Alison Scharman still remembers when cicadas took over her world.
The 30-year-old consultant was in middle school in Bethesda, Maryland, just outside Washington, in 2004, when the cicadas last invaded the eastern US.
“It was a pretty crazy experience,” she said. “They were everywhere and the middle-school boys would chase them around and catch them and dare each other to eat them.”
Periodical cicadas are large insects indigenous to the eastern US that spend most of their lives underground.
“They’re not hibernating, they’re not dormant, they’re just developing. They're growing underground,” said John Lill, chairman of the biology department at George Washington University in Washington, DC.
Every 13 or 17 years, billions of cicadas emerge from the earth. Their brief lives above ground are singularly focused on finding a mate.
"Over the last couple of million years, the cicadas have split into several geographically temporarily isolated groups of individuals that emerge on different schedules," Prof Lill said.
Brood X, which is expected to emerge in late April and the end of May, is one of the largest groups.
"It's going to be a big show," an excited Prof Lill told The National.
Cicadas will storm several areas in up to 15 different states. But the nation’s capital will be the epicentre.
Washington "is about as dense as it gets”, Prof Lill said. “We’re pretty much in ground zero for one of the most numerically abundant broods as well as the densest broods of periodical cicadas in existence."
In many neighbourhoods across Washington and the surrounding suburbs, it will be impossible to ignore the screaming insects.
Male cicadas produce a mating song that sounds like something between an incoming helicopter and TV static. “It is one of the loudest sounds produced by any insect. It’s in the 80 to 100-decibel range, the sound of a jet plane,” Prof Lill said.
The last time cicadas descended upon the capital, former president George W Bush was gearing up for a second run at the White House, the Boston Red Sox were still suffering through their 86-year baseball curse and Facebook was just two months old.
But for those who were in the area, it was a memorable time.
“It wasn’t like, oh, we’re just living life and there are some bugs. It’s like a plague,” said Ms Scharman. It’s like a biblical plague, the numbers that they come in.”
And that is actually how the early US colonists described them. But Prof Lill is quick to point out cicadas are not locusts and pose no dangers to human beings or crops.
“They are totally harmless. They don’t bite, they don't sting, they don’t really do anything to people other than just make a lot of noise.”
What they do become is a giant source of food for thousands of other animals, including birds and dogs.
“If you do have pets, you want to try to minimise how much they consume,” said Prof Lill, because, for example, dogs can become constipated if they eat too many.
Humans can eat them, too. Prof Lill said in 2004 some restaurants around Washington served them up to customers.
The insects are not immune to global warming, and biologists say it may be forcing 17-year cicadas into a shorter, 13-year cycle.
In 2017, some of Brood X emerged in the southern fringes of cicada territory.
“What is going to potentially happen is, as it spreads north, you might see an increase in 13-year broods and a decrease in 17-year broods,” Prof Lill said.
Entomophiles will be able to follow Brood X through an app developed by Mount St Joseph’s University in Cincinnati, Ohio. Users will be able to track where cicadas are spotted and upload their own photos of sightings.
Ms Scharman is looking forward to seeing reality lives up to her memory of the cicadas.
“I hope that they are what I remember them being like, just so that my friends can see them,” she said.
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
OPINIONS ON PALESTINE & ISRAEL
Our family matters legal consultant
Name: Hassan Mohsen Elhais
Position: legal consultant with Al Rowaad Advocates and Legal Consultants.
Biography
Favourite Meal: Chicken Caesar salad
Hobbies: Travelling, going to the gym
Inspiration: Father, who was a captain in the UAE army
Favourite read: Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki and Sharon Lechter
Favourite film: The Founder, about the establishment of McDonald's
Who's who in Yemen conflict
Houthis: Iran-backed rebels who occupy Sanaa and run unrecognised government
Yemeni government: Exiled government in Aden led by eight-member Presidential Leadership Council
Southern Transitional Council: Faction in Yemeni government that seeks autonomy for the south
Habrish 'rebels': Tribal-backed forces feuding with STC over control of oil in government territory
Desert Warrior
Starring: Anthony Mackie, Aiysha Hart, Ben Kingsley
Director: Rupert Wyatt
Rating: 3/5
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Quick pearls of wisdom
Focus on gratitude: And do so deeply, he says. “Think of one to three things a day that you’re grateful for. It needs to be specific, too, don’t just say ‘air.’ Really think about it. If you’re grateful for, say, what your parents have done for you, that will motivate you to do more for the world.”
Know how to fight: Shetty married his wife, Radhi, three years ago (he met her in a meditation class before he went off and became a monk). He says they’ve had to learn to respect each other’s “fighting styles” – he’s a talk it-out-immediately person, while she needs space to think. “When you’re having an argument, remember, it’s not you against each other. It’s both of you against the problem. When you win, they lose. If you’re on a team you have to win together.”
Electoral College Victory
Trump has so far secured 295 Electoral College votes, according to the Associated Press, exceeding the 270 needed to win. Only Nevada and Arizona remain to be called, and both swing states are leaning Republican. Trump swept all five remaining swing states, North Carolina, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, sealing his path to victory and giving him a strong mandate.
Popular Vote Tally
The count is ongoing, but Trump currently leads with nearly 51 per cent of the popular vote to Harris’s 47.6 per cent. Trump has over 72.2 million votes, while Harris trails with approximately 67.4 million.
