Connected on 2009-02-24 16:30:00 from , WI, US
- 3:58pm
- Guest Thank you for the invitation.
- Bugscope Team hello iballam, welcome to bugscope
- Bugscope Team where are you from?
- Guest North Pole Alaska. I learned about your site at the annual ASTE (Alaska Society for Technology in Education) conference here in Anchorage
- Guest Since we don't have many bugs right now, this would be a great place for us in the spring.
- Guest Is there a way to freeze the picture?
Bugscope Team The picture is changing as we move the stage around to set up some preset positions for today's school to start from. If you were controlling the microscope right now, the image would only change in response to your commands
- Bugscope Team wow, north pole alaska, i had to look that one up!
- Bugscope Team Very cool. Definitely keep us in mind. If you know your schedule well enough, you could go ahead and sign up now. Otherwise just go ahead and apply in the spring
- Bugscope Team well, we are setting up for a session in 30 minutes, so we are creating presets, and that means moving around, finding nice pics
- Guest We are located 13 miles south of Fairbanks. We are part of the Fairbanks North Star Borough School district.
- Bugscope Team Also, all the images are archived and can be accessed from the Bugscope website later along with the chat text
- Guest Ah, thank you.
- 4:03pm
- Bugscope Team If you stick around, or drop by again near the end of the session, there may be time left and we can let you try controlling the scope if you'd like
- Guest Thank you. I'm waiting on a speaker.
- 4:26pm
- Bugscope Team hey there! welcome to bugscope!!
- Bugscope Team hello marquette, welcome to bugscope!
- Teacher Hi there - we will be ready to start in about 5 minutes - I need to introduce you all and get my projector working!! Michele Korb
- Bugscope Team ok, let us know if you need anything, we'll be here
- Bugscope Team ha ha
- 4:48pm
- Teacher hi! we're here, our projector isn't working...but we'll talk to you anyways :)
- Bugscope Team ok
- Teacher what is the mouthpart thing on the ant?
Bugscope Team Those are the mandibles--the ant's jaws
- Bugscope Team see the tiny eyes?
- Bugscope Team this is a leafcutter ant
- Teacher yeah...do they see things in UV light...or regular light
Bugscope Team ants generally don't have a great sense of sight...they rely primarily on chemical signals, smells and tastes, to navigate around
- Teacher ?
- Bugscope Team that is one of the compound eyes of the ant
- Bugscope Team not likely they see in UV if they don't need it
- Bugscope Team they are very small compared to other insects that rely on their eyes more
- Teacher what is a compound eye
Bugscope Team a compound eye is found on lots of flying insects. it is composed of many facets called ommatidia (those are the bumps) each one with a lens
- Bugscope Team ants sometimes don't bother to have eyes at all
- 4:54pm
- Bugscope Team compound eyes are also found on non-flying insects as well, but they are highly developed on fly's and mosquitos
- Bugscope Team sadly we cant see the fangs here
- Bugscope Team you can see some of its eyes-- simple eyes
- Teacher what exactly are we looking at
- Bugscope Team what we see are the spider's chelicerae-- where the fangs are attached
- Bugscope Team it has a lot of gunk on it, or as scott would say-- juju
- Bugscope Team to the left of the chelicerae is the end of a palp i think
- 4:59pm
- Bugscope Team this is a fly head
- Bugscope Team it has a large compound eye that we can partly see
- Teacher is that the thing on the top left side that looks spongy?
Bugscope Team yes it looks like it crumpled in on itself a little
- Bugscope Team yep!
- Teacher Is there any way to look at dust mites on a sheet?
Bugscope Team Sure, we could do that. We would have to cut up the sheet--we couldn't fit the entire sheet into the microscope
- 5:04pm
- Bugscope Team this is one of your ladybugs
- Bugscope Team the nozzle-looking thing you just zoomed out of is one of its palps
- Bugscope Team it pushes around food or tastes food with it
- Teacher does it have 4 or 6 legs? or some other number?
Bugscope Team it had 6, but some fell off
Bugscope Team All insects have 6 legs
- Bugscope Team we can only see the base of four legs there
- Teacher what kind of bug is this?
Bugscope Team this is a small moth, you can see loose scales all over its head
Bugscope Team this is a moth, moth's have all those scales on them, makes it look like one hairy dude!
- 5:11pm
- Teacher We lost our driving buttons
- Bugscope Team you should have them back now
- Bugscope Team try refresh (F5)?
- Student nope
- 5:16pm
- Student yeah
- Bugscope Team only one login can drive the scope at once. we can pass control from one student to another
- Bugscope Team when MU3 logged in, cate passed control from Marquette2 to MU3
- Bugscope Team but only admins can pass control, upon your request of course
- Bugscope Team the preset shifted a little
- Bugscope Team the part of interest is in the upper right now
- Student what are brochosomes?
Bugscope Team they are something only leafhoppers produce to protect their eggs from drying out.
- Bugscope Team there are mold spores there and some tiny brochosomes
- Bugscope Team so this insect was hanging out with some leafhoppers it seems
- Student sorry for the 3rd login name...we had to switch to a new computer
Bugscope Team no problemo :)
- Bugscope Team brochosomes where only discovered through the use of an early electron microscope. they are very very small
- Bugscope Team brochosomes "were"... i meant to say
- 5:21pm
- Student what kind of spider is this?
- Bugscope Team brochosomes are tiny balls of proteinaceous stuff that leafhoppers produce from their kidneys. The leafhoppers dust their eggs with brochosomes to protect the eggs from drying out.
- Bugscope Team i wasnt sure what kind it was
- Bugscope Team This is some sort of orb-weaving spider--in the family Araneae (I think I spelled that right)
- Bugscope Team one of its palps has almost completely fallen off as you can see
- 5:26pm
- Student is this a male or female?
Bugscope Team I can't tell from this angle whether it is a male or a female. I would need to see the eyes
- Student do the spots on a lady bug have significance?
Bugscope Team they usually are a warning to others. Like how a wasp has bright colors. It is a defense mechanism for the ladybug, and maybe a warning to animals since they taste/smell bad
- Student how can you tell by the eyes?
Bugscope Team The eyes of many female flies are separated, at the top, while the eyes of males meet in the center of the head. This increases the ability of males to detect females flying in their vicinity
- 5:31pm
- Bugscope Team I would need to see the center top of the head
- Bugscope Team heh if only we could use the electron beam to move it!
- Bugscope Team here we are on the moth eye and we can see one of its scales
- 5:37pm
- Student What is all that flakey stuff we can see here?
Bugscope Team those are its scales. it has a lot of them!
- Bugscope Team it's the same stuff as the powder that comes off on your fingers when you rub their wings
- 5:42pm
- Bugscope Team hi marquette2, still around?
- Bugscope Team Please let us know if you have any questions about driving the scope, or what we are viewing
- Bugscope Team well, i'm guessing marquette has left?
- Bugscope Team the session was scheduled for an hour
- Bugscope Team nice session everyone!
- Bugscope Team yes, as usual
- Bugscope Team michelle, all the chat and images from this session are saved to your member page: http://bugscope.beckman.uiuc.edu/members/2008-142
- Bugscope Team ok, we are shutting down the scope
- Bugscope Team over and out all!
- Bugscope Team bye annie!
- Bugscope Team rxl shut down, session disabled and locked
- Bugscope Team good session... bye bye!
