Connected on 2009-01-12 14:15:00 from , IL, US
- 1:38pm
- Guest Hi!
- Bugscope Team hello! welcome to bugscope
- Bugscope Team we are setting up just now, going to make some presets
- Bugscope Team scott says hi
- Bugscope Team Hi Tony!
- Bugscope Team Cate is making the presets and Alex is adding them.
- Bugscope Team This is a gossamer winged butterfly with brochosomes on the eye facets.
- 1:44pm
- Bugscope Team Alien!
- Bugscope Team this is the Gutenberger of insects
- Bugscope Team Vespa
- 1:51pm
- 1:56pm
- Guest Will Ms. DiMaso be able to log in soon as "teacher"? She's getting "antsy" - no pun intended.
- Bugscope Team She can login anytime
- Bugscope Team she may need to hit refresh on the page to notice that the session has been enabled (about 15 minutes ago)
- Bugscope Team she should be able to -yeah- log in anytime
- Bugscope Team is the login not working?
- 2:01pm
- Bugscope Team tell Cate to check for a keel on the hydrophilid
- Bugscope Team some of the water dudes have a keel on their ventral side, like a ship
- Bugscope Team but now we're on an Annie-bug
- Bugscope Team hi caroline, welcome to bugscope!
- Guest Hi
- 2:07pm
- Bugscope Team Hi Liz and Shayna!
- Bugscope Team are you able to login as a "student"?
- Guest Hi! is that a spider?
- Guest what is that
- Bugscope Team this is a water beetle, laying on its back
- Student Hello!
- Guest cool
- Bugscope Team hi, welcome to bugscope!
- Student hello
- Bugscope Team we are starting to wonder if something about Firefox changed, 'cause a lot of the students are getting dumped off of the site
- Bugscope Team Hello!
- Bugscope Team This is a waterbug of some sort -- its called polyphaga
- Bugscope Team This is a beetle in the family Hydrophilidae
- Bugscope Team ms. dimaso, let us know if you have any problems or trouble having the students stay connected
- Bugscope Team mrs. dimaso, i'm sorry...
- Bugscope Team yep annie, and hi
- Bugscope Team Hi Hi!
- Teacher Hello! We are ready to start! No problems so far.
- 2:12pm
- Bugscope Team ok great, welcome to bugscope!
- Bugscope Team Common name is "water scavenger beetles"
- Bugscope Team this is a water beetle, the underside, magnified at 41X
- Student that bug is pretty nice bug
- Bugscope Team mrs. dimaso, you should now have control, feel free to drive around
- Bugscope Team we can give control at any time to any of the students or guests
- Bugscope Team They are nearly identical to another group of water beetles called the Dytiscids--but despite looking very similar, these two families of beetles are very distantly related
- Guest How many years of collage do you have to take to be a scientisit
- Bugscope Team if you want to get a PhD it takes 4 years of college and then 4 to 6 years longer, usually
- Bugscope Team but some of us just went 4 years
- Guest what part of the water beetle is this
Bugscope Team This is a very close up view of the eye
- Guest what part of a water bettle is this
- Teacher Some of the students' resolutions are not set right. They can't see the chat. We need to go around the room and fix that.
- Guest Does this beetle have antennae?
Bugscope Team Yes, they are slightly below the eye
- Bugscope Team you can see that it has some scales from another insect on it
- Bugscope Team ok, make sure the resolution is at 1024x768 or bigger
- 2:17pm
- Bugscope Team yes it should have antennae --
- Bugscope Team if you need instructions on how to set the res, let me know
- Bugscope Team now we can see them
- Student what is the rarest bug you have, ever looked at?
Bugscope Team Well, I have collected beetles that are the only known specimens--so those are rare. They might be common in their natural habitats, they are just not commonly collected.
- Guest How big is the beetle really?
Bugscope Team It is probably about a half an inch long, maybe a little smaller
- Guest Is this job how you make a living?
Bugscope Team yes, we all make a living working for bugscope and the university of illinois. we do many things other than bugscope as well
- Student can one person alone run your microscope
Bugscope Team yes, we regularly train people to use this microscope. And afterwards they will look at their samples with it. You could probably learn how to use the basic controls in 5 minutes or less.
