Connected on 2007-11-28 09:00:00 from , , US
- 8:42am
- Bugscope Team Hi Stephanie!
- Bugscope Team Hello Mrs H!
- Student hello\
- Bugscope Team and Adam
- Bugscope Team Welcome to bugscope
- Guest Hello, thank you for helping us today!
- Student hello
- Bugscope Team with few bugs today
- Bugscope Team hey all
- Bugscope Team this is an integrated circuit we got from one of our guys
- Bugscope Team Hi guys
- Bugscope Team he is an expert at hatching them out of their covers
- Teacher Hello - can you handle a non bug today?
- Bugscope Team Yeah, we're ready :)
- Bugscope Team there are a couple of fruit flies and a ladybug on the stub as well
- Bugscope Team so we are good
- Bugscope Team Stephanie would you like to drive?
- Bugscope Team we just gave you control of the 'scope
- Student sure
- Student okay
- Bugscope Team just let us know when you have any questions, and we will try to answer them
- Bugscope Team so you should see the presets, to the right of the chat here, as well as the controls
- Bugscope Team We suggest hitting F11 to enter full-screen mode, it'll make a lot more lines of chatvisible
- Bugscope Team everything in the 'scope today is mounted on a 50-mm circular stub Cate put together
- 8:47am
- Guest I have a question, can you see the chemistry involved with the piece we are looking at?
Bugscope Team That's a feature we don't have available through Bugscope, but which the microscope is capable of via an X-ray spectral detector called Electron Dispersive Spectroscopy (EDS). It hasn't been a priority for Bugscope because the elemental composition of bugs is pretty uniform and unrevealing
- Bugscope Team if we used the EDS detector we would be able to tell you what elements are in the sample
- Bugscope Team I think Chas is giving you a better answer
- Bugscope Team when we do EDS we operate at 10 mm working distance, and for bugscope we use a long working distance
- Bugscope Team we could also use the backscattered electron detector, which gives us atomic number contrast
- Guest That makes sense...:) that is why we deal with the non-biology aspects :)
- Bugscope Team to operate the EDS takes time, and to make elemental maps takes still longer
- Bugscope Team so with the backscattered electron detector (BSD) we could see differences in atomic composition but we couldn't identify the elements
- Guest Could we do that?
Bugscope Team The BSD detector isn't installed today, sorry. We could send you some great electron micrographs of example cases comparing secondary electron (SE) images to BSD and EDS
- Bugscope Team we would have to open the chamber to set it up, and that would take a 4 or 5 minutes
- Guest We will see what the students would like to do, so we will get back to that question. thanks
- Bugscope Team we would also want to work at a higher kV and a larger spot size as well as a shorter working distance
- 8:52am
- Bugscope Team I am sorry we did not realize you might want to do that
- Bugscope Team it would be better to try that next time we connect with you
- Guest what kV are you running right now? no worries, we are just new to the process
Bugscope Team If you click on the scale bar in the lower-left corner of the image it will show you the scope parameters up at the top of the image
- Bugscope Team 5 kV, spot 3 (2.1 nm)
- Guest can you run 20 kV?
- Bugscope Team we use a lower accelerating voltage to keep charging down
- Guest ok - thanks
- Bugscope Team we can run as high as 30 kV
- Bugscope Team Now we're on one of your gears
- Student how do i save pictures that i can access
Bugscope Team Every image automatically gets saved to the database along with the chat and presets. It will all be available from your member homepage after the session
- Bugscope Team the higher the kV the better the resolution but the worse the contrast and the higher the probability of charging
- Bugscope Team a shorter working distance also gives you much better resolution
- Bugscope Team but a smaller max field of view
- Bugscope Team your homepage is http://bugscope.itg.uiuc.edu/members/2007-070
- Bugscope Team Yay Alex!
- Student What do you mean by every image?
Bugscope Team Every time a change is made to the microscope the server saves a new image, so it should have an image (and associated 'scope parameters) stored for every change you make today
- 8:58am
- Bugscope Team This is the gear you sent, from the digital camera
- Student Can you please reduce the working space down to 8 mm
Bugscope Team Decreasing the working distance means our lowest magnification available is now higher. At the magnifications we're at currently, we're not resolution-limited so the WD change shouldn't benefit the image much
- Bugscope Team okay 8 mm
- Bugscope Team 24.9
- Bugscope Team the working distance is now 8 mm
- Bugscope Team from 24.9
- Student thanks
- Bugscope Team OOF
- Bugscope Team now you are out of focus because we set the WD so short
- 9:03am
- Student Can you please hand over the controls to adam?
Bugscope Team Done.
