Roar of cicadas was so loud, it was picked up by fiber-optic cables

Brood X made itself known in a way that could change how we monitor insect populations.

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[numerobis]

Sure

Billionaires are like terrorists: until you change the system you can't wipe them out by violently getting rid of them, another one will always pop up.

 

[numerobis]

Disappointing and misleading headline. The fibers didn't "pick up" the audio. They were deliberately used in a special way intended to capture artifacts from pressure waves.

They picked up a signal they weren't expecting to pick up.

I was disappointed though that they couldn't just use commercial fibre that's laid all over the place as an acoustic array.

 

[numerobis]

Laying fiber alongside all the highways and streets isn't a bad idea, though.

I mean, it should be easy to determine the difference in local vibrations between "no traffic," "normal traffic," and "a bunch of people sitting in one place with engines idling." That could pinpoint the location of traffic jams and accidents on a continuous basis. Local emergency services could be notified of at least some accidents automatically, without waiting on someone to report them. The same thing goes for mobile map apps routing around traffic jams.

Even better, the info could be used to adjust timing and synchronization of traffic signals depending on how heavy traffic is, so you don't back traffic up as much during rush hour, but you don't have to wait forever to cross the main streets during off-peak traffic.

Webcams already do most of that, and are even cheaper.

 

[numerobis]

Of course, because webcams don't need people watching them to send out an alert.

How silly of me.

Automatically flagging an event for review is something that's had commercial vendors selling solutions for a couple decades already. I would presume they've gotten better over the years.