- Guest how high does the microscope magnify
Bugscope Team it can magnify up to 800,000x, but for insects it's best to view them at 40-40,000x or so
- Bugscope Team we are scientists who work in the lab, or in the case of alex he works on computers and everything to do with that
- Guest So is it easy to find specimens?
Bugscope Team Some insects are very easy to find, especially pest species like Japanese beetles and fruit flies and mosquitos. Other specimen are a little more difficult to find. You have to be at the right place at the right time.
- Guest where do you get the bugs
Bugscope Team often students send us bugs. but we also collect them from our homes or yards
- Bugscope Team Annie brought these bugs to us from someone's collection
- Student is it true a beatle can live 1 day with out its head?
- Guest how do you get the bugs
- Guest Is there hair on a beatle
Bugscope Team they often have what look like hairs on them -- the hairs are called setae, and they are sensory hairs
Bugscope Team the hairs are called setae (see-tee), they are kinda like whiskers on a cat, they help the insect sense its environment
- Guest what are those little bumps?
- Guest So do these beetles live in the water?
Bugscope Team Yes they do.
- Student is this bug that were looking at common around here?
Bugscope Team I am not sure what species this is, but hydrophilids are common in ponds all over the US
- Guest What are the pointy things.
- Guest Are those spikes or hair
Bugscope Team some of what we see are spines -- spikes -- and some are setae (hair)
- Student where did you get this bug
Bugscope Team I got this insect from a collection of insects (with pins in them so you will see a lot of holes in these insects today) and they came from Annie
- Guest right now we are looking at something t
- 2:22pm
- Bugscope Team the larger components are spines
- Bugscope Team there are also scales, from another insect, on this arm/leg
- Student how did you become you intersted in science
Bugscope Team my step father was a scientist, so he taught me a lot about astronomy and the universe. that's how i first became really into science
- Student can this fly
Bugscope Team yes, occasionally I see hydrophilids at black light traps.
- Bugscope Team And I got them from a friend of mine who is moving to Ireland and can't bring her insect collection
- Bugscope Team who's driving?
- Bugscope Team i think mrs. dimaso is driving, but she is fixing resolutions at the moment
- Student for a bug to be on bugscope how dead does it have to be
Bugscope Team just dead enough--dead is dead
- Guest is this bug a male or a female and how do you know
Bugscope Team I am not sure--we could probably take a guess by examining the terminal abdominal segment.
- Student did you ever see a Ameba close up
Bugscope Team we have seen amoebae in light microscopes but not in this 'scope, not yet
- Bugscope Team for bugscope purposes
- Student what is this
- Bugscope Team ah cool, these are tenent setae, little hairs that help the insect "stick" to surfaces
- Bugscope Team terminal abdominal segment-- wow annie, you have some vocab :p
- Student what bug is this from
- Guest what are those sikes used
- Bugscope Team I almost said terminal abdominal sternite, but I thought that was too fancy
- Bugscope Team ;)
- Student from what bug is this spesimen
- 2:27pm
- Bugscope Team I have been working on morphology lately
- Guest Are this the hairs of the bug
- Bugscope Team This is the foot of a longhorned beetle
- Bugscope Team the tenent setae help the insect cling to smooth surfaces, and the small spines probably keep them from sticking too we
- Bugscope Team too well
- Bugscope Team longhorn beetles are annie's specialty
- Bugscope Team these are little setae that help the insect stick to surfaces
- Guest What's morphology?
- Bugscope Team 'morph' means shape
- Student can it hang up side down
Bugscope Team they can hand upside down but probably don'
- Student How big is it
Bugscope Team You can get an idea of how bigg something is by looking at the scalebar in the lower left corner of the image on the screen
- Bugscope Team the morphology is the shape of something, and what it is termed, the way Annie meant
- Guest Why are those bugs Annies spceillty
Bugscope Team My research is about longhorned beetles; I spend all my time thinking about them.
