Session 2008-030 with Mile High Academy

Application

The School

The Class

The Project

Miscellaneous

Live Session Transcript

Connected on 2008-04-15 09:00:00 from Denver, CO, US

• 8:08am
• Bugscope Team session enabled, rxl started, vac started, session unlocked
• 8:13am
• Bugscope Team vac okay, starting presets
• 8:20am

• 8:27am
• Bugscope Team ocellus

• Bugscope Team this is a Tuesday, meaning we may expect a visit from the Gutenberger around lunch time.
• Bugscope Team I'm sure he misses the forum.

• 8:34am

• 8:41am

• 8:51am
• Bugscope Team hi jane, welcome to bugscope!
• Bugscope Team hello
• Bugscope Team we are still making some presets for you and your students
• Bugscope Team we are done with presets now
• Bugscope Team if you'd like to practice controlling the scope, it's all yours!
• Teacher we are excited to get started
• Bugscope Team okay, we are ready for you, feel free to ask any questions
• Teacher now what are we looking at
• Bugscope Team This is the edge of one of the legs of the roach
• Bugscope Team you can see some of the spines that run along the leg
• Teacher what are those poke lookng things

• Bugscope Team those are spines that have a sensory purpose, probably, and theyb also allow the roach to cling to a surface if it wants to

• Teacher ah and those clumpy looking things
  Bugscope Team that is just dirt or some other sort of debris we call juju
• Bugscope Team various hair-like projections in insects/arthropods are called setae, or microseta, or trichae
• 8:57am
• Bugscope Team yeah we often find dirt on insect cuticle

• Bugscope Team roaches are generalists -- they are able to live in a great diversity of environments -- so we find few specialized features on their exoskeletons

• Bugscope Team sometimes we will find diatoms on particularly dirty insects, especially if they have been in the water, or sometimes in dirt
• Bugscope Team and sometimes we find bacteria
• Bugscope Team but this seems mostly to be dirt
• Teacher what are diatoms?
• Bugscope Team diatoms are creatures with silica bodies that live in the water and have a variety of shapes
• Teacher ah i see
• Bugscope Team they are phytoplankton, and Wikipedia says they are often unicellular. In this case we can probably believe Wikipedia.

• 9:02am

• Teacher what is this?
• Bugscope Team when you find diatoms in dirt what you find is the cell wall -- what is left of the body. and it is made of silica
• Bugscope Team this is one of the 'knees' of the roach, I think -- it is kind of hard to tell from this view
• Bugscope Team be sure to try clicking on any one of the presets if you would like

• Bugscope Team hey annie

• Bugscope Team this is something we found in amid the dirt
• Bugscope Team Hello all!
• Bugscope Team Annie is our entomologist.

• Bugscope Team this is the tip of one of the cerci on the roach
• Bugscope Team this is what makes the roach jump automatically if it is touched
• Bugscope Team hi Bert!
• Guest hi scott

• Bugscope Team the roach has two cerci that project from its abdomen, sort of a rear guard
• 9:07am
• Bugscope Team the atnt stinger is to the left just a bit
• Bugscope Team many ants do not have stingers, but fire ants do

• Bugscope Team hey jane, when trying to move to someplace close, click to center is a bit eaasier than click to drive
• Bugscope Team they bite to hold on and then twist their bodies so they can get the stinger directed into your skin

• Bugscope Team you are doing a great job controlling the scope though!
• Bugscope Team the sting does not hurt that badly, normally, but there are often a lot of stings
• Bugscope Team Bert where are you from?
• Teacher how far do they inject the stinger
• Bugscope Team I am not sure -- probably much less than a millimeter
• Guest I'am from Holland (the Netherlands) and i am finding out in a dictionary what it is.
• Guest Is this an insect?
  Bugscope Team yes this is a red ant stinger
• Bugscope Team you can see from the scalebar in the lower left corner how long it is now
• Bugscope Team They inject the full length of the stinger
• Bugscope Team yes this is an ant
• Guest thanks
• Bugscope Team um = micron, one millionth of a meter
• Teacher can we see the head?
• Guest that's very small
• Bugscope Team that's right -- a micron is the same as a micrometer
• Bugscope Team the ant is curled up a bit but you can take the mag down a little and drive to the north
• Bugscope Team if you take the mag down a little you should be able to see where the head is
• Bugscope Team as Cate says...

