Brace for Brood X, one of the largest groups of periodical cicadas
03 April 2021
Like people in a pandemic winter, periodical cicadas are waiting for the warmer weather of spring.
What's happening: In a few weeks, billions of the insects are predicted to emerge in parts of the eastern U.S. after 17 years — and the vast majority of their life — underground.
Brood X is one of the largest of 15 groups of cicadas that come out en masse in the U.S. at different time intervals — some every 13 years, others every 17, and in rarer alignments, at the same time.
- Periodical cicadas (Magicicada) make an appearance most years. (And the adults of annual cicadas, which have a two-year life cycle, emerge every year to reproduce.)
What to expect: Once the soil temperature reaches 64°F, typically in late April or early May, billions of noisy, red-eyed, black-bodied cicadas will emerge in Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Indiana and several spots in between.
- They'll then make a bunch of noise, mate and lay their eggs in trees — all within four to six weeks.
- Those cicadas will die and their nymphs will fall to the ground, bury in to feed on tree roots, and the cicada cycle starts again.
What's next: Who knows what the future holds — and, as Vox's Brian Resnick notes, how cicadas even know when it has arrived — but set your clocks: Brood X will be back in 2038.
Transcripts show George Floyd told police "I can't breathe" over 20 times
Section2Newly released transcripts of bodycam footage from the Minneapolis Police Department show that George Floyd told officers he could not breathe more than 20 times in the moments leading up to his death.
Why it matters: Floyd's killing sparked a national wave of Black Lives Matter protests and an ongoing reckoning over systemic racism in the United States. The transcripts "offer one the most thorough and dramatic accounts" before Floyd's death, The New York Times writes.
The state of play: The transcripts were released as former officer Thomas Lane seeks to have the charges that he aided in Floyd's death thrown out in court, per the Times. He is one of four officers who have been charged.
- The filings also include a 60-page transcript of an interview with Lane. He said he "felt maybe that something was going on" when asked if he believed that Floyd was having a medical emergency at the time.
What the transcripts say:
- Floyd told the officers he was claustrophobic as they tried to get him into the squad car.
- The transcripts also show Floyd saying, "Momma, I love you. Tell my kids I love them. I'm dead."
- Former officer Derek Chauvin, who had his knee on Floyd's neck for over eight minutes, told Floyd, "Then stop talking, stop yelling, it takes a heck of a lot of oxygen to talk."
Read the transcripts via DocumentCloud.