- Guest what are those two little spikes at the end
Bugscope Team that is one of the claws of the beetle. It has one for every leg
- Student what state does this bug come from
Bugscope Team Probably Illinois, if it is from my friend Bridget's collection
- Student what is the strangest bug you have seen on the microscope?
Bugscope Team owlfly larvae are pretty strange looking, and silverfish are weird as well
- Guest what's your favroite tipe of bug to look at under the microscope?
Bugscope Team insects with stingers are pretty cool to look at. Or insects that have little mites on them!
- Guest What do they eat?
Bugscope Team Longhorned beetles are generally wood borers--they eat trees.
- 2:33pm
- Student Where is this bug found?
Bugscope Team I am not sure which species this is, but it is probably found in or near the forest
- Student whats the hairys bug you ever seen
Bugscope Team the hairiest bugs we've seen are spidermites, which aren't really insects
- Bugscope Team OOF
Bugscope Team it means Out Of Focus
- Student does this bug have skin
Bugscope Team it has a exoskeleton which is a hard material made of chitin (same type of stuff as your fingernails), they dont have skin like us
- Guest why OOf?
- Student can you control one of your big microscopes alone, if not how many people do you need
Bugscope Team one person alone can control it. Right now your teacher is controlling it alone :)
Bugscope Team yes, many scientists use the scope by themselves. scott and cate give them training first...
- Student is that a stiger
Bugscope Team this is a insect foot
- Guest cool
- Guest Is there any hair on the claw
Bugscope Team yes insects are covered in hair which we call setae when we find them on insects. You can see that one of the parts of the claw looks a little furry-- thats setae
- Student How many nails or fingers does a wasp have?
- Guest Are the claws really sharp, like needles? yipes!!
Bugscope Team not really, they are more clingy and sticky. The claws sometimes can tickle or kind of hurt in larger species of insects
- Guest what part of body is this?
- Student what do they use the claws for
Bugscope Team they can grab onto things for support, or to help them eat things, or protect themselves, etc.
- Guest can wasps sting when their dead?
Bugscope Team they wouldnt be able to inject any venom into you so it won't hurt really. You would just be poking yourself with a small sharp needle, and I dont think it happens often
- Student have you ever got stung buy a wasp or any other bug you have collected
- Student is th
- Student what is the part beetween the claws
- Guest what are thore spikes on the side of the foot?
- Student what is the part beetween the claws
Bugscope Team depending on the insect there may be a pad called the 'pulvillus' between the claws that has tenent setae on it
- Bugscope Team all of those spikey things are setae aka hairs
- Student have you ever been stung by a wasp or any other bug you have collected
Bugscope Team Yes
- Student What's that walnut thing?
- 2:38pm
- Guest what are we looking at?
- Guest Is the bumpy part,part of the skin?
Bugscope Team we are looking at the compound eye of a butterfly. The bumps are the individual parts of the eye called ommatidia
- Guest what is THAT?
- Bugscope Team I was stung by a bee that I collected, and a tiny little wasp that was trying to stick me for some reason.
- Bugscope Team this is the eye of a butterfly
- Bugscope Team this is a compound eye, with hundred os facets (ommatidia)
- Student what are these circle things
Bugscope Team those are the individual facets of the compound eye, called ommatidia. they each contain a lens
- Bugscope Team And mosquitos, I just stand and wait for mosquitoes to come to me. Usually, I collect them before they bite me though.
- Bugscope Team butterflies and some other insects can often see colors in wavelengths of light, like UV, that humans cannot see
- Student What are those chip things around the eye?
Bugscope Team those are the scale of the butterfly, they have many scales all over their body
Bugscope Team those were the scales
- Bugscope Team you can see scales all around the eye, and part of the proboscis
- Guest Is this a wasp
Bugscope Team No, this is a butterfly
- Guest What are these raggy stuff around th eye?
Bugscope Team you are probably referring to the scales. You can see individual scales under this microscope (the same stuff that is powdery when you rub their wings)
- Student What are dose loops
- Guest Do you know what kind of butterfly this is?
Bugscope Team this is a gossamer-winged butterfly
- Guest What is that hole in the middle
- Student how big is big is its normal size
- Student Is it a monarch butterfly
Bugscope Team Not this time.
