Connected on 2009-09-23 20:00:00 from Richland, WA, US
- 6:48pm
- Bugscope Team pumping down...
- Bugscope Team 1.9 x 10-4
- Bugscope Team 1.6
- Bugscope Team 1.4
- 6:56pm
- 7:01pm
- 7:07pm
- 7:13pm
- 7:20pm
- 7:29pm
- 7:35pm
- 7:41pm
- Bugscope Team hi lisa
- Bugscope Team Cool.
- 7:47pm
- Bugscope Team This guy. A mean looking critter
- 7:56pm
- Bugscope Team We found a mite for Stephanie.
- 8:02pm
- Student wow that is one ugly little dude
- Bugscope Team Hi Brandi!
- Student EWWWWW! :)
- Student Hello!
- Student Hi everyone!! This is kind of cool! :)
- Student I agree wi Lexie!!!
- Guest Ew....
- Student This is very cool
- Bugscope Team Hi Lexie!
- Bugscope Team Yes, we've got a nice predatory fly here to start things off!
- Bugscope Team heh. Hi Kait!
- Bugscope Team Welcome to Bugscope!
- Guest Hi..
- Guest Thanks Scot
- Bugscope Team hi all
- Student I hate flies
- Student Thanks Scot!!!
- Student Close your eyes Brandi!!
- Bugscope Team The last preset, no 26, is this guy's claw
- Teacher Just FYI, we don't have many bug lovers in the group... They are a little grossed out at the moment! :)
- Bugscope Team kind of like that of a praying mantis or an assassin bug
- Guest Its because were all girls
- Student haha so true..
- Teacher Please pass the controls to Mal R
- Bugscope Team ha think about the children! they love this stuff
- Student or it will give them nightmares
- Bugscope Team yeah...
- Student nightmares
- Student i think i'm living my nightmare...
- Student =)
- Bugscope Team Odds are it eats other insects rather than humans, so you can think of it as a friend. :)
- Guest This guy looks like a monster that would crawl out from under their beds and suck out their brains...
- Guest I just shivered a little bit.
- Guest uh...what is that
- Teacher Are those teeth?
- Student i dont want to know...
- Student So that is it's claw?
- Student what is this again?
- Student I will call him spike
- Student How does it grab things?
Bugscope Team there's a kind of tendon inside that pulls the claws together
Bugscope Team It hangs on, more than it grabs. Like velcro.
- Bugscope Team this is someone else's claw, and it moved a little
- Student this is too sick!!!!!
- Guest What is the actual size of this bug?
Bugscope Team check out the micron bar, lower left; these are all small enough to fit on a 1.75-inch disc
- Student where can we find these things?
Bugscope Team This time of the year, they are starting to disappear. But most of the time you can find them on milkweed. The name is actually 'milkweed bug.'
- Student In a live session, does the microscope work in color?
- 8:07pm
- Student What are those little things that look like ears?
Bugscope Team Mal those are the claws -- this is the end of one of the legs or arms
- Guest Do they bite humans?...
Bugscope Team Nope, milkweed bugs are completely herbivorous.
- Bugscope Team if you click on the micron bar you bring up more info about the 'scope parameters
- Student sweet!
- Guest Oh jolly
- Guest it can crawl in your ear....
Bugscope Team we don't have any earwigs this evening
- Student are those horns coming out of its head?
Bugscope Team We're looking at the tip of the foot. :)
- Guest what would it eat or consume
- Student what is that?
- Student What does this mean by "full body piercing"?
- Student I almost don't want to know what that is....
- Bugscope Team this is a wasp that had a pin in it, and you can see all the way through
- Student does this remind anyone of the alien in 'Independence Day'?
- Guest ewwwwwwwwwwwwwww
- Bugscope Team these were all in display cases, so they all have a pin hole in them
- Guest It looks shot...sad
Bugscope Team A taxonomist would agree. Huge holes like this make it hard to identify the insect - probably should have had a smaller pin. :)
- Student Pretty cool
- Guest woah
- Student transfre control to Lexie please..
- Bugscope Team Lexie is the supreme ruler now.
- Guest Good call..
- Student wuhoo!
- Student that is crazy that we can actually see inside the pin hole!
- Guest So Scot...who are you
- Guest excuse Kait...she means are you a grad student?
