Space Science

Kidnappers had demanded a $3 million ransom from his family in Ecuador, police say.

If you've noticed holes suddenly appearing in the ground, get ready – warmer weather means cicadas have begun to come out of a 17-year hibernation along the mid-Atlantic, from North Carolina to New York. NBC's Tom Costello reports.By Alan Boyle, Science Editor, NBC News Follow @b0yle Hordes of winged cicadas are coming out and turning up the music for their biggest party in 17 years, stretching from North Carolina through Virginia to New York — but experts aren't yet sure just how big the party will get.Billions of the bugs are climbing out from the ground as the spring weather warms up and soil temperatures reach the magic turning point of 64 degrees Fahrenheit (18 degrees Celsius). The warm-up has just reached the proper level in the Northern Virginia suburbs of Washington, D.C., according to Sutron's closely watched temperature tracker.That assessment is confirmed by on-the-ground eyewitness reports registered on Magicicada.org and Radiolab's Cicada Tracker. John Cooley, an expert on cicadas at the University of Connecticut, took in the full cicada buzz this week during a field trip to Lynchburg, Va. "We've had some good, rip-roaring choruses," he told NBC News. These Brood II cicadas spend most of their 17-year life cycle underground, patiently nourishing themselves on fluids from plant roots, and then arise for a frantic weeks-long cycle of crawling, flying, mating, egg-laying and dying. When the mating party really gets going, the thrum of the cicadas' call can get as loud as 90 decibels."It'll be as loud as a rock concert," University of Maryland entomologist Michael Raupp told NBC News, "but hey, these are teenagers. they've been underground for 17 years. They're going to get in trees, they're going to sing."Throngs of the inch-long insects have been sighted as far north as New Jersey and New York's Staten Island — and eventually, the wave will make its way up to Cooley's neck of the woods in Connecticut. But for now, the prime territory for the party is still in Virginia, and not so much in New York."It's really not quite the real thing up there, but it's starting," Cooley said.Scientists believe that periodical cicadas (sometimes erroneously labeled as "locusts") took up their pattern of long-term dormancy, followed by a brief blast of above-ground mayhem, as an evolutionary survival strategy. The masses of bugs can overwhelm their predators with sheer numbers, ensuring that they can lay enough eggs for the next generation before they end up as a crunchy carpet underfoot.The big question for Cooley and other entomologists is whether environmental changes over the past 17 years — ranging from climate change to ground pollution and urban sprawl — will affect the breadth and scale of this year's emergence. "We're interested in those situations where these emergencies are not as extensive or as dense as they were 17 years ago," Cooley said.Regardless of how big it gets, this party won't get too out of hand — if you're willing to endure the noise and the bother. Cicadas are mostly harmless to humans and other species. And in fact, they can be rather tasty. The cooked bugs have been compared to shrimp, or asparagus, or popcorn, or even peanut butter, depending on how they're prepared. The Washington Post's Kevin Ambrose recently conducted his own gastronomical experiment, and concluded that cicadas taste mostly like small tidbits of "mushy, squishy asparagus.""It wasn't bad, but I don't want to try it again," he wrote.Have you had cicadas? Have you heard cicadas? Feel free to add your own field reports as comments below — and sample these video tributes to the cicadas: Time-lapse video shows a cicada hatching From Virginia: Sights and sounds of the cicadas Cicada serenades at World Science Festival 'Sicka Cicadas,' a song by Kathy Ashworth Slideshow: Return of the cicadaTake a closer look at the curious 17-year life of the flying bug as the East Coast prepares for an invasion.Launc

The Ring Nebula is far more than just a simple circle of gas in deep space.

The twin stars of SS Cygni are hundreds of light-years closer to Earth than thought.

A compact white dwarf star exerts enough gravitational pull to extract matter from its binary companion nearly a million miles away, accelerating the companion's spin to blast tight beacons of radio frequency energy across the universe.

Ride is just the ninth astronaut to be awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

People should prepare now for a doozy of a year, forecasters say.

The Hubble Space Telescope teams up with Large Binocular Telescope in Arizona to produce this stunning view of the well-known Ring Nebula.Credit: NASA, ESA, C.R. Robert O’Dell,  G.J. Ferland , W.J. Henney and M. Peimbert /  Large Binocular Telescope  David Thompson Hubble and the Large Binocular Telescope teamed up to take a new and very close look at the well known planetary nebula M57 or The Ring Nebula. It looks like the “Ring” is just a matter of perspective and it really is more like looking down a barrel. A closer look at the colorful interior. Check out the details at NASA.

Counterterrorism officers arrests a man and a woman on suspicion of conspiracy to murder.

ESA astronaut Luca Parmitano will fill the role for Expedition 36 and 27 aboard the International Space Station. He explains what his position is tasked with.