Hahahaha~ they don't blow up once they are touched. (I know, I know, it's a joke right? )
Back in Korea, we used to have tons of cicadas out there every summer. I used to catch them a lot along with Dragonflies when I was young.
However, we didn't have a big problem since we didn't have them "billions", so there was no sudden swarms. But they were noisy as hell indeed. Especially in the morning, when just one cicada sticks up at the insectproof net at the opened window, it wakes whole family in the house up. Yeah, it just makes me so pissed because I was still suffering in the bed due to the hangovers from last night's drinking.
I think I heard a rumor that cicadas increase as the pollution in the city increases. But it's not confirmed.
I haven't seen many cicadas in Korea during summer since about 5-6 years ago. Wonder what happened?

 

Man wtf this is the first time ive heard of these dumb things. How far exactly in the ground do they lay? If you take 17 years to hatch then you are a very worthless bug indeed. We need to go star ship trooper status on them!

 

Here in Kentucky they say the average will be about one and a half million per acre. And since I live in the middle of 22 acres, surrounded by hundreds of acres of open fields, I say...damn!

I don't think my Roadster is going to be happy.