• 9:12am
• Bugscope Team now you can see one of the antennae and part of the head

• Bugscope Team there it is

• Bugscope Team nice driving!
• Guest that's a nice picture
• Bugscope Team one of the eyes is visible behind the antenna on the right
• Bugscope Team you can see one of its compound eyes on the right by the antenna
• Bugscope Team as scott says...
• Bugscope Team Bert this microscope is from Eindhoven.
• Guest is it from FEI Company?
• Teacher thanks, is that the back of the head?
• Bugscope Team got it Dude
• Bugscope Team this is the front of the head
• Bugscope Team not much to look at
• Bugscope Team but you can move in a highlight the eye
• Bugscope Team if you want
• Guest can you zoom in to the compound eye
• Teacher where is the eye
• Bugscope Team to the right of center and up a bit
• Bugscope Team jane, it's just a bit up to the NE, under the antenna

• Bugscope Team it is the small mound on the right
• Guest I think the eye is where the antenna begins
• Bugscope Team it's hard to see, ah there is a better look

• Bugscope Team that was a big jump

• Bugscope Team here we go

• Bugscope Team it is tricky to control the 'scope, even for us, sometimes

• Bugscope Team jane, try click to center instead of click to drive

• Guest thanks for the nice pictures, I have to go. Bye.

• Bugscope Team Thanks Bert!
• 9:17am

• Bugscope Team Jane we can try zeroing in on it for you if you would like

• Bugscope Team this is the edge of the stub.

• Teacher yes please!

• Bugscope Team Now you can see the eye -- the compound eye -- which is composed of a countable number of ommatidia.
• Bugscope Team notice all the individual facets on the compound eye, those are called ommatidia, each one having it's own lens
• Bugscope Team if we could see all of them
• Bugscope Team ant eyes are going to be much smaller than say a fruit fly eye because it doesn't rely on sight so much
• Teacher thanks does it see color
• Bugscope Team earlier we were trying to image the roach eye for you as a preset, but the compound eyes are so streamlined it is hard to see the individual facets
• 9:23am
• Bugscope Team many insects see color, and they may see colors we cannot see, but I am not sure about ants
• Bugscope Team I don't know if ants can see color. Ants rely mostly on their sense of touch and smell to get around.

• Bugscope Team to us, having looked at a lot of insects, these eyes appear very primitive
• Bugscope Team oops not now though
• Bugscope Team this is a good comparison
• Bugscope Team yes, now this is the compound eye of a fruit fly, notice many more ommatidia than on an ant
• Teacher what are the hairy things on it?
• Bugscope Team so here you can see in between the ommatidia are sensory setae
• Bugscope Team this is the fruit fly eye, one of them
• Bugscope Team and those hairs are called setae
• Teacher is that so that they can feel?
• Bugscope Team those setae are thought to help the fly sense wind/air movement while flying
• Bugscope Team so they can feel the wind as they fly
• Teacher oh cool.
• Teacher how many lenses do they have?
  Bugscope Team each facet has a lens in it, so this fruit fly would have hundreds of lens's per compound eye
• Bugscope Team because insects have exoskeletons -- they have their skeleton on the outside -- they need to be able to sense their environment using probes that reach through the exoskeleton and connect to nerves on the inside
• 9:28am
• Bugscope Team chemosensory, i meant to say, spelled it wrong before...
• Bugscope Team it's like if you were wearing a suit of armor -- you would not be able to feel things touching it
• Bugscope Team the antennae have a lot of chemosensory setae
• Teacher how much presure can an ants exoskelton with hold?
  Bugscope Team I can't find an exact answer. However, the hollow tubes that make up the exoskeleton are extraordinarily strong. They have greater resistance to bending and heavy weight than do solid rods made of the same amount of material
• Bugscope Team we could dodge the question by saying it depends on the ant
• Bugscope Team but Annie is looking it up.
• Teacher go annie!
• Bugscope Team take the mag down a little if you would like
• Bugscope Team see where you are

• Bugscope Team you are driving a field-emission scanning electron microscope from Colorado

• Bugscope Team wow, cool, look at all those setae!

• Bugscope Team sometimes i'm still blown away by these images...
• Bugscope Team the samples are in a vacuum chamber and the electron beam is scanning across them, producing secondary electrons that give us the images we see
• Bugscope Team the background is silver paint, to the left, and carbon tape to the right
• 9:33am
• Bugscope Team everything we are looking at has several nanometers of gold-palladium on it to make it conductive
• Bugscope Team From May Berenbaum's book: Bugs in the System
• Teacher will you help us find its mouth?
• Bugscope Team sure!

