Hummingwolf at Home

One thing that puzzled me was, how do microbes always seem to show up in extreme environments ready to carpe diem? When new hydrothermal vents open on the cold, dark, ocean floor, where do the hyperthermophiles come from? Are they floating in some dormant state waiting for a gush of boiling sulfuric acid to wake them up or are they already down in plumbing systems below the seafloor in the crust and do they just happen to be ejected through new vents? What about the bacteria, archaea, and fungi colonizing the Titanic? How did they find the Titanic when it took us more than 70 years using secret navy technologies? Were the iron-loving microbes already at work on the new steel before the ship set sail? Were they already present in the ocean scratching out a meager existence from molecules in the bottom sediments? [Charles] Pellegrino pondered whether microbes from the toilets on the Titanic and the throats of passengers survived and mingled. When I posed the question to [Roy] Cullimore he quoted Dutch microbiologist Baas Becking:

"Everything is everywhere. The environment selects."

--from Tim Friend's book The Third Domain: The Untold Story of Archaea and the Future of Biotechnology

There were moments on my evening walk tonight when I couldn't hear any cicadas at all, no matter how hard I tried. Of course the fact that I was walking next to a busy highway at the time may have had something to do with it. Even so, I guarantee that if I'd taken my walk in midafternoon, no ordinary level of traffic noise would have blotted out the rattles, hums, clicks, and screams.

Tonight I had to go on a search and rescue mission. Cicadas have an irresistible urge to fly between the screens and storm windows on this floor even though they seem unable to remember how to get out again, so when I heard a high-pitched rattle next to me as I was reading in bed, I removed the screen to allow the unfortunate Magicicada to fly outside. Naturally (and you knew this was coming), the bug decided my room was a more attractive option. It's a good thing for me that cicadas have no talent for stealth operations--even when they're not singing, those suckers beat their wings pretty loudly. Still, I never could have trapped the insect and sent it on its way if not for the fact that it engaged in a losing battle against one of my vast army of dust bunnies.

Two days ago, I noticed clumps of alien-looking shells on tall grass in some parts of the neighborhood. Yesterday, there were weird, squishy black-and-orange bodies on the sidewalks. In the evening I heard a sound which could have been the sound of a sprinkler or other periodic, innocent mechanism--or it could have been an inhuman mating cry. Today, there is definitely an odd, almost electronic tune heard throughout the city.

Ladies and gentlemen, the Invaders of Brood X have arrived.

At least I'm not the only one who isn't always sure whether I'm hearing cicada or machine. I think one of the bugs I heard on my walk today was trying to get a date with a noisy malfunctioning streetlight. Maybe the new generation of cicadas should try online personals instead.