Session 2008-031 with MOREnet

Application

The School

The Class

The Project

Miscellaneous

Live Session Transcript

Connected on 2008-07-14 14:00:00 from Columbia, MO, US

• 12:51pm
• Bugscope Team in early
• 1:09pm
• Bugscope Team 1.3 x 10-3
• 1:15pm
• Bugscope Team 3.0 x 10-4
• Bugscope Team 2.8...
• Bugscope Team brb
• Bugscope Team brp
• Bugscope Team 2.3
• Bugscope Team 2.2
• Bugscope Team 2.1; that was a long step
• Bugscope Team 2.0
• 1:21pm
• Bugscope Team 1.9 the final stretch
• Bugscope Team 1.8
• Bugscope Team cinco minutos
• Bugscope Team 1.7
• Bugscope Team I think we'll be good to go by 1:35
• Bugscope Team okay chief
• Bugscope Team still 1.7
• 1:26pm
• Bugscope Team 1.6
• Bugscope Team 1.6...
• Bugscope Team 1.5
• Bugscope Team 1:32
• 1:31pm
• Bugscope Team well scott made it sound like he wanted it on the stub, so i put it on :p
• Bugscope Team 1.4... what do you think should we do a surgical strike?
• Bugscope Team if its 1.4...we can make it
• Bugscope Team hi wppl, welcome to bugscope
• Bugscope Team 1.3....
• Bugscope Team Hi wppl!
• Bugscope Team welcome to bugscope
• Bugscope Team we are setting up for the session, we've got a juicy bug in the scope today, the vac is taking it's time to get to pressure
• Bugscope Team we are just about ready to start the presets. because as Alex says we have a fresh one in the chamber
• 1:37pm
• Bugscope Team and we have had to wait for the vacuum to get down enough to start the 'scope
• Bugscope Team hi columbia public, welcome to bugscope!
• Bugscope Team we are still setting up the presets for you, we'll be done by 2PM central time

• 1:42pm
• Teacher Sounds good! See you then...

• 1:48pm

• 1:53pm

• 2:00pm

• Bugscope Team okay we are almost ready, columbia would you like to drive? or do you want us to drive for you like last time?

• Teacher Let

• Teacher Sorry, let's try that. If that's not working, we'll let you know.
• Bugscope Team we gave you control just now -- go ahead and try driving!
• Teacher We're doing an intro here first...
• 2:05pm
• Bugscope Team okay, whenever you are ready, just ask away
• Teacher thanks!
• Bugscope Team You should see controls on the computer you're using now.
• Bugscope Team to the upper right, and the presets below, from which you can choose.

• Bugscope Team this is the head of a giant wasp
• Bugscope Team you can see the compound eyes on either side of the head, and the antenna's above the eyes

• Bugscope Team and it's got it's tarsi (legs) in front of it, kind of like it's sitting indian style

• Bugscope Team the spider!
• Bugscope Team we found this today, on the steps

• Bugscope Team this is one of the wasps

• Bugscope Team you can select a preset if you wish, as well
• 2:10pm

• Teacher CAn you describe more about this picture?
• Bugscope Team here you can see, actually two combs on the ant's forelimbs
• Teacher What are the ant combs for?
  Bugscope Team it cleans the antennae or compound eyes of the ant/wasp
• Bugscope Team the combs are used by the ant to clean it's antenna's

• Bugscope Team ants seem always to have them, and we believe they use them to keep their antennae clean

• Bugscope Team much the same way a comb is used by humans to comb their hair
• Bugscope Team antennae are very important. ants were into wireless a long time before we were.
• Bugscope Team some ants don't even bother to have eyes, and some have eyes but they don't do much other than register dark or light

• Bugscope Team this one is missing one of its antennae
• Bugscope Team this is an ant's head, notice that the left antenna is broken, ack!
• Bugscope Team you can see the ball and socket joint where the one was
• Teacher is there a way to get to the presets without scrolling away from the main picture?
  Bugscope Team you should be running at a screen resolution of at least 1024x768, preferably 1280x1024. if you can't do that, then try click on F11, which will take your browser to full screen mode
• Bugscope Team this ant has very big eyes for an ant. as scott said, some ants dont have eyes
• Bugscope Team if you want to go closer you can use click to center and then click the mag up
• Bugscope Team and the ant has a little mustache! like 10 whiskers or something like that.