• Bugscope Team this is the 'mouth'
• Bugscope Team the part with the holes is the sponging mouthpart
• Bugscope Team the arm is going over it so it isn't so easy to see
• Bugscope Team it is a spongy sort of projection that doesn't usually air dry well
• Bugscope Team Cate critical point dried this ant or we would not see it looking so good

• Bugscope Team Oops I mean fruit fly
• Bugscope Team Once insects morph into their adult forms, they don't grow or change any more. Larvae such as caterpillars increase the size of their head capsules, but generally remain pretty squishy---so they can grow larger without molting. Insects with incomplete metamorphosis, like cockroaches, have pre-adult forms that are identical to the adults, minus functional wings
• Bugscope Team once they have wings they are done
• Bugscope Team a lot of insects consume their food in liquid form -- they don't bite and chew
• Bugscope Team because most of the wings don't have a blood supply
• Teacher is that the tube they suck up fooooooood with
• Bugscope Team and spiders, for example the one you sent, drink their food like a milkshake
• Bugscope Team there are tarsi in the way!
• 9:38am
• Bugscope Team yes in the middle of the proboscis is one of the arms
• Bugscope Team the forearm segments are called tarsi
• Bugscope Team so our view of the proboscis is obstructed
• Bugscope Team be sure and try another preset if you would like
• Bugscope Team you can scroll through them
• Bugscope Team hi Chas!
• Bugscope Team Chas is the architect of this software and just logged on using his iPhone
• Bugscope Team Good bye all...I have no more battery!!
• Bugscope Team Thank you all!
• Bugscope Team We lost Colonel Chas as well.

• Teacher well scott thanks for showing us this wonderful bug but i would sure like to view all the wonderful things of a spider
• Bugscope Team okay do you want to click on preset 4?
• Bugscope Team oops five!
• Bugscope Team #3 is a spider, right?
• Bugscope Team no no I mean three! ; )
• 9:43am
• Bugscope Team Alex is right.
• Bugscope Team preset 3 is a cool spider fang.... arghghg!

• Bugscope Team AAHHH, got scared for a second there, sorry.
• Bugscope Team there this is one of the fangs
• Teacher wow this is blowing my mind
• Bugscope Team One cool thing we learned today is that some millipedes have a secretion that sedates and immobilizes wolf spiders
• Bugscope Team coolness
• Bugscope Team so the spider tries to bite the millipede and ingests some of the chemical defense secreted by the millipede and gets knocked out for hours
• Teacher no way that is so cool your so smart scott
• Bugscope Team itstrue he is smart
• Bugscope Team if we could see past the setae there we could see the poison pore at the tip of the fang
• Bugscope Team thanks...
• Bugscope Team when we mount a spider on a stub we have to decide if we are going to make it so you can see the fangs or the eyes, usually
• Bugscope Team try taking the mag down...
• 9:48am
• Teacher on the tip of the fang nooo way thats awesome
• Bugscope Team you may be able to see the spinnerettes, to the south

• Bugscope Team I lost track of where we are now.
• Bugscope Team can you take the mag lower, briefly?

• Teacher where are the eyes?
• Bugscope Team spiders have the ability to reject their own legs if they sense poison entering them from having been bitten
• Bugscope Team it's called autotomizing..

• Bugscope Team with spiders, it is difficult to pick one side or the other, either you can see the fangs or you can see the eyes, the eyes are on the other side facing the carbon tape
• Bugscope Team the eyes we will not be able to see because we are imaging the underside of the body

• Bugscope Team try driving to the south using the click to center feature
• 9:53am
• Bugscope Team if it does not work for you we can try it...
• Teacher where is the mouth
• Bugscope Team the mouth is about where the fangs are

• Bugscope Team this is something we will have to read up on
• Bugscope Team the spider injects venom into its prey and lets the venom digest its prey before sucking it dry
• Bugscope Team so the spider is immune to its own venom
• Bugscope Team kind of like stomach juices that are highly acidic
• Bugscope Team this is gross but when someone has bulimia and throws up repeatedly it can wear that person
• Teacher hey scott where is the area that the spider spins its web
• Bugscope Team 's teeth down to little nubs from the acid
• Bugscope Team it also eats its own webbing when it is done with it, or needs to repair the web, which is high in protein. So it kind of recycles the web
• Bugscope Team that would be down south of here Jane

• 9:59am

• Bugscope Team that thing -- the thing that looks like a cactus -- is one of the spinnerettes, which produce web
• Bugscope Team to the top now'
• Teacher thanks buddy whhere is it
• Bugscope Team it is not so distinct

• Bugscope Team the tube we saw a second ago is one of the web producing nozzles, which are called spinnerets
• Bugscope Team depending on how you spell it
• Teacher thanks could we look at the legs
• Bugscope Team spiders can produce sticky and non sticky web

• Bugscope Team sure!