- Student how do you know it is a boy or girl
Bugscope Team The same way you tell the boys from the girls of any animal--humans, dogs, etc.
Bugscope Team if it was a Monarch we would be able to tell by the thickness of the black lines on the wings -- they're thinner on males
- Guest What are those little dots?
- Student How big is the butterfly
Bugscope Team this is a smaller butterfly than a monarch. It is a gossamer wing butterfly
- 2:43pm
- Student have you ever see dust mites clearly?
Bugscope Team we have seen dustmites clearly but they have such soft bodies that they are almost always shriveled up
- Student how big are these eyes
- Bugscope Team sometimes it is hard to tell boys from girls without dissecting the insect, and sometimes you can tell easily
- Guest Where did you get this butterfly
Bugscope Team I'm not sure, it wasnt collected by us
- Student can butterflys see better than humans
- Student where is this on the body
- Guest what is this?
- Bugscope Team ~Hey guys...
- Bugscope Team Yay Claudi
- Student can butterflys see better than humans
Bugscope Team in many ways they can see better than us -- for example a compound eye gives the insect a quicker response to movement
- Bugscope Team these are wing scales
- Student Is this on a wing
- Bugscope Team ~Sorry for not being online in forever...long story...grad school...and tons of other things...and then my pc crashed
- Student what kind of butterfly is this
Bugscope Team a type of gossamer wing butterfly
- Guest is this part of the butterflys wing?
- Guest do butterflys see multiples insted of one whole pictures
- Bugscope Team ~How come tilta does not work?
- Guest Can you have have a butterfly as a pet
Bugscope Team You could, but it would not be a very lovable pet. You can't really hold them, they don't live very long, and I don't know if they would be happy living in a cage. In fact, butterflies in cages tend to smash their wings up trying to get out. Therefore, I do not recommend having a butterfly for a pet.
- Student what are those sand dune things on the bottom left corner
Bugscope Team the things that looked like sand dunes were where the silver paint was holding the wing down
- Guest What is the white little spots?
- Bugscope Team Claudi hit the shift key and then the tilde
- Guest what are the indentions?
- 2:48pm
- Guest Do the scales come off easily?
Bugscope Team Very easily. If you have every picked up a moth or a butterfly, and you hand became covered in dusty stuff--those are the scales coming off.
- Student what are the line looking things
Bugscope Team wing veins
- Student what is this
- Guest how many types of butterflys are in the usa?
Bugscope Team in north america north of mexico there are about 700 species of butterflies
- Bugscope Team this is cool
- Guest are those eggs?
- Student are those fuzz balls pollen or something?
- Student how many types of butterflies are there in the world
Bugscope Team Approximately 20000 species in the world
- Guest How big are brochosomes?
- Bugscope Team those are brochosomes -- they are tiny waxy pellets that are produced only by leafhoppers
- Bugscope Team you can see that the brochosomes are less than a half micrometer in diameter
- Student what are these dots
- Guest What are brochosomes?
- Bugscope Team half a micrometer (half a micron) is 500 nanometers
- Guest Are brochosomes microscopic?
- Bugscope Team Cool pollen grains???
- Student why are they in one big bunch
- Bugscope Team no smaller, these are brochosomes
- Bugscope Team ahhhhhhhhhh...
- 2:54pm
- Student Why are the pics in black and white not in color?
Bugscope Team these are real images -- live images that you are collecting now, and the electron beam that impinges on the sample causes electrons to come out of the surface of the conductive coating on the sample. the electrons that come into the detector are collected as signal, in gray scale, not color
- Student is this bug common
- Guest What are bro. for?
Bugscope Team One of their main functions is thought to be repelling water. The leafhoppers spread them across their bodies in a thin film
Bugscope Team The female leafhoppers dust their eggs with masses of brochosomes to protect them from water, heat, etc.
- Guest I do think this bug is common
- Guest but im not sure
- Guest why are these in one place?
Bugscope Team Probably they just caught in a little crevice on the eye
- Guest is this 2 thoundsths of a mm.?
