Cicadas: spacecraft or phaser?

Heh. The east coast debate on whether the roaring of the cicadas sounds more like Star Trek's phasers (original series) or the descending flying saucers from Invaders from Mars leads to a great question for the Answer Man:

In a recent article, a woman identified as "one of the country's premier cicada experts" described the insects' sound as "flying saucers from a 1950s sci-fi film." I mentioned this to a guy I work with and he said, "Yeah, 'Invaders From Mars.' " I looked up "Invaders From Mars" and found that it was made in 1953, which was a year that Brood X emerged. Can Answer Man find out if the sound effects guy for that movie recorded periodical cicadas?

Alas, the Answer Man reports that the sound in Invaders from Mars doesn't even sound like Cicadas.

Blogs: the new wasteland?

Apparently many people are feeling the need to undercount the number of blogs they read - shades of 'we don't watch TV - well, except for the Discovery Channel'. See Kevin Drum's blog for more. Just don't tell anyone.