- Bugscope Team I am an electron microscopist. I work in the lab 23 feet underground and rarely go outside.
- Guest Sad...
- Bugscope Team I dunno, he's got a lot of cool toys to play with. I'm a little jealous.
- 8:12pm
- Student i would miss the sunshine...
- Student So you like bugs?
Bugscope Team Sure they are pretty cool to look at. Another life form.
- Bugscope Team ha. I have a degree in English and Biology and have been doing this for a long time.
- Bugscope Team scott doesnt miss it
- Student So no entomology.
- Bugscope Team Here you've got a great view of the compound eyes, on either side of the head.
- Bugscope Team i miss the sun sometimes though
- Guest Awesome Scot.
- Guest Anyhoo...back to the bugs....
- Student thanx Lexi I am not sure what to do???
- Bugscope Team All those little hexagons are individual 'ommatidia,' which are simplified eyes.
- Student Looks like fabric.. almost fake!
- Bugscope Team yeah Cate is an electron microscopist as well.
- Student how many "little eyes" does this guy have inside one big eye?
Bugscope Team Looks like over a thousand... the number will vary from species to species depending on how important vision is to its life.
- Guest haa
- Teacher How about the rest of you... what experiences brought you to BugScope?
- Student So does the fly see actual multiple images like in the movies?
- Guest is that the head of a fly>
- Student texture looks like that of a basketball
- Student Halloween is coming way to soon to be looking at this stuff!!!
- Student yes it does!
- Student how do they see..how much can they see at once?
Bugscope Team They have a great angle of view - some insects have only a tiny blind spot under their head. But the resolution isn't as good as ours, so they couldn't, say, read a book.
- Guest or a colander
- Guest whats that?
- Student what is this?
- Guest honeycomb!
- Bugscope Team they are something only leafhoppers produce
- Guest wasp nests
- Guest leaf hopers...good word
- Student yeah what if those were in your honeycombs.. i am forever scarred lol
- Student What is a brochosome?
Bugscope Team it's a waxy pellet a few hundred nanometers in diameter that helps leafhoppers and their eggs keep from drying out as they play in the grass
- Student where do you find these things?
Bugscope Team From what I've seen from these sessions, they're absolutely everywhere.
- Student is a leafhopper similar to a grasshopper?
Bugscope Team In a sense. They both have long hind legs and can hop. But evolutionarily, they are very far apart.
- Bugscope Team notice the scalebar in the lower left
- Bugscope Team says 437 nm
- Guest cool
- Student so they are somewhat of an outershell around their eggs?
Bugscope Team Like styrofoam packing material for an important package.
- Student turn the controls over to Kristina
- Student ok thank you
- 8:17pm
- Guest AlbertoVo5....why arent u chatting?
Bugscope Team He crawled off to sleep behind the 'scope where it is dusty but warm
- Bugscope Team leafhoppers are known to have an 'anointing behavior' in which they spread these on their exoskeletons
- Guest HAHAHAHA!!!
- Student i'd be worried about dust mites if i were him
Bugscope Team dustmites are softbodied, like aphids, so it is hard to get them looking good in the 'scope
- Student Scott, you lost me on anointing behavior, they spread the brochosomes intentionally?
- Student Can you please transfer control to Kristina
- Guest how often are the bugs updated?
Bugscope Team We put new samples together for each session.
- Guest Do you have to order them or do you just leave out a bologna sandwich and collect?
- Student oh yes.. very fun!
- Guest Eww...keep it away from us..i dont wanna know some things
- Student worst fear right here..
- Guest i see a pig snout!
- Student what kind of spider is this?
- Guest Thats nasty
- Student this is NOT art!
- Bugscope Team my mom, unfortunately in a way, sends me bugs instead of, like, food
- Guest Audeena just said that looks like a hairy bottom..
Bugscope Team ha, oh no.
- Bugscope Team chelicerae
- Student haha.. according to audeena its modeling art
- Student i admire all you scientists right now, i'm about to pass out
- Student What kind of spider is this?
- Student please i beg you give the control over the Rachel
- Bugscope Team I'm not actually sure what kind of spider we have here.
- Student what exactly is a chelicerae and where do they live?