Bugscope Team if you look at the scale bar and it says 2 um, that does indeed mean two thousandths of a millimeter
- Guest what is this?
- Guest have u ever seen a worm
- Student what was the hardest bug you guys ever gotten
- Student is that ball an eye and that stick an antenne
- Guest this is a wasp, right? is it like dirt on there?
- Guest Does this live underwater?
Bugscope Team No, this insect lives on land.
- Student what is the stuff on the eye
Bugscope Team it's what we call juju-- random stuff that doesnt belong there, usually dirt or dust
- Guest What are those things on the eye
Bugscope Team Dust and dirt
- 2:59pm
- Guest how many facets are on the eye
- Guest how do you hilight words?
Bugscope Team when we highlight words we are grabbing them so we can answer that question and it will show up on the left of this box as well as in the chat
- Guest Why is this eye round but the other one flat?
- Guest do they just see 1 picture with all the lens, or do they see a bunch of offerent pictures?
- Guest How does juju get on there?
Bugscope Team It lands on the eye just like it lands on books and photos on your shelves at home.
- Student why are the circles so flating down
- Student If each facet has a lense, do they see multiple images???
Bugscope Team I believe this is still unknown to scientists, but most likely their brain merges all of the individual images into one coherent one the way our brains merge the views from both our eyes into one
- Student What color is this bug supposed to be?
Bugscope Team it wasnt a very interesting color, it was brown
- Guest Thank you
- Student thank you very much
- Student thankyou!
- Guest thank you
- Bugscope Team Looks like someone took a big bite out of this grasshopper
- Bugscope Team thank you students, you all rocked!
- Guest thank you
- Student thank you so much for leting us talk to you !
- Bugscope Team Thank you for your questions -- this was fun!
- Bugscope Team it was also very dry so you will see it has barely any of its limbs on it still and a crack in its back
- Bugscope Team thank you for all your great questions
- Guest thankyou
- Guest Thank you!
- Student Thank you people at Bug scope for showing us this!!!
- Guest Thanks!
- Bugscope Team Thank you all for your questions
- Guest thanks for all the info! I never liked bugs, but now I know what they look like from a whole different veiw!!
Bugscope Team Cool, Kristyn
- Guest thankss
- Student Thankyou =) =)
- Guest THANK U SO MUCH FOR LETTING ME LOOK ON YOUR WEBSITE !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
- Bugscope Team it's ok, i still dont like a lot of live wormy creepy crawly insects like pupae
- Bugscope Team This is my favorite view of bugs...bugs up close....REALLY close...but far away under the scope and dead =) lol
- Bugscope Team no prob olivia, watch out for exclamation overload though...
- Student thankyou for answering our questions
- 3:04pm
- Bugscope Team Thank you for participating today -- and we hope to see you next year
- Student You guys have an awsome job!!
- Guest How long are showings on bugscope?
- Teacher Thanks!!! See you next year!! (I think we had a few guests not from our school....)
- Bugscope Team thanks caroline, great session!
- Teacher Logging out.
- Bugscope Team you can find all the chat and images on your member site
- Bugscope Team the sessions are usually around an hour long
- Bugscope Team http://bugscope.beckman.uiuc.edu/members/2008-128
- Bugscope Team Shane do you want to drive?
- Guest what do you mean?
- Bugscope Team scott gave you control of the microscope if you want to
- Bugscope Team do you want to control an electron microscope?
- Bugscope Team You should have conntrol of the microscope now, Shane
- Bugscope Team you should see controls on the right side of your browser window
- Bugscope Team you are controlling a $800,000 electron microscope over the internet
- Guest cool this is the first time i ever did this
- Bugscope Team no problem
- Bugscope Team just drive around, you can't hurt the thing
- Bugscope Team cool!
- 3:09pm
- Guest well I have to logout now because I have to go some where out of town bye
- Bugscope Team k, laterz
- Bugscope Team oop
- Bugscope Team let's pack em in and bail
- Bugscope Team ok well thats it
- Bugscope Team session locked, disabled, rxl stopped
- Bugscope Team nice session everyone
