Connected on 2009-05-29 08:00:00 from , PA, US
- 7:24am
- Teacher hello all we are getting ready for our science olympiad at poff elementary
- Bugscope Team hello, mrs. prosser, welcome to bugscope
- Teacher thank you so much for this service
- Bugscope Team we are setting up presets, session at 8AM central right?
- Teacher we have used bug scope for our tech expo, classes and now science olympiad
- Teacher I am getting everything ready for the projects here
- Teacher thanks-
- Bugscope Team cool
- Bugscope Team we may not use all of the critters you see this morning -- some of them are charging too much
- 7:30am
- Bugscope Team ok, we are done making presets, we are ready anytime you want to start, it's up to you
- 7:40am
- Teacher okay, I am waiting for our first group to arrive
- Bugscope Team cool
- Bugscope Team if you want to practice controlling the scope, you can
- Teacher we will have four groups of students to explore bug scope
- Bugscope Team awesome, we can five control to those groups anytime, just let us know
- Teacher I am have told several librarains about this service you provide
- 7:54am
- Bugscope Team Mrs Prosser you are good to go as soon as you'd like.
- Teacher I am also using a smart board
- Teacher with this project
- Bugscope Team ok, no problemo
- Teacher I hope it works
- Bugscope Team lot'
- Bugscope Team lot'
- Bugscope Team Cool. Will the kids have computers as well, to talk to us?
- Bugscope Team ahh! can't type this morning, lot's of teachers use smart boards
- Teacher they can type on the smart board
- Teacher using the keybaord
- Bugscope Team that sounds great!
- Teacher which images are not working
- Bugscope Team all of the presets should be working
- Bugscope Team all the presets work
- Bugscope Team try clicking on one of the presets
- 8:00am
- Bugscope Team Mrs Prosser Cate found a mite on the stub this morning a little ways away from the bumblebee. Kind of cool.
- Bugscope Team That is preset no. 4.
- Bugscope Team there is also a mite on the bumblebee that is #3
- 8:06am
- 8:12am
- Bugscope Team pollen grains on the surface of the compound eye
- Bugscope Team the compound eye is made up of hundreds of individual facets, called ommatidia, each one has a lens in it
- Bugscope Team you can see the facets of the eye -- they're called ommatidia, and they are often hexagonal, as now
- Bugscope Team ha Alex beat me to it!
- Bugscope Team :)
- Bugscope Team the scale bar in the lower left tells you how big things are.
- Bugscope Team one um = one micron = one millionth of a meter
- Bugscope Team there are many different kinds of pollen, and different shapes. we don't know what kind this is.
- Teacher what insect are we viewing
Bugscope Team this is the compound eye of a bumblebee
- 8:18am
- Teacher what part of the bug are you viewing
- Bugscope Team well, this is the eye of a fly, if you zoom out you can see the whole thing, then you can oom back it to get a clse-up
- Bugscope Team oh sorry, the eye of a bumblebee, not a fly
- Bugscope Team lots of pollen!
- Bugscope Team yes this bumblebee is covered in pollen
- Bugscope Team you can see part of the jaw, now, and one of the antennae
- Bugscope Team all those hairs are called setae (see-tee), they help the insect sense its environment
- Bugscope Team we also suggest how to catch and store insects on our website, to help the teachers/students through it
- Bugscope Team sometimes they are trapped by entomologists in mesh nets that have been baited with pheromones or similar aromatic chemicals, and sometimes we catch them individually, as Alex said. Often we catch insects like bees as they are dying.
- 8:23am
- Teacher what is the stuff on the eye
Bugscope Team those are pollen grains
- Bugscope Team that is pollen
- Bugscope Team some of it might also be dirt or other debris as well
- Bugscope Team this is wild looking !
- Bugscope Team assassim bug, like this, eat other insects
- Bugscope Team ah cool, this is an assassin bug, with it's huge proboscis sticking out of its head area, and the compound eyes on either side
- Bugscope Team they poke them with their proboscis and suck the juice out of them
- Bugscope Team this type of assassin bug is an ambush bug
- Bugscope Team there are 22 species of ambush bugs in North America
- Bugscope Team wow, this ambush bug is very bumpy, i don't remember seeing one so bumpy before!
