Session 2008-021 with EWG Middle School

Application

The School

The Class

The Project

Miscellaneous

Live Session Transcript

Connected on 2008-09-30 08:00:00 from Dieppe, NB, CA

• 7:08am
• Bugscope Team session enabled & unlocked, rxl started, sample being coated
• 7:21am

• Bugscope Team starting presets
• 7:28am

• 7:36am

• 7:41am

• 7:49am

• Bugscope Team presets are done, we are ready!
• 8:08am
• Teacher hi alex
• Bugscope Team Good Morning Mr Fletcher!
• Teacher we will be ready to go in about 10 min
• Bugscope Team Alex will be back in a minute.
• Bugscope Team Cool!
• Bugscope Team hello welcome to bugscope
• Teacher i'm going to set up a couple more connections
• Bugscope Team great!
• Bugscope Team good morning, i'm here now, welcome to bugscope!
• 8:15am
• Bugscope Team Good morning kirat!
• Guest gogd morning scot
• Bugscope Team Where are you logging in from?
• Guest am a biologie student froom morooco
• Bugscope Team wow
• Guest ya
• Bugscope Team so it is 2 or 3 in the afternoon there?
• Guest its 13h15
• Bugscope Team we are just about ready to start a bugscope session with a school in Canada
• Guest tel me where r u from
• Bugscope Team we are in Illinois -- it's 0815 here
• Guest ok
• Bugscope Team hello ewq1
• Bugscope Team Mr F are you going to have students log in today?
• Guest scot tell me you are student in wich year
• 8:20am
• Teacher we are in grade8
• Bugscope Team I graduated a long time ago. Now I work in this microscopy suite. We have been running the Bugscope project for 9+ years from here in Illinois.
• Teacher and ready to go
• Bugscope Team Cool Mr F
• Bugscope Team ok mr fletcher you can start by either picking a preset to go to or you can drive around from where you currently are
• Bugscope Team Please feel free to start driving the microscope, and let us know when you have questions
• Bugscope Team and be sure to ask us any questions you have
• Guest that'goog scot

• Bugscope Team Mr F can you see the full screen? You have control.

• Bugscope Team and you can always, as Cate said, choose from among the presets

• Bugscope Team you can see now that the cricket has a lot of dirt on it

• Bugscope Team now you can see where we were on the head
• Bugscope Team the compound eye is to the left

• Bugscope Team see the forelimb, with the claw at the end?

• Bugscope Team ha now the flea!
• Bugscope Team here is a flea that someone brought in for us
• 8:25am
• Bugscope Team this is just the head of the flee
• Bugscope Team the round spot is the eye

• Bugscope Team you can see from the micron bar in the lower left of the viewing screen how highly magnified we are

• Bugscope Team it looks like it has gills

• Bugscope Team these are special hairs called tenent setae which allow the insect to walk on walls

• Bugscope Team this is from the pulvillus, on a ladybug tarsus

• Bugscope Team now you can see one of the claws

• Guest waw
• Bugscope Team and now you can see where we are, on the ventrum

• 8:31am

• Bugscope Team Kirat let us know if you would like your school to participate in Bugscope --- you can sign up online from the web site. And today you can see how one of the sessions works. Although they are often different...

• Guest am not in a school

• Guest am in a univesity called ''moullay sliman''

• Guest its a n science an technique univesity

• Bugscope Team Well if you wish you could run a session from the University, for a class.

• Guest ok
• Guest way not

• Bugscope Team ants have really busy looking mouths with their palps sticking out
• Bugscope Team it looks like there is an insect trying to climb out

• Bugscope Team see the compound eye?

• Bugscope Team if there were bacteria we would be able to see them clearly
• 8:36am
• Bugscope Team the individual facets of the eye are called ommatidia

• Bugscope Team they consist of several cells that work together so that images are sent to the brain
• Bugscope Team this is a seta -- a hair
• Bugscope Team it is likely sensory

• Bugscope Team this is from the earwig you sent

• Bugscope Team earwigs often have mites
• Bugscope Team they do not have eyes -- at least these mites do not

• Bugscope Team when the host dies they usually die as well

• Bugscope Team you can see another one!

• Bugscope Team and more!
• Bugscope Team they are so very small

• Bugscope Team we almost always mount 'bugs' on the dorsal side so we can see the limbs and the mouthparts

• 8:42am

• Teacher What is an ant comb?
  Bugscope Team it is exactly what it sounds like, the ant grooms itself with it

• Bugscope Team it can clean its antennae or eyes with it

• Bugscope Team these images are black and white because we are using electrons rather than light to collect them

• Bugscope Team if the images were in color, however, they would be silver, because we have coated the whole stub with gold-palladium

• Bugscope Team with several nanometers of gold-palladium alloy, which is silver colored

• Bugscope Team everything we see is in a vacuum chamber, and what we see depends on where the electron beam is directed -- to a small or large area on the stage

• 8:47am

• Bugscope Team the electron beam is constantly scanning across the area that we are then able to see on the screen

• Bugscope Team the electron beam, when it rasters across the sample surface, causes secondary electrons to be ejected from the surface

• Bugscope Team and we collect those secondary electrons
• Bugscope Team as signal, using a photomultiplier tube (PMT)
• Bugscope Team this is a spiracle, through which insects breathe

• Bugscope Team you can see the tiny setae that keep dust from getting in

• Bugscope Team there are usually two spiracles on either side of a body segment
• 8:52am

• Guest salut

• Bugscope Team Hi Kirat!

