Cicada ManiaThe Brood X: Year of the Cicada movie is playing noon Monday (3/20) in the Charles Sumner Museum and Archives, 1201 17th St, N.W., Washington, D.C. (the address has been updated).
A story about the movie in the Gazette.net (thanks Dan Threadwell).
Another article in the Washington Post (thanks Roy Troutman).
The movie features about 15 minutes of Roy Troutman’s cicada footage.
If someone gets to see it, let us know.
DARPA is soliciting research proposals for creating cyborg insects, which would presumably be used for military and paramilitary applications. I’m not sure whether I should be excited or terrified. Imagine armies of cicada cyborgs spying on enemies with tiny cameras and deafening enemy troops with robotically-enhanced screeching power. (story found on BoingBoing.)
From this page on the Darpa site:
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is soliciting research proposals in the area of Hybrid Insect MEMS. Proposed research should investigate innovative approaches that enable revolutionary advances in science, devices or systems. Specifically excluded is research, which primarily results in evolutionary improvement upon existing state-of-the-art.
DARPA seeks innovative proposals to develop technology to create insect-cyborgs, possibly enabled by intimately integrating microsystems within insects, during their early stages of metamorphoses. The healing processes from one metamorphic stage to the next stage are expected to yield more reliable bio-electromechanical interface to insects, as compared to adhesively bonded systems to adult insects. Once these platforms are integrated, various microsystem payloads can be mounted on the platforms with the goal of controlling insect locomotion, sense the local environment, and scavenge power. Multidisciplinary teams of engineers, physicists, and biologists are expected to work together to develop new technologies utilizing insect biology while developing foundations for the new field of insect cyborg engineering. The HI-MEMS may also serve as vehicles to conduct research to answer basic questions in biology.
The final demonstration goal of the HI-MEMS program is the delivery of an insect within five meters of a specific target located at hundred meters away, using electronic remote control, and/or global positioning system (GPS). Although flying insects are of great interest (e.g. moths and dragonflies), hopping and swimming insects could also meet final demonstration goals. In conjunction with delivery, the insect must remain stationary either indefinitely or until otherwise instructed. The insect-cyborg must also be able to transmit data from DOD relevant sensors, yielding information about the local environment. These sensors can include gas sensors, microphones, video, etc.
Here’s an excellent cicada website from Japan. This site features four gallerys of cicada photos, and a distribution map of Japanese cicadas. Thanks to Nanami Higashino for creating such a fine website.
Holophonic cicada sounds from Vietnam (about 1/3 of the way down the page). Holophonic Sound uses the same “multiple exposure” premise that is used to create holographic images. More about holophonic audio.