• Bugscope Team you should be able to move the bar on the right and that will make the presets scroll

• 2:16pm

• Bugscope Team Looks like you are doing a great job driving. It takes a little practice.
• Teacher Thanks!
• Bugscope Team if you use click to center you can focus the beam on an eye, or on the antenna base, or on the mouth, for example
• Bugscope Team the mouth looks like a gate, with hinges
• Bugscope Team there are a lot of presets (16 total), I dont think there is a way to get out of scrolling through the presets
• Bugscope Team ant's, like most insects, have compound eyes, each compound eye is made up of hundreds of individual facets called ommatidia

• Bugscope Team and there are lots of extra palps, as usual, that make the ant look like it ate something
• Bugscope Team this is the tip of the abdomen
• Bugscope Team ah, here is a, uh huh, wasp abdomen, aka wasp behind
• Bugscope Team the number of facets there are depends on how much the insect relies on sight
• Bugscope Team some ants have stingers here, and some have acid ejectors

• Teacher Now we're looking at the wasp abdomen...
• Bugscope Team yep, this is the wasp abdomen
• Bugscope Team you can see here that the cuticle is made like armor, and that is important to think about when you consider insects
• Teacher We're discussing the stinger...
• Bugscope Team some ants fly, as well

• Bugscope Team stingers on bees/wasps are modified ovipositors
• Bugscope Team you can see that this wasp has four wings
• 2:21pm

• Bugscope Team when it flies the wings are connected so that there are only two functional wings
• Bugscope Team the fore- and hindwings connect in flight using tiny hooks called hamuli
• Bugscope Team I think we made a preset showing a few hamuli
• Bugscope Team a lot of flying insects have two compound eyes and three ocelli -- simple eyes -- as well
• Bugscope Team the ocelli are on top of the head, with one centered

• Bugscope Team ah the hamuli
• Bugscope Team this is on the portion of the hindwing that connects with the edge of the forewing
• Bugscope Team little hooks, or clips

• Bugscope Team this is a stinkbug

• Bugscope Team sometimes we can see the area where the stink comes from, and it is interesting because stinkbugs themselves do not like the stink
• Bugscope Team see the eyes?
• Teacher my true bug picture isn't coming up...
• Bugscope Team all these images are in black and white, or rather in shades of grey. that is because the scope is using electrons to gather the image.
• Bugscope Team stinkbugs are true bugs, and one of the crtieria for true bugs is that they have piercing mouthparts
• Bugscope Team ah, if the image goes black, try refresh (F5)
• 2:26pm
• Bugscope Team I just clicked on it here...

• Bugscope Team can you see it now?
• Teacher Not yet, still see the hamuli
• Bugscope Team can you try hitting refresh (F5)?

• Teacher I hit F5
• Bugscope Team okay, still nothing?

• Teacher now we see it. thanks!
• Bugscope Team can you see the face of the true bug?
• Bugscope Team yay!
• Bugscope Team Yay!
• Teacher yes!
• Teacher Now they are talking about his
• Teacher mouth...
• Bugscope Team see the antennae, and the eyes, and the proboscis?
• Bugscope Team it goes down pretty far onto the thorax
• Bugscope Team yeah, the proboscis is the long thing running down the middle of it's face

• Bugscope Team an interesting side note: the largest proboscis in the world is the elephant trunk
• Bugscope Team now you can see it, oops

• Bugscope Team now we are near the tip of the abdomen
• Bugscope Team if you drive by click to center you can cruise right up toward the thorax
• 2:31pm

• Bugscope Team this is a mystery for us
• Bugscope Team it seems like a breathing pore -- like a spiracle
• Bugscope Team on the head of the rolypoly

• Bugscope Team that hole there, is what scott was talking about

• Bugscope Team because it is open and the rest of the head is covered with junk it seems likely that it was kept clear by breathing through it

• Bugscope Team these guys/gals are detritovores

• Bugscope Team they eat detritus
• Bugscope Team spiracles are holes, usually on the body of insects, which are connected to the respiratory system inside the insects. it's how bugs breath.
• Bugscope Team see the big thick antennae?
• Teacher We're chatting about common names for some bugs...
• Bugscope Team this is a crustacean, and it breathes a little differently
• Bugscope Team woodlouse, rolypoly, sowbug, pillbug
• Bugscope Team ah, yes, scott is right, crustacean's are different than insects. my fault
• Bugscope Team rolypoly is the pretty common name i think
• Bugscope Team actually there is a difference between two that look very similar
• 2:36pm