- Bugscope Team see the domelike eyes? and the swept-back antennae?
- Bugscope Team they sit on flowers waiting to clutch other insects with their hooked legs
- Bugscope Team they often take prey larger than themselves, including bees and large flies
- Bugscope Team you can see that this ambush bug has a thickened cuticle -- its exoskeleton
- 8:28am
- Bugscope Team kind of like an insect rhinoceros
- Bugscope Team this is part of the proboscis -- its piercing mouthpart
- Bugscope Team you can see a couple of scales from other insects on the center portion of the proboscis
- Bugscope Team the things that look kind of like feathers
- Bugscope Team and you can see that the proboscis is solid, like a little jackhammer
- Bugscope Team ah, this is cool, some flying insects have these setae inbetween the ommatidia, they are thought to help sense wind speed and direction, to help the insect fly around
- Teacher the images are not loading
Bugscope Team trying click on refresh (F5)
- Bugscope Team hit F5
- Teacher we have an x for the images
- Teacher thanmk you
- Bugscope Team so that fixed it?
- Teacher thank you
- Teacher thank you
- 8:33am
- Bugscope Team you're welcome
- Bugscope Team cool cool, glad it's working again, sometimes networks can caused weirdness in communication, so if something isn't working try F5 (refresh) of your browser
- Bugscope Team exploring a cave on huh?
- Bugscope Team this is a scale from a butterfly, or a moth, probably
- Bugscope Team scales are very cool, if you zoom in more, you'll see that it's got holes in it
- Bugscope Team see the little ridges, and the holes? these are much like feathers are to a bird
- Bugscope Team d'oh Alex beat me again!
- Bugscope Team this is so cool
- Bugscope Team good job driving the microscope!
- 8:38am
- Bugscope Team if you were a butterfly, or moth, or mosquito, or even a silverfish, and you got stuck in a spiderweb, you might be able to get out by leaving your scales and slipping away, like taking off your jacket
- Bugscope Team this is super high mag.
- Bugscope Team see the scalebar in the lower left of the image?
- Bugscope Team heh, going any higher with the mag isn't going to get much results. although the scope can mag up to 800,000x, for insects like this, and this sample, best mags are in the 40-40,000x range, although that scale still had some definition at 130,000x, cool!
- Bugscope Team when we use the microscope for Bugscope, like today, we keep the samples fairly far away from the electron source, so we do not get the best resolution at high magnification but can see more of the samples at low magnification
- Bugscope Team the bumps are ommatidia -- eye facets -- on this compound eye
- Guest hi
- Bugscope Team hi joseph
- Bugscope Team hi joseph, welcome to bugscope, we are in the middle of a session right now
- Guest is this a fine of a fish
Bugscope Team it was a scale, either belonging to a mosquito, butterfly, or moth
- 8:43am
- Bugscope Team a mite, now!
- Bugscope Team you can see one of its limbs
- Bugscope Team there is not too much to see here
- Bugscope Team you can take the mag down a bit and work on the focus
- Bugscope Team this is a very small mite -- look at the scalebar!
- Bugscope Team we don't know much about mites
- Guest but is that hair or spikes
Bugscope Team i think those are hairs, which are called setae (see-tee), and they help the insect sense its environment
- Bugscope Team they are often blind -- often they do not have eyes
- Guest is that a fish
Bugscope Team nope, this is bugscope, not fishscope... :)
- Bugscope Team so Pernell Jean that is part of mite on the body of a bumblebee, way up close
- Bugscope Team part of a mite...
- Guest what ever
- Teacher what is this bug
- Teacher our next group just arrived
- Guest by feeling the enverment becuse its blinde
Bugscope Team well, no it has eyes as well, but it senses a lot of different things with those setae (hairs), it can sense movement, temperature, and can also smells things with those setae
- Bugscope Team this is part of a mite on the exoskeleton of a bumblebee
- Bugscope Team if you take the mag down a little you can see where you are
- 8:49am
- Guest is that carrie poisn
Bugscope Team it is probably not poisonous
- Bugscope Team some setae are mechanosensory, and others are chemosensory, sensing movement and chemicals, respectively..