• Bugscope Team the spiracle also has setae in it that you can think of as being like nose hairs

• 8:57am

• Teacher what is the hook?
  Bugscope Team that's a claw, each of its legs has one

• Bugscope Team the hook about in the middle?
• Bugscope Team that is one of the claws
• Bugscope Team now you can see better that there are two claws

• Bugscope Team they use their claws to grasp onto things. these claws also have a pulvillus pad near them with tenent setae on them, which lets them walk on walls

• Teacher what is in the middle?

• Bugscope Team this is the mouth of the fly, and it has a lot of dirt in it
• 9:04am

• Bugscope Team you can see the eyes, to the sides
• Bugscope Team and the things that are glowing are the antennae
• Bugscope Team they are glowing because they are charging up with electrons
• Teacher the grade 8 are leaving and the 6 s are coming in
• Teacher are these samples that we had sent?
  Bugscope Team yes all but the mystery insect, the flea and mosquito
• Bugscope Team the mystery insect seems to be a borer of some sort
• Bugscope Team the derivation of bientôt, that is
• 9:14am

• Teacher hi we are back
• Bugscope Team hello all
• Bugscope Team now we are looking at the ant comb again
• Bugscope Team this is how the ant keeps its antennae, and its eyes, clean
• Teacher from patrick: What is an ant comb?
• Bugscope Team if you take the mag down a little you can see where we are

• Bugscope Team as Cate saidl, to an ant the antennae are very important -- they are used to collect most of the information the ant uses to function
• Bugscope Team some ants do not even bother to have eyes
• Bugscope Team and if you look at the head, you can see that the antennae seem to take up the more prominent position

• Bugscope Team the ant is on its back, and it is stuck to silver paint over carbon tape
• Bugscope Team now we see a very nice looking flea
• 9:19am

• Bugscope Team some ants have stingers that when they sting you or something else, they spray or inject formic acid

• Bugscope Team the thin mouthparts below here are called laciniae
• Teacher what is it in the center
• Bugscope Team and together they cut the skin
• Bugscope Team in the center I think we are looking at palps
  Bugscope Team palps are used to manipulate or taste/smell food
• Bugscope Team below them you can see one of the laciniae
• Bugscope Team those are labial palps

• Bugscope Team now we are looking at a few ommatidia on the compound eye of a parasitic wasp

• Bugscope Team back to the wasp eye. you can see a hair sticking out between the facets of the compound eye

• Bugscope Team the purpose of it could be similar to a fly's, which would detect wind movement/direction. like if you tried to hit it with a flyswatter, it could easily outmaneuver it
• 9:24am

• Bugscope Team insects with compound eyes also have another advantage -- their eyes are very quick to detect motion
• Teacher what are these web like things from jenny
• Bugscope Team in a fruit fly, which has been well studied, the majority of the brain is devoted to processing optical signals
• Bugscope Team those on the eye are scratches, but there was some fungus on your samples
• Bugscope Team we are looking at the eye very closely, and presently we see the borders of the ommatidium in the center of the image

• Bugscope Team tenent setae

• Bugscope Team from latin tenere
• Bugscope Team to hold

• Bugscope Team they help the insect stick to vertical surfaces

• Bugscope Team tenent literally means "they hold"

• Bugscope Team and Cate is right of course the Latin would come before the Spanish

• Bugscope Team they are found on a pad called the 'pulvillus'

• 9:29am

• Bugscope Team sometimes they look more like suction cups
• Bugscope Team or calla lilies

• Bugscope Team you can see that it looks like there is some web material between the setae

• Bugscope Team not here, though, but we do see a section of fungal hyphae
• Bugscope Team geckos have similar setae but they are much finer, much smaller

• Bugscope Team it is a robust-looking little guy
• Bugscope Team you can see that it has long antennae

• 9:34am

• Teacher is this the mouth ?from shania
• Bugscope Team this is a division between segments
• Bugscope Team the mouth is above -- you can do to it if you wish
• Bugscope Team if you take the mag down and then use click to center you can easily navigate to the mouth for Shania
• Bugscope Team this would not look like this if the beetle was alive -- it probably opened up after it died

• Bugscope Team here is a spiracle -- a pore through which insects breathe
• 9:39am

• Bugscope Team insects can close their setae, if they wish, to hold their breath

• Bugscope Team the abdomen is to the bottom of the screen
• 9:46am

• Bugscope Team this is the mouth of the mystery insect, which we think is a locust borer
• 9:52am
• Bugscope Team guess that is it?