Bugscope Team Chelicerae, or chelicers, are the things we're looking at -- the buns -- that drive the fangs into the prey
- Bugscope Team its a brownish spider. i cant tell you more
- Bugscope Team For me, 'spider' is about as specific as I can get. I only know bugs. :)
- Student has your mom ever sent you choc chip cookies with grasshoppers in them?
- Guest spiders shouldnt even be on earth! yuck.
- Guest It looks like a nostril
- 8:22pm
- Student Is that the ear???
- Student is that a nostril?
- Bugscope Team it is a nostril!
- Guest it looks like kaitlins eyeball
- Student What is a spiricle?
- Guest I knew it
- Guest WOAH
- Bugscope Team this is how insects breathe
- Guest KAILA...not cool..ur walking home
Bugscope Team ooh
- Student good Job Brandi
- Student I think they're all cool looking. Dissecting stuff like this would be my dream job
- Student i agree kaila!
- Student ill take you home! haha
- Student Is that pollen?
Bugscope Team no but there are examples of pollen this evening
- Student The dust specs
- Bugscope Team insects have these on both sides of their body segments
- Student or something
- Student so those little fuzzy things are like boogers?
- Student Where on a wasp is this located?
Bugscope Team this is on the thorax, I think
- Student the spiracle
- Bugscope Team more brochs, this time on these sensors
- Student pretty
- Student ok got it
- Student the hairs on my own arm are standing straight up right now
- Guest this is kind of cool, what is it?
- Student Is that hair on those limbs?
Bugscope Team the 'hairs' are called setae, and some are mechanosensory, some are chemosensory, some are thermosensory...
- Student please pass control to kmk
Bugscope Team done
- Bugscope Team cavity
- Student Why does a bee die when it stings you, but a wasp can keep on stinging? It's hardly fair.
Bugscope Team The barb on the end of the bee's stinger gets caught in your skin. It's actually more effective, because the poison gland comes too... and keeps on pumping venom into you.
- Bugscope Team pollen!
- Guest How much do one of those scopes cost?
Bugscope Team about $600,000, and the service contracts are $35,000/year
- 8:27pm
- Student well thats not very nice
- Student So... are wasps less venomous than bees?
Bugscope Team Eh, depends on the insect. There are some very nasty wasps.
- Student Is it true Lady Bugs bite?
Bugscope Team They do. It's not painful, but it is annoying.
- Student can you have these sessions in spanish?
Bugscope Team oui, I mean si. none of us are fluent enough in other languages
- Guest thats my kinda bee
- Guest Si
- Guest Silly bugs...
- Guest how do I get into sellign these things?
Bugscope Team that is how you make money in science, in this business
- Guest is that yellow stuff ladybugs leave on you, pee? serious question...
Bugscope Team Ha! Good question. No, it is actually blood. They defend themselves by bleeding on you - we call it "reflex bleeding." It's a little weird.
- Student stingless bees, you mean like honey bees and alfalfa bees, or no?
Bugscope Team Honey bees are not stingless, they definitely can hurt! I am not sure if alfalfa bees sting, but they are a different group called the leaf cutter bees.
- Guest Kaila...u would
- Student thats sad!
- Student Wierd
- Student I feel bad now
- Student blood is a defense reaction? how sad!
- Student sad
- Guest does it hurt them when they BLEED?
Bugscope Team I'm not sure! I imagine if they are losing too much blood, they'll stop bleeding.
- Student Do bugs even "feel" pain?
Bugscope Team They have an aversive response to injury, but I think whether it is "pain" as we know it is something for philosophers to answer.
- Student What is the purpose of reflex bleeding, is it voluntary?
- Guest Fair enough rob
- Student idk.. sound painful when i stomp on giant stink beetles
- Guest crazzzzy
- Bugscope Team Kait is the commander now.
- Guest Commander Kait
- Student Are there tests done on bugs to know what they are feeling? Like test s done on humans
Bugscope Team Not sure how much work is done on this. But a professor down the hall just published a study on the effects of cocaine on honey bees. Sounds a little silly, but it's actually useful to help understand how cocaine works on a cellular level.
- Student thatw ould be pretty cool..
- 8:32pm
- Guest what is it?
- Student wow.. intense
- Student wow.thanks
- Guest Alright...whats this business
- Student So in your opinions what was the coolest bug you've ever put on here guys?