- Guest ok but does the bumble bees sckoelten have diffrent defances and what are they
- Guest hi
- Guest hi
- Teacher what is on the bug
Bugscope Team well, it has some setae on it, and it has the exoskeleton
- Teacher or is the bug on something
- Bugscope Team bumblebees are nonaggressive, but will sting if they are bothered
- Guest can you do a fruit fiy?
- Bugscope Team this is a mite on a larger bug
- Bugscope Team a mite on a bumblebee, if you zoom out you'll see the bumblebee
- Bugscope Team Damon we have a fruit fly in the 'scope now. The people who are driving can go to it if they want.
- Guest those are spikes
Bugscope Team the spikes are setae, aka bug hairs
- Bugscope Team the fruit fly is preset no. 14
- Bugscope Team Cool!
- Bugscope Team these are setae as well
- Bugscope Team This is the eye of the fruit fly, at super high magnification
- Guest cool
- Guest no pernell!
- Bugscope Team the compound eye of the fruit fly, and as Cate said it has tiny setae sticking out of it
- 8:54am
- Teacher whatis the spike like things
Bugscope Team those are setae, they are thought to help sense wind while the fly is flying, which helps them to avoid danger while flying
- Bugscope Team all insects are VERY HAIRY with setae all over the place. since insects don't have skin, they need those hairs to sense their environment
- Bugscope Team the setae are mechanosensory, meaning that they can sense touch, or wind, and transmit that sense to the brain
- Guest that eye
- Bugscope Team insects and other similar arthropods have exoskeletons -- like the shell on a shrimp
- Bugscope Team the exoskeleton is like if you were wearing armor -- you would not be able to feel something touching your armor
- Bugscope Team this is an ambush bug
- Bugscope Team they sit on flowers and grab insects as they come by
- Guest thanks cate.
- Guest that's a bee
- Bugscope Team insects have no bones; they are invertebrates, meaning they don't have a backbone
- Guest do thay come out in mid time?
- 8:59am
- Guest do they bite
- Bugscope Team ooh look at the 'forearms'
- Bugscope Team it has big muscley arms
- Bugscope Team that is what they use to grasp their prey
- Teacher what is it on?
Bugscope Team the bubbly background is the double stick carbon tape we sit the insects on
- Bugscope Team fierce little dudes
- Guest whats forearms?
- Bugscope Team the carbon tape is attached to an aluminum disk
- Bugscope Team like Popeye the sailor -- the part of your arm that your hands are attached to
- Bugscope Team ha, good analogy scott!
- Bugscope Team where Popeye has his anchor tattoo
- Guest no cate that's a ambush bug
- Guest :(
- Guest that's the mouth
- Bugscope Team yes, this is the mouth area of an ambush bug
- 9:05am
- Guest ???
- Bugscope Team that is a jackhammer-like proboscis that allows it to pierce the cuticle of other insects and suck out their insides
- Guest :o
- Bugscope Team true bugs like this ambush bug have a proboscis used to pierce things, usually plants for sap. But this one will pierce other insects with it to drink the insides
- Guest ;)
- Guest an ambush bug
- Bugscope Team this is a weevil, lying on its side
- Bugscope Team you can see its eye now
- Guest ?
- Guest *****
- Guest scot don't do that
- Guest $)
- Bugscope Team it seems to have spit up a bunch of liquid that is attached to its mouth
- Teacher what are weevils
Bugscope Team Weevils are small herbivorous beetles -- they feed on plants
- Guest who doing that!
- Guest that's a leg
Bugscope Team this is the head of the weevil
- Bugscope Team a weevile is a type of beetle, sometimes called a snout beetle
- Bugscope Team the bumpy part near the middle is the compound eye of the weevil
- Bugscope Team there's just a TON of weevil species too, tons
- Bugscope Team normally we can also see the antennae, which are often near the end of the 'snout'
- Bugscope Team entomologists can hardly keep up with the number of species of them
- Guest no is not cate
- 9:10am
- Guest not cool.
- Bugscope Team I think these are a couple of antenna? not sure, if you zoon out mrs. prosser, we can see more
- Guest we?