• 10:04am
• Bugscope Team now to the north
• Bugscope Team this is the abdomen
• Bugscope Team spiders are soft bodied and do not air dry as well as many insects
• Bugscope Team you can see one of the legs now

• Bugscope Team those are claws, amid the setae

• Bugscope Team spiders cannot generally see very well, but they have lots of sensory setae that are very sensitive to vibration
• Bugscope Team spider abdomens also sometimes go POP in the vacuum
• Bugscope Team sometimes, as Cate says, spiders will pop in the vacuum and the microscope will be temporarily disabled -- the beam will shut down because the vacuum in the chamber is not good enough

• Teacher we would like to go back to the fruit fly, we forgot to look at its wings
• Bugscope Team cool!

• 10:09am
• Bugscope Team fruit flies are Diptera, which means 'two wings'
• Bugscope Team di ptera

• Bugscope Team they have halteres, which you could say were once a second set of wings, now modified to balance the movement of the two wings that remain
• Bugscope Team they used to have 2 pairs of wings, but one of the pairs evolved into halteres when are kind of like punching bags which stabilize the fies flight
• Bugscope Team I think you can see the bottom of one of the halteres in this view
• Teacher will you please zoom in on the wings

• Teacher thanks

• Teacher are the wings easily breakable?
• Bugscope Team you can see that it is covered with microsetae
• Bugscope Team the thing to the left, barely in the image we see now, is the haltere on this side
• Bugscope Team the wings are very fragile
• Bugscope Team they are made of a thin layer of chitin
• Bugscope Team I think the tiny setae on the wings help add surface area to them
• Bugscope Team which is the same stuff your fingernails are made of
• 10:14am
• Bugscope Team and help them catch air
• Teacher how fast do they move
• Bugscope Team so as Cate says they are as tough as they can be
• Guest hi
• Bugscope Team hi danyelle
• Bugscope Team fruit fly wings beat 9000 to 13000 times per minute
• Bugscope Team and they are fast, but I am not sure how fast....
• Bugscope Team Hi Danyelle!

• Bugscope Team there is the haltere to the left of the wing
• Bugscope Team the round shaped object
• 10:19am
• Teacher what does the haltere do?
• Bugscope Team you could say were once a second set of wings, now modified to balance the movement of the two wings that remain
• Bugscope Team the haltere beats opposite the motion of the wings and works sort of like a gyroscope to stabilize that motion
• Teacher sweet
• Bugscope Team I found another reference on line from a guy who has talked here ar Beckman before -- a fruit fly guy named Davidson. He says the motion of the wings is more like 200 beats per second
• Teacher while in flight do the legs help in any way?
• Bugscope Team the halteres have what are termed hypertrophied mechanosensors in the shaft part that we cannot see, and that is what senses and works counter to the motion of the wings
• Bugscope Team I don't recall that the legs help with the mechanics of flight, although they may be drawn up a bit so the fly is more streamlined in the wind

• 10:24am

• Bugscope Team Jane if you want try imaging preset 4 -- the little beetle
• Teacher scott, thank you so much for your time and answering our ???s. Our class is over
• Bugscope Team all of these images are stored to your school's database on our web site
• Bugscope Team Thanks Jane!
• Bugscope Team jane, thanks for doing bugscope, remember all your chat and images of the session are saved on your member page: http://bugscope.beckman.uiuc.edu/members/2008-030
• Bugscope Team Alex I bet is going to send you the link.
• Bugscope Team thanks for sending the cool bugs. the small beetle was kind of cool for us
• Bugscope Team oops beat me to it

• Bugscope Team We are interested in insects that have scales, and what colors those scales might produce. Structural colors.
• Teacher great, we learned a lot
• Bugscope Team Thanks Jane!
• Bugscope Team See you next year?
• Bugscope Team Over and out....
• Teacher see ya
• Bugscope Team ciao
• 10:30am
• Bugscope Team Bye!
• Bugscope Team sometimes we learn from bugscope as well. someone will bring up a fact that the rest of us didn't know. so it is a lot of fun for us as well
• Bugscope Team okay, closing the session now
• Bugscope Team session locked, rxl stopped, session disabled
• Bugscope Team jane, going to have to boot you off, but remember all your chat and images from today's session are saved on your member page: http://bugscope.beckman.uiuc.edu/memebers/2008-030
• Bugscope Team ciao!