- Student yeah.. which ones get the most EW reposne?
- Guest so are we gonna start seeing some bees on TLC's Intervention
- Student hand??
- Student HAHA! too funny, Kris
- Student i would watch that episode for sure!
- Student how was that tested to know they don't like their smell?
Bugscope Team I don't know the specifics of their study, but often they give insects a choice to move in a direction towards a smell, and a direction towards clean air, and see what happens.
- Student yo tambien!
- Student Do those two sides clamp close?
- Student Like it grabs things with those two sides??
Bugscope Team might, not sure about this -- it is probably shrunken a bit from the way it is in real life -- it helps the leafhopper stick to things
- Guest Alright...so I believe the guyintheclass would like to be King for awhile....
- Guest Some sad bee had it all. Money, cars and a fabulous house. Suddenly some jerk scientist force him to do some blow and now he lives in an alley and sells his plasma for drug money.
- Guest hand him the controls
- Student So would the cocaine help them find their hives or make them get more lost?
Bugscope Team I believe it made them think the nutrient content of the food was higher than it actually was.
- Guest Sorry Ladies...ill probably regret that later...no man should have total control...haha
- Bugscope Team male driver now watch out
- Student ohhhh!!!
- Student haha well let him g et a little confidence boost ;)
Bugscope Team and then smack him down
- Bugscope Team Best part about the bee cocaine study was that the bees danced more when they were on cocaine.
- Guest I dont need directions
Bugscope Team nice
- Student Too funny
- 8:38pm
- Bugscope Team If you don't know, bees have a dance 'language' which is how they tell other bees where pollen and nectar is.
- Student nooo that would be internet bullying
- Student What does a bee dance look like?
Bugscope Team It's usually a figure-eight with some wiggling in the middle. They actually call it the 'waggle dance.'
- Guest Dancing bees...its like the bee movie
- Student that is awesome!
- Bugscope Team this is a mite!
- Student what if they dance too fast?
- Student love that bee movie
- Student can they overdoes?
- Bugscope Team take the mag down (lower) and you can see where it is
- Student where did they get the cocaine?
Bugscope Team That, I don't know. Probably took mountains of government permits and red tape. ;)
- Student ooo - the crunchy, creme-filled kind!
- Guest I like how the future teachers are asking about drugs..way to go guys
- Bugscope Team So mites like these aren't insects - the adults have eight legs instead of six.
- Student What is on it?
- Bugscope Team But often times they will ride around on insects and use them as taxis.
- Student was it EATING the wasp leg?
- Student What kind of mite?
- Student because of the segmented laegs?
Bugscope Team It's actually the number of legs - eight - that puts them in this group.
- Student what exactly is a mite
- Student they are? wow..
- Guest mites creep me out...they remind me of horror movies crawling on people. *barf*
- Guest Who wnats it. With great power comes great responsibility and I can't handle it. I'm over stimulated
- Student so they're not necessarily related to spiders, they jsut have 8 legs
Bugscope Team Well, specifically - there is the order, Arachnida, and then different suborders. One is Araneae, which has spiders. Another is Acari, which has mites.
- Student spiderman
- Guest Give control to Jane
- Guest Shiloh...subtle but helarious
- Bugscope Team many mites do not have eyes
- Guest so do they use their other senses to move?
- Guest Rob u know everything. Whats the meaning of life?
Bugscope Team Collecting bugs!
- 8:43pm
- Student my eyebrows are starting to itch. I think the mites are starting to wake up.
- Student How many hours per week do you all do this?
Bugscope Team maybe 8 to 10
- Student this is really neat! very special opportunity for students!'
- Teacher Where does your funding come from?
Bugscope Team we cover this, but sometimes people like Bugscope -- the idea -- and give us grants
- Guest Nice
- Student wow thats hardly any
Bugscope Team our normal jobs, here, are to keep a lot of microscopes running, and to train grad students and postdocs, mostly, to use them to do their research
- Student Off shoot off Kaila's question... what other kinds of senses do bugs have? Do they have different senses?
Bugscope Team They've got every sense you do - taste, touch, smell, vision, and hearing.
- Student i once collected roly-pollys, does that count?
Bugscope Team Sure! They're still arthropods. But yet another group. They are called "Isopods."
- Guest What is the most interesting bug you have ever viewed, Rob?