- Guest that 's hair
- Bugscope Team ah, okay, then it's setae (see-tee)
- Guest biy.
- Bugscope Team that is right, look at it up close -- it looks like human hair but is very narrow
- Bugscope Team click to center would help here
- Teacher What is that thing?!
- Bugscope Team that looks like a human hair
- Bugscope Team you could lower the magnification to see if we can see more of it
- Bugscope Team or maybe a dog hair
- 9:17am
- Bugscope Team Mrs Prosser are you there?
- Teacher yes,
- Teacher one of my students asked a few questions
- Teacher where do you get all the bug samples
Bugscope Team oh, sometimes we'll find and collect bugs from home, or work, but we also encourage teachers and students to find bugs in their schoolyard, and send them to us
- Bugscope Team and sometimes the entomologists give us their collections
- Bugscope Team this looks like a thin mammalian hair
- Bugscope Team let's go to a new place...
- 9:22am
- Teacher new group coming in
- Bugscope Team ok
- Bugscope Team welcome to bugscope!!!
- Bugscope Team the tiny nubs we see now are like taste buds to the beetle
- Bugscope Team the structure the taste buds are on is a palp, which is one of four little 'feelers' that are actually accessory mouthparts
- Teacher wow...
- Teacher we can go closer??
- Teacher please explain to the class what we are viewing
- Bugscope Team sure go ahead and increase the magnification
- Bugscope Team the things we are calling taste buds are chemosensory setae -- the insect can use them to taste its prospective food.
- Bugscope Team there are four palps - two mandibular and two maxillary, referring to the jaws
- Bugscope Team for example your lower jaw is your mandible and your upper jaw, part of your skull, is the maxilla
- Bugscope Team but on insects the jaws often open sideways to ours
- 9:27am
- Bugscope Team they also use their palps to move around their food
- Bugscope Team some of the tiny setae we see now are likely also hot/cold receptors
- Bugscope Team some chemosensory setae only sense certain chemicals, and some have the ability to detect a wider range of tastes or smells
- Bugscope Team this, now, is the rounded surface of the compound eye of the bumblebee
- Bugscope Team so it is not a surprise that we see these pollen grains on the eye
- Bugscope Team many bees, like honeybees, seem to have very 'hairy' eyes, but this is smooth
- Teacher how does the eye of the bee move
Bugscope Team their eyes don't move like ours. They are stationary. They have compound eyes to make up for this that can give them an almost 360 degree view of what's around them
Bugscope Team well, it's not like a human eye, in that it does not move. each bump or facet (called ommatidia) has a lens in it, pointed in a fixed direction. since the eye has hundred of ommatidia, pointed in different directions, sometimes in 180 degrees, it can see well and has a large angle of view
- 9:32am
- Bugscope Team so in a way they can see what
- Bugscope Team whats in front and behind them at the same tim
- Bugscope Team time*
- Bugscope Team yes, cate is right, it's almost 360. each eye giving a 180 degree view, so two eyes on each side of the head, adds up to 360 degrees
- Teacher why is there pollen on the eye
Bugscope Team bees often have their heads in flowers, so they get pollen on their eyes and need to sweep it away, occasionally
- Bugscope Team this is a single wing scale from a butterfly or moth, probably
- 9:38am
- Teacher where was the scale collected
Bugscope Team the scale was found on the dragonfly eye. It's possible it got there because it fought a butterfly or a moth
- Teacher please explain to my group how bug scope got started
Bugscope Team we started Bugscope in the beginning of 1999 when we got this new $600,000 scanning electron microscope and wanted to do a sustainable outreach project. The project remote access project before Bugscope was Chickscope, and it could only be 'live' to two classrooms for a limited amount of time. Chickscope cost $5000 to run for two classrooms.
- Teacher what are the holes
- Bugscope Team I should have said '
- Bugscope Team the spacing in the scale is what can give the scale color. We also sometimes see pigment granules in the spacing
- Bugscope Team the remote access project before Bugscope'...
- 9:43am
- Bugscope Team scales have colors that come from pigment, like you would expect, but they also have colors, as Cate said, that come from the spacing of the ridges. Those are called 'structural colors.'