- Student thanks
- Bugscope Team okay Adam has them
- Bugscope Team adam now has control
- Bugscope Team Looks like we're very out of focus. I suggest zooming out until something is recognizable and then adjusting the focus as you zoom back in
- Guest I am a guest teacher with a class of 4 looking on. What are we looking at?
Bugscope Team I'll be able to tell you what it is in a moment, we were just seeing a lot of blur for a moment. Now we're looking at a screw, slightly out of focus
- Guest What is the #8 preset a picture of?
Bugscope Team These are part of the tissue connecting the haltere to the side of the fruit fly. Halteres are modified wings that bounce back and forth and act like a gyroscope for the fly, helping it to fly straight
- Bugscope Team this is a field emission scanning electron microscope with an assortment of samples in it
- 9:08am
- Bugscope Team unlike a normal bugscope session, the school we are working with today requested materials samples
- Bugscope Team which they sent
- Bugscope Team but we put some insects in as well
- Teacher This is a plastic screw removed out of a Cannon digital camera
- Bugscope Team Now you can see the phillips head
- Bugscope Team You can use the focus control to sharpen up this image
- Bugscope Team The surface reminds me a lot of clay in a pottery class... doesn't look as pristine as with the naked eye
- Student yay it does
- Student Yeah, just looking at a screw it makes a sharp cross. Doesn't nearly look so scratchy
- Guest it is so amazing to see!
- 9:14am
- Guest you all must love your job! how can i join you? :)
- Student reminds me of tree bark
- Bugscope Team this is the most fun we have during a week; we really enjoy it
- Bugscope Team Do you mean work for us or participate in another Bugscope session?
- Guest work for you... :)
Bugscope Team We occasionally have positions open that we post to the group's homepage: http://www.itg.uiuc.edu
- Bugscope Team No-one is specifically assigned to work on Bugscope, we all continue to help out each week because we have a great time running sessions
- Guest What are we looking at now?
Bugscope Team this is a fruit fly
Bugscope Team We've got a fruit fly in view at the moment
- Bugscope Team Two answers for the price of one ;)
- Guest thanks! :)
- 9:19am
- Bugscope Team Cate chose this fruit fly because we had a good view of the haltere.
- Guest Nine of us got up early (We are on an island outside of Seattle) We are considering this as a project. What bug works the best to look at?
Bugscope Team We'd love to have you on. Bugs smaller than a centimeter are usually best. They're all quite interesting. Good Packing & Shipping makes the biggest difference in how they look when they arrive at our door
Bugscope Team Here are some sample tips: http://bugscope.beckman.uiuc.edu/help#specimen
- Bugscope Team small insects/arthropods are best
- Bugscope Team we can put a number of them on thestub
- Bugscope Team earwigs are good because they often have mites on them
- Bugscope Team hi all!
- Guest what is that
- Guest ?**
- Bugscope Team this is a spiracle
- Guest where are we on the bug
- Bugscope Team what the fruit fly breathes through
- Bugscope Team we are looking into the opening, and it is difficult to do this sometimes because it is hard to get the interior grounded
- Bugscope Team This is probably the side of the thorax or abdomen
- Guest what do you call those "hairs"?
Bugscope Team Hairs are called setae. Many of them have sensory function: mechanosensory (they feel) or chemosensory (they "smell")
- Bugscope Team the hairs are setae
- Bugscope Team some of them are mechanosensory and some are chemosensory
- Bugscope Team and some are just setae
- Bugscope Team whoops, Scott's scooping me
- 9:24am
- Guest thank you, my life science knowledge is very small
- Bugscope Team Because the insect wears its skeleton on the outside of its body, the insect uses the setae to sense its environment. The setae connect to nerves.
- Bugscope Team we work with materials people, biology people, and biomaterials people in the lab.
- Bugscope Team with bugscope we usually have only 'bugs'
- Student i try
- Bugscope Team We have sensory nerves embedded in our soft skin, but the hard exoskeleton of the insects can't feel, so the mechano-sensory setae travel through pores in the exoskeleton to stimulate nerves inside the body due to touch outside the body
- Bugscope Team it is a little tricky to control the 'scope remotely, and Adam is doing a good job.
- Guest go adam
- Guest wow!!!
- Bugscope Team Imagine if you were wearing a suit of armor--it would be difficult to know what exactly was going on around you
- Student good point
- Guest what power scopes are you using?
Bugscope Team This is an electron microscope, so the magnification is tuned by varying the current in the electromagnet coils, meaning we can achieve just about any magnification between about 40x and 200,000x
- Bugscope Team We can see the setae 'flexing' a little here due to the electrostatic charge they get from being bombarded by a beam of electrons (negatively charged particles)
- Bugscope Team some of the small setae -- the microsetae -- have other purposes. they may add surface area to the cuticle and help with lift, for a flying insect. They also may form a pattern that other insects can recognize.