Bugscope Team That's tough. I have a bad memory for what I've seen on here. That fly we saw at the very beginning was pretty sweet.
- Teacher By "we cover this
- Bugscope Team Although the Isopods are crustaceans, like crabs, so pretty far down the evolutionary road.
- Student wow, that's interesting! thanks
- Guest Darwin was on to something
- Student neat! busy busy!
- Guest Random question...I have a pink bar accross my screen that says please wait while that command executes... How do I make that go away?
Bugscope Team hit F5 and see if that helps
- Teacher do you mean UIUC? NSF?
Bugscope Team originally the 'scope was funded by NSF, and we got money for the first server from IBM, and we got money from the Lumpkin Foundation, whose funds come from being a local telecom company
- Student what is that?
- Student Please transfer controls to Erin
- Student what is this?
- Bugscope Team What we're looking at now are more insect legs.
- Guest SCOT IS THE MAN!
- Guest agreed...scots totally the man!
- Student both sides of this are legs?
- Bugscope Team If you look at the leg on the right - you can see claws popping out like horns, and then pads on the bottom. The claws are for holding on to rough surfaces, the pads for smooth.
- Student No he's the Bomb!! Woot Woot!!
- 8:48pm
- Student I wish I could hold onto things like bugs
- Student what kind of legs are they? wwhat do they belong to?
Bugscope Team The preset says a fly, so I'll go with that. :)
- Student Erin is ready for the controls
- Teacher Do you think it will always be free for teachers?
- Student oh sorry! haha
- Guest Once again Rob delivers another answer.Amazing
Bugscope Team I had a lot of help from the preset name. Insect legs look all the same to me.
- Student go Rob!
- Student No wonder it hurts!
- Student so each one of those sections has venom? or just the whole thing?
- Student what are stingers made of?
Bugscope Team chitin
Bugscope Team They're made of chitin, like the rest of the insect exoskeleton.
- Teacher Also, could you remind me how to access the pictures and dialog for posterity?
- Student YEAHHHHH!!!
- Student WUHOOO!!!
- Guest Just take the compliment Rob.
Bugscope Team Haha. All right, thanks.
- Guest Bye Scot...and Rob...Scots still my favorite...but Robs a stud too.
- Guest bye guys!!! :] you guys rock my socks. period.
- Student Thanks so much guys, this was awesome!
- Bugscope Team Bye, guys!
- Bugscope Team http://bugscope.beckman.illinois.edu/members/2009-092/
- Student this is cool, thanks for your expertise!!
- Student Thank you!
- Student thanks so much for doing this for us! and for putting up with our overwhelming chatter =)
- Bugscope Team Thanks for the questions! There were a lot of good ones.
- Bugscope Team Thank You! Thanks, Kait..
- Student Thank you so much for this experience.. i hate bugs but this was awesome!
- Student Thank you so much! I am definitely coming back here at some point later!
- Student this is pretty sweet...even though i really am grossed out by bugs thanks for sharing
- Bugscope Team Yay. this is so much fun for us.
- Student Thanks for everything! Does
- 8:53pm
- Student Thank you!
- Guest Well I dont know about all of you but I think somethign like this could prove to be extremely beneficial to the classroom.
- Student i concur lol
- Student agree
- Student Agreed
- Guest BYE ROB. ILL MISS YOU
- Student Scott, Rob, Alberto, and of course Cate - thank you!!
- Student Thanks again!!
- Guest THE GUY IS A CREEP!!!!
- Guest rob, sorry for our creeper guy...the only one in class
- Student watch out!
- Guest You should honestly hear him right now..
- Student adios! Thank you!
- Bugscope Team Heh, you guys are crazy. ;) Have a great evening!
- Bugscope Team Bye!
- Student thank you all. ya theguyintheclass should logout just about...now! ;)
- Guest alright...bye Scot! bye Rob!
- Teacher Thanks again... Lisa :)
- Bugscope Team Over and out. Taking the system down. Thank you!
- Student just to clarify : This session are not in spanish?
Bugscope Team Petra I am sorry but we just need someone who can speak Spanish and be able to describe the science as well.
- 8:59pm
- Bugscope Team lo siento
- Student okay Gracias
- Bugscope Team maybe in the future....
- Bugscope Team Good night!