- Bugscope Team this is cool
- Bugscope Team this is the antenna of the fruit fly
- Bugscope Team it has a basal unit, to the right, and the more branched component, to the left
- Bugscope Team insects use their antennae to gather information about what is around them, so the antennae have lots of sensory setae on them
- Teacher what part of the fruit fly is this
Bugscope Team this is it's antenna
- Bugscope Team flies don't have antennae like a lot of other insects, which are usually long and straight
- Bugscope Team many of the sensory setae are chemoreceptors -- they permit the insect to taste the air and pick up chemical traces
- Bugscope Team you are doing a good job driving the microscope
- Bugscope Team to the left of the base of the branched part of the antenna
- Bugscope Team oops to the left *is* the base
- 9:48am
- Bugscope Team beetle claw!
- Bugscope Team see the hooks on the claw?
- Teacher how does the image change?
- Bugscope Team you drive to the area and the microscope gives you an image of that place
- Bugscope Team wherever you go the microscope sends a constantly updating beam of electrons
- Bugscope Team if the electrons are sent to a small area you get a magnified image, and if the electrons scan across a large area you get a lower magnification image
- Bugscope Team now the microscope is driving to this new area
- Bugscope Team where the ambush bug is
- 9:53am
- Bugscope Team this bug hides patiently on the edges of flowers, for example, and then attacks insects that are attracted to the flower
- Teacher where would find an ambush bug
Bugscope Team you can find them on flowers usually
- Teacher is there anything related to the ambush
- Bugscope Team it has huge powerful forelimbs that it uses to grasp its prey so it can pierce the prey with its proboscis, which we see now in the middle of the screen
- Bugscope Team the forelimbs are on either side of the image, if you want to drive a little to the left or right
- Bugscope Team I think you could say that assassin bugs are related
- Teacher what is a proboscis
Bugscope Team that is the mouth part you see here coming down the middle of this bug's face. It is used for drinking liquids. You can think of it being similar to an elephant's trunk
- Bugscope Team yes assassin bugs are closely related, they both are true bugs that attack other insects
- Bugscope Team they are both hemiptera, I believe -- insects with piercing mouthparts
- Teacher what do they eat
Bugscope Team they pierce other insects with their proboscis and drink the insides
- Bugscope Team hemiptera are 'true bugs,' as Cate says
- Teacher can they lay eggs
Bugscope Team they lay eggs that are coated with a sticky glue so that they attach firmly to flowers
- Teacher are they really hairy
Bugscope Team ambush bugs are definitely not as hairy as say the bumblebee, but it still has some hair on it
- Teacher how long are they
Bugscope Team this is a couple of centimeters long -- they vary in length
- 9:59am
- Teacher that color are they
Bugscope Team ambush bugs are yellow-green with some brownish areas on its back
- Teacher where are they from
Bugscope Team they are said to be found throughout the US and Canada; they are probably on every continent as different related species
- Bugscope Team the bites from assassin bugs and ambush bugs can be excruciating. Many can make a squeaking sound by rasping the beak against ridges the proboscis lies against.
- Bugscope Team you can probably find them anywhere there is leafy vegetation
- Bugscope Team it's good if they don't develop a taste for people
- Bugscope Team bed bugs are also hemiptera - they are cousins of ambush and assassin bugs
- 10:07am
- Bugscope Team if you take the magnification down here you can see where you are on the beetle
- Bugscope Team this is one of the palps, which are little feeler mouthparts that help insects taste and handle their food
- Bugscope Team and if you take the mag down here you can see where this is on the dragonfly head
- Bugscope Team hey cool!
- Bugscope Team a curte little beetle
- Bugscope Team cute
- Teacher next group started
- Bugscope Team you can see that it was once in someone's collection
- Bugscope Team it has a hole in its thorax
- Bugscope Team now you can see the beetle's jaws
- Bugscope Team focus the other way
- Bugscope Team focus is up or down and if it gets worse go in the other direction
- Bugscope Team do you want to see the inside of the scanning electron microscope?
