Subscribe options

Select your newsletters:

Please enter your email address:

@

Your email address will only be used for the purpose of sending you the ITER Organization publication(s) that you have requested. ITER Organization will not transfer your email address or other personal data to any other party or use it for commercial purposes.

If you change your mind, you can easily unsubscribe by clicking the unsubscribe option at the bottom of an email you've received from ITER Organization.

For more information, see our Privacy policy.

News & Media

Latest ITER Newsline

  • Magnet technology | 1,000 experts convene in nearby Aix-en-Provence

    The cultural heart of Aix-en-Provence, France—a triangle formed by theatre (Le Grand Théatre), dance (Le Pavillon noir) and music (Le Conservatoire) hubs—became [...]

    Read more

  • Safety Day | From phone straps to neuroscience

    The setting, the action, the small groups strolling from stand to stand ... it all felt like a village fair. Visitors could play ping-pong, maneuver toy forklif [...]

    Read more

  • ITER Members | Director-General Barabaschi visits China

    During his first visit to China as the head of the ITER Project, Director-General Pietro Barabaschi met with members of government, leaders in innovation, and t [...]

    Read more

  • Symposium | How to accelerate fusion development?

    At the 15th edition of the International Symposium on Fusion Nuclear Technology (Las Palmas, Gran Canaria, Spain), ITER presented its mission as not only releva [...]

    Read more

  • Image of the Week | Sector #8 on the move

    After spending just about one year in vertical tooling, vacuum vessel sector #8 has been returned to a horizontal orientation for removal from the Assembly Hall [...]

    Read more

Of Interest

See archived entries

All summer long cicadas sing their song

The song of the male cicada is one of the loudest any insect can produce. (Click to view larger version...)
The song of the male cicada is one of the loudest any insect can produce.
Summer days in Provence are filled with the sound of cicadas. As soon as the temperature rises above 28 °C, the air begins to vibrate with their song, one of the loudest any insect can produce. Some cicada songs can reach up to 120 dB, as loud as a power saw or a motorcycle.

Whether you call it noise or music, the cicada song is a love call. It is the eternal story of the male seeking his partner, and not being very discreet about it at that ...

Unlike crickets, who rub their legs together to produce a "stridulation," male cicadas possess a special membrane, called a "timbal," that they contract and relax at very high speed.

Amplified by their abdomen, which is almost hollow, the fast-following clicks create the deafening noise that is characteristic of summers in Provence.

But so much for entomology ...

Besides being a symbol of Provence—one can find kitsch ceramic cicadas in just about every tourist store—the cicada is synonymous in the French language and culture of mindlessness and insouciance. And this is all due to Jean de la Fontaine (1621-1695).

One of the most famous pieces of the French fabulist, called La Cigale et la Fourmi, generally and wrongfully translated in English as "The Cricket and the Ant", features the thrifty, hard-working little ant who spends his summer collecting food for "when the north wind doth blow," and the happy-go-lucky cicada who does nothing but "sing her song all summer long."

Every schoolchild in France knows by heart La Fontaine's fable ''The Cicada and the Ant,'' a parable about the virtue of work and saving. (Click to view larger version...)
Every schoolchild in France knows by heart La Fontaine's fable ''The Cicada and the Ant,'' a parable about the virtue of work and saving.
When winter comes, the cicada goes begging to her neighbour the ant "for a little grain 'til summer comes back again." The ant in the fable however, being self-righteous and stingy, replies with: "You sang did you?" ... "Well, dance now!"

Every child in France learns this fable by heart at primary school. This is why only foreigners rejoice in the summer song of the cicada. For all former French schoolchildren, it is the sound of an impending drama—the winter starvation of the carefree cicada.


return to the latest published articles