- Guest yep
- Guest That looks like my hair under the microscope.
- Guest Oh.
- 9:29am
- Bugscope Team The electromagnets focus the beam of electrons very similar to how refraction from glass lenses bends optical light paths
- Guest That is about 5 times what we see on our scope
- Bugscope Team this would be better at a shorter working distance, much better
- Bugscope Team many of the mechanosensory seate are very sensitive to subtle vibrations, they can help the insect detect movement and avoid being stepped on or getting eaten by a predator
- Guest I mean 50 times
- Bugscope Team um, setae, that is
- Bugscope Team Optical microscopes are limited by the wavelength of light, to about 1,000x. Electrons are much smaller than the wavelength of visible light so we can go several orders of magnitude beyond light microscopes in terms of magnification
- Guest Are those hairs were looking at?
- Bugscope Team or microsetae
- Guest What are setae?
Bugscope Team That is what insect "hairs" care called
- Bugscope Team setae are what we call the tiny 'hairs'
- Bugscope Team setae are insect hairs
- Guest Oh. That explains a lot.
- Bugscope Team because mammals are the only critters that are supposed to have hairs
- Guest If the class decides to send in a sample, when could we scedule a time. Are you booket through February?
Bugscope Team It doesn't look like Feb is heavily booked -- http://bugscope.beckman.uiuc.edu/schedule.php -- Once you fill out an application we get back to you about scheduling and then you can send in your samples, usually a week or two ahead of the session
- Student could you switch controls back to stephanie?
- Bugscope Team done
- Bugscope Team ok done
- Student thank you
- Guest what are we looking at now?
- Bugscope Team ladybug
- Bugscope Team Good bye all--I am off to class!!!
- 9:34am
- Teacher Beautiful face a mother would love!!!!
- Guest good luck and thank you annie
- Guest Goodbye.
- Bugscope Team oh yeah great face
- Guest That's very attractive.
- Guest what do ladybugs eat?
- Bugscope Team they eat other bugs
- Guest what are those on the "mouth"?
- Guest Is that still it's mouth.
- Bugscope Team where we are now there is a lot of residue on the sample, sort of oily
- Guest How hard is it for a tudent to use the controls? We have 16 students would there be time for all to use or only a few. How long is a session?
Bugscope Team We often schedule sessions up to 2 hours. Though only one person can control at a time, we can switch who has control at the drop of a hat so it can be fairly efficient to give everyone a chance
- Bugscope Team it is really easy
- Guest we have two right now from my class, this is the first time for them and they are doing pretty well
- Bugscope Team other people -- researchers -- use the 'scopes, so we cannot do this all of the time
- 9:39am
- Guest What is that?
- Bugscope Team we are very close to the mouth of the ladybug
- Bugscope Team hard to tell just where we are but there is some residue on the sample here
- Bugscope Team this is one of the mandibular or maxillary palps
- Bugscope Team was...
- Guest :)
- Bugscope Team you can see one of the eyes, to the left
- Guest why are the hairs larger at the top then the bottom
- Guest where?
- Bugscope Team the setae have different purposes
- Guest their heads are really buried?
- Guest in the pictures that were focused closer to the ladybug
- Bugscope Team they are very streamlined
- Guest were are we now
Bugscope Team The compound eye is filling the right half of the screen. You are seeing the individual facets
- Guest why are these yey components pentagon shaped?
Bugscope Team I don't know a definitive answer, but one logical explanation is that it doesn't waste any space. If they were each round there would be dead space in between each of the ommatidia (facets)
- Student the eyeball
- Bugscope Team it is interesting that when we see a broken eye, sometimes, we can see that it has a crystalline structure.
- 9:44am
- Bugscope Team these are ommatidia -- the individual facets of the eye
- Bugscope Team it's when they break after death that we see into the fractures
- Guest makes sense
- Guest how much does this microscope cost
Bugscope Team The initial installation cost was above $600,000. It also requires dedicated water, electricity, and compressed air as well as a hefty support contract
- Guest What is their vision like?
Bugscope Team that depends on the eye. some insects will have eyes that cover most of their head. They will have almost a 360 degree view. If they are a flying insect, they need tioo have really good vision so they dont fly into things
- Bugscope Team one thing, also, that is cool, is the tenent setae that many insects have on their tarsi
- Guest can you explain that scott? sorry
- Bugscope Team they have a pad called a pulvillus that has huge numbers of setae on it, and those setae help the insect stick to the ceiling, or glass, etc.