- Teacher were would you find this bug
- Teacher yes
- 10:12am
- Bugscope Team it is probably common here in the US
- Bugscope Team this beetle is so tiny. It is probably as common as the lady bug
- Bugscope Team now we can see what we have been working with today
- Teacher that is a pretty cool machine
- Bugscope Team this is the vacuum chamber of the electron microscope, and in the middle on the little plate are all of the insects we have been looking at
- Teacher who uses it
Bugscope Team it is used by people doing various kinds of research, with bacteria or silicon structures or selfhealing plastics...
- Bugscope Team the cone at the top is where the electrons come from, and the cage in the upper right is where the secondary electrons go that make up the images we see
- Teacher what does this bug eat
Bugscope Team most likely plants
- Bugscope Team it's pretty far down on the food chain
- Teacher how old is the microscope
Bugscope Team we got it about 10 years ago funded for this program
- 10:18am
- Teacher what are we viewing
Bugscope Team this is a fly, possibly a type of robber fly since it has piercing mouthparts
- Bugscope Team this is on the fruit fly
- Teacher how many eyes are on this bug?
Bugscope Team they have 2 compound eyes, and 3 simples eyes-- called ocelli which we cant see today but sit near the top of the head
- Bugscope Team here you can see a rectangular shape where we had parked the beam before
- Bugscope Team cool!
- Bugscope Team good job driving!
- Bugscope Team see the whole head now?
- Bugscope Team so 5 in total
- Teacher THANKS!
- Bugscope Team there are hundreds of tiny lenses in the compound eyes of the fruit fly - we have not tried to count them
- Bugscope Team the fruit fly kind of looks like its wearing a gas mask, but that is its sponging mouthpart to the right
- Teacher what is the scale part
- 10:24am
- Bugscope Team the scale? you mean in the lower left corner? the scalebar? or something else?
- Teacher yes
- Bugscope Team the scalebar says 151 mu m
- Teacher on the bug
- Bugscope Team or 151 microns
- Bugscope Team right now we see the right compound eye, the antenna, and lots of tiny setae
- Bugscope Team the sponging mouthparts Cate had mentioned are to the right of where we are
- Bugscope Team this is a biting fly
- Bugscope Team you would feel this if it bit you
- Bugscope Team it has tiny slashing mouthparts like a horsefly
- Bugscope Team this is the center of the face
- Bugscope Team see the big sensory hairs?
- Bugscope Team it can feel the wind and if something is touching it
- Bugscope Team we can tell that it has very good peripheral vision, and it can likely see very well
- Bugscope Team click again on the image to stop
- 10:29am
- Bugscope Team if you get lost try another preset
- Bugscope Team this is the edge of the world
- Bugscope Team the weevil!
- Bugscope Team it is lying on its side, and you can see its antennae, which are coming out of the end of its snout
- Teacher where would you find one of these?
- Bugscope Team they are herbivorous -- so you would find them on plants
- Bugscope Team *infest* cotton
- Bugscope Team see the eye, to the left?
- Bugscope Team many play dead when disturbed
- Bugscope Team many are also coated with scales that may rub off as the insect ages
- Bugscope Team they are sometimes called 'snout beetles' because of the extension between their eyes and mouth, like a dog, kind of
- Bugscope Team their antennae come out near the tip of the snout, which is a little different
- 10:34am
- Teacher scot- what is your job title
- Teacher where did you go to college
- Teacher how did you get involved in bug scope
- Bugscope Team I am the manager of the microscopy suite but I just like being called a senior research engineer
- Bugscope Team which is my old title
- Bugscope Team I went to the University of Kansas and had a double major in English and Biology
- Bugscope Team I helped start Bugscope -- I was the electron microscopist, and I helped figure out how we were going to set things up, etc.
- Teacher this is a great service for our students
- Teacher thank you so much, see you again in the fall
- Bugscope Team it is really fun for us.
- Bugscope Team Thank You!
- Teacher I can see that
- Teacher we love it
- Teacher our 5th grade loves this service
- Bugscope Team thanks for participating
- Bugscope Team We get to see cool stuff working here but bugscope is usually the most fun.
- Bugscope Team at any time you can go to your member page to see your chat and images from today at http://bugscope.beckman.illinois.edu/members/2009-034/
- 10:41am
- Bugscope Team over and out?
