Motza"sh Round-up

11 Shevat 5784 
Shavua Tov!

UPDATE: Nearly 60 dead as Arctic cold blankets the nation

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The World Hasn’t Seen Cicadas Like This Since 1803

This spring, for the first time since 1803, two cicada groups known as Brood XIX, or the Great Southern Brood, and Brood XIII, or the Northern Illinois Brood, are set to appear at the same time, in what is known as a dual emergence.

The last time the Northern Illinois Brood’s 17-year cycle aligned with the Great Southern Brood’s 13-year period, Thomas Jefferson was president. After this spring, it’ll be another 221 years before the broods, which are geographically adjacent, appear together again.

...These insects will begin to appear in late April.

...the dual emergence would most likely result in more than one trillion cicadas appearing in the roughly 16-state area where the two broods are generally seen. Forested areas, including urban green spaces, will have higher numbers than will agricultural regions. To put that into perspective, one trillion cicadas, each of which are just over an inch long, would cover 15,782,828 miles if they were laid end-to-end.

“That cicada train would reach to the moon and back 33 times,” he said.

One of the more exciting aspects of this dual emergence, Dr. Shockley said, lies in the possibility of interbreeding along the narrow band in northern Illinois where the two broods will overlap.

“Under just the right circumstances and with just the right number of individuals cross breeding,” he said, “you have the possibility of the creation of a new brood set to a new cycle. This is an extremely rare event.”

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