- Guest what allows them to stick? a chemical?
Bugscope Team Insects typically secrete a sticky compound from the pulvillus. Geckos have a similar arrangement of hairs, but they're many times smaller and take advantage of a microscopic force called Van der Waals to adhere without any adhesive
- Bugscope Team with a gecko there are similar tiny seta but about a 10thh the thickness, and think they use van der waals to stick
- Guest oh - of course
- Bugscope Team some of these setae seem to be gummy, but I think they are more like tiny (there we are!) suction cups.
- Student can we turn the controls over to adam?
- Bugscope Team got it
- Bugscope Team d'oh, Scott answered my question for me, *and* he got the spelling right
- 9:49am
- Bugscope Team this is the pulvilllus
- Bugscope Team on a ladybug tarsus
- Bugscope Team the tarsus is what the 'forearm' segments are called, collectively
- Bugscope Team individually they are tarsomeres
- Bugscope Team Looks like a piece of dust or dirt trapped among the setae of the pulvillus here
- Student thats crazy
- Guest It is amazing to see nature's patterns in things this small
Bugscope Team That's one of my favorite things about EM images of insects. There are tons of amazing patterns out of reach of the human eye. It's given me a much better appreciation for nature
- Guest Why is the hair wrapped around the dust?
- Bugscope Team another physical, as in physics, phenomenon is the halteres in some flies
- Guest go on...
- Bugscope Team apparently a lot of insects started out with four wings, and two wings are more efficient for flying
- Student adaption
- Bugscope Team so there are different ways the insects have dealt with that'
- Bugscope Team one is to have only two wings, but there is a potential drawback in vibration
- Guest "darwinish"
- Student are those cracks due to the coating on the bug
- 9:54am
- Bugscope Team so the halteres are former wings in some Diptera that serve to balance the motion of the wings
- Bugscope Team sort of like gyroscopes
- Bugscope Team Now the halteres bounce back and forth against the body and act like a gyroscope. If a blast of wind comes along the halteres change course slightly with respect to the body and that deviation is sensed, then the insect reacts to it
- Bugscope Team it is unlikely at this mag that you are seeing the coating
- Bugscope Team we use gold-palladium, and it is very fine
- Student so the cracks are in the skin of the bug?
- Bugscope Team Usually the Au-Pd coating only starts to become barely visible at about 200,000x
- Bugscope Team the cracks are in the cuticle, yes
- Guest how thick is the Au-Pd coating?
- Bugscope Team here it is a little thick, maybe 6 or 7 nm
- Guest little thick? ;)
- Bugscope Team we make these samples bulletproof, in part because insects have so many fine features
- Guest :)
- Bugscope Team ordinarily we would want to be 4 nm, maybe
- Bugscope Team this is cool
- 10:00am
- Guest go closer
- Guest go small or go home! ;)
- Guest why are the setae bent at the tip?
- Guest is that as close you can get?
- Bugscope Team we have you at a disadvantage today because we are back at a longer working distance and have thus sacrificed resolution
- Bugscope Team no you can get much closer to the sample than we are now
- Guest what will this microscope go to
- Bugscope Team usually when we do bugscope we don't go to super high mag, and we want the kids to see as much at low mag as possible
- Bugscope Team we have 2 nm resolution
- Student scot could you focus it?
- Guest How many watts of electricity does it take to power the microscope.
- 10:05am
- Guest what does spot size of 3 mean?
- Student thanks
- Bugscope Team spot size of 3 is 2.1 nm at 5 kV
- Bugscope Team probably 3 or 4000 watts
- Bugscope Team a little less, really
- Bugscope Team the TEM is higher wattage
- Guest what is tem
- Guest That would be quite a power bill.
- Guest if this were a living insect would you be able to see mitosis at work?
- Bugscope Team I am sorry we are going to have to let the next people on the 'scope
- Guest THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
- Student thank you
- Student thank you very much
- Bugscope Team if we wanted to see mitosis we would have to see through the sample, so not with this 'scope
- Bugscope Team Thank You!
- Teacher Thanks and make it a great day!!!!!
- Bugscope Team 'preciate it.
- Guest Thanks for letting us watch. We will be in touch
- Guest what scope would you have to use
- Bugscope Team absolutely we will be glad to see you
- Bugscope Team a very good light mciroscope, which we have
- Guest do we have to get off now?
- Bugscope Team oops sp
- Bugscope Team yeah I am sorry
- Bugscope Team we need to let the 10 a.m. people on
- Bugscope Team they have been waiting
- 10:11am
- Bugscope Team Bye!