• Bugscope Team spider eyes

• Bugscope Team now we see four of the presumably eight
• Bugscope Team sometimes spiders have fewer than eight eyes

• Bugscope Team they also have plumose setae -- more feathery setae that are very sensitive to vibration

• Bugscope Team spiders can autotomize their legs if they wish -- they can just let one fall away if they sense it was bitten and poison is entering the wound
• Bugscope Team this is the abdomen, which is quite shrunken
• Teacher Will they grow another leg?
  Bugscope Team sometimes. it depends if it is a spider that is still molting or not.
• Bugscope Team if you take the mag up you may be able to see the spinnerets

• Bugscope Team they can occasionally grow other legs -- I'm not sure this kind of spider can, though

• Bugscope Team fangs!

• 2:42pm
• Bugscope Team tarantulas can grow new legs on the next molt, as Cate says

• Bugscope Team here you can see the creepy part
• Bugscope Team the fangs are pretty impressive, but you can also see that there are shorter tooth-like projections that hold the prey close to the spider
• Teacher How do spiders keep from sticking to their own webs?
• Bugscope Team spiders can, for one thing, eat their way out of their own webs

• Bugscope Team they also can make web that is not sitcky and use that to walk on

• Bugscope Team they are good recyclers and will ingest their web at the end of the night

• Bugscope Team the cool part again
• Teacher how many different species of spiders exist in the world
• Bugscope Team look at all of the sharp projections where we expect to see only two

• 2:47pm
• Bugscope Team i know there are around 4,000 species in north america, according to my kaufman guide
• Bugscope Team sometimes we get to see the pores in the tips of the fangs

• Bugscope Team spiders suck the juice out of their prey like they're milkshakes
• Bugscope Team according to wikipedia, there are around 40,000 species in the world
• Bugscope Team the venom they inject makes tasty internal organs turn to liquid so they are easily slurped up
• Bugscope Team this is the claw of the beetle, and we can tell from looking at it that it is likely not able to climb on walls or ceilings

• Bugscope Team if we could compare it to the claw of a climbing beetle we would see that the other beetle has lots of tiny setae near the claw that help it stick to vertical and upside down horizontal surfaces
• Bugscope Team these are the forelimbs, called the tarsi, or tarsomeres

• 2:52pm
• Bugscope Team the fore-portions of the limbs, not the fore limbs

• Teacher what is this part?

• Bugscope Team this looks like a shot of the tibia and the femur of the insect's leg
• Bugscope Team this is one of the limbs, and most of it is pointed toward us so we can't easily see it

• Bugscope Team you can see where the bases of the legs come out of the thorax
• Bugscope Team The little round part at the base is called a coxa
• Bugscope Team you are driving a scanning electron microscope. it has its own room, its own air, nitrogen, water, and electricity
• Bugscope Team the sample is in a vacuum chamber
• Bugscope Team and the electron beam is scanning across whatever portion of the sample we are viewing
• 2:57pm
• Bugscope Team if the electron beam goes across a small area we can get a highly magnified image bacl

• Bugscope Team now you can see some of the dog hair that slowed this beetle down
• Bugscope Team its large jaws form that upside down V shape

• Bugscope Team you can see that the mouth is very busy, with lots of palps that help the beetle taste and manipulate its food
• Bugscope Team the tiny hairs we see on insects, called setae, can have mechanosensory or chemosensory functions
• 3:03pm
• Teacher I think we are wrapping up here. Thank you so much for your time and expertise!
• Bugscope Team Thank You!
• Bugscope Team no problem! thank you for your questions and participating in bugscope today!
• Bugscope Team Thank you for driving and for asking good questions!
• Bugscope Team thank you columbia public, all the chat and images from this session will be saved on your bugscope member page: http://bugscope.beckman.uiuc.edu/members/2008-031
• Teacher That was a fantastic opportunity!
• Bugscope Team Yay! It is fun for us.
• Bugscope Team Please consider coming back next year.
• Teacher We can tell that you really enjoy working on this project.
• Bugscope Team this is a kick
• Bugscope Team we get lots of cool things to look at and we get to work with great people
• Teacher We look forward to the opportunity to work with you all again!
• Bugscope Team it is nice when the kids get a chance to log on as well, but sometimes it is not possible
• Bugscope Team Thank you.
• Bugscope Team thank you
• Teacher Thanks!!!!
• Teacher signing off...
• Bugscope Team See you next time!
• Bugscope Team okay, shutting down the rxl and the session. nice session everyone