodic-cicadas-em-2011-05-04
http://www.npr.org/2011/04/30/135867081/brood-19-cicadas-poised-to-swarm-the-south?ft=1&f=1007
http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/APjK8JzluWc/Using-Prime-Numbers-to-Generate-Backgrounds
http://pixelhat.net/
