Connected on 2009-11-04 10:00:00 from Skokie, IL, US
- 9:44am
- Bugscope Team Ready to roll.
- Bugscope Team hi, welcome to bugscope miss t!
- 9:50am
- Bugscope Team Good Morning, Miss T!
- Bugscope Team You have control of the microscope. Please let us know if you have any problems or questions. We are here to answer the students' questions.
- Bugscope Team and yours
- Teacher Good morning to you both
- Bugscope Team you can control the scope with the controls on the right side of the image
- Bugscope Team Cate is here too, and Annie may be along later.
- Bugscope Team this is the face of a female housefly
- Teacher It is our first time doing something like this and you'll have to bear with us
- Bugscope Team looks like you are doing fine!
- Bugscope Team you can also choose from among the presets to the right of the chat box
- Bugscope Team another flying insect, and another compound eye
- Teacher Can you tell us what we are looking at on the roly poly head?
- Bugscope Team roly polies are not so cute
- 9:55am
- Bugscope Team you can see the bases of the antennae
- Bugscope Team the things that seem like their are eyes are broken off antennae
- Bugscope Team just below the head are 2 legs, the one on the right is broken at the end
- Bugscope Team and we are looking at the mouth, but it has moveable plates in front of it so it is hard to see how it works
- Bugscope Team you can see one of its compound eyes to the upper left corner of the screen
- Bugscope Team it has round bumps
- Bugscope Team yes! As Cate says you can barely see one of the eyes!
- Bugscope Team this is so cool
- Teacher Where is the eye Cate says is there?
Bugscope Team now we are on the daddy longlegs
- Bugscope Team these are the daddy long legs pinchers
- Teacher Do they have pincher on all their legs
Bugscope Team none of the legs have pinchers; these are comparable to crab pincers
- Teacher okay
- Bugscope Team however it is spelled; it can be either way
- Teacher Moses would like to know if we have a picture of their whole body?
- Bugscope Team we had to remove the legs of the daddy longlegs so it would fit on the stub.
- 10:00am
- Bugscope Team you can take down the magnification so you can see for yourself if you want
- Teacher Shafia wants to know if we have a picture of the part that spins webs?
Bugscope Team preset 12 shows spider spinnerets responsible for that
- Bugscope Team these are live images from the electron microscope -- you are actually driving a $600,000 microscope from your classroom
- Bugscope Team so when you click on one of the presets, the microscope drives to that place on the stub, and you see the image live
- Teacher Shafia wants to know where this is on the spider's body?
Bugscope Team the spinnerettes are at the tip of the spider's abdomen
- Bugscope Team this is where the spinnerettes are, but it is hard to see them through all of the plumose setae
- Bugscope Team now we see the underside of one of the spiders' bodies
- Bugscope Team the fangs are to the northeast corner
- 10:05am
- Bugscope Team this spider is on its back
- Teacher Kornelia wants to know how far spiders can shoot their webs?
Bugscope Team we aren't sure about that. sorry
Bugscope Team i found a website through a google search, they say a spider can cast a web about 4 inches. wow!
- Teacher Roy wants to know if we have any pollen baskets on the bee's legs that we can look at?
- Bugscope Team these are the individual facets called ommatidia of the compound eye
- Teacher How many facets of the eye are there?
Bugscope Team the compound eyes of flying insects tend to be very big with many (hundreds to thousands) of ommatidia
- 10:11am
- Bugscope Team we didnt see any pollen baskets, but we didn't look to hard so there might be some
- Teacher Zaia wants to know if this stinger is broken or not?
Bugscope Team yes, it looks to be broken, doesn't it.
- Bugscope Team when the insects die, they often dry out, and get brittle and that makes them more likely to break and crack
- Teacher Rachel wants to know if the 'hair' we see on the bee is hair or not?
Bugscope Team those hairs are called setae (see-tee), they help insects to sense their environment. insects have TONS of setae
- Bugscope Team insects don't have skin like us, instead they have an exoskeleton, which is hard and has no nerves in it. the setae stick through that exoskeleton, to nerves underneath. that's how insects can feel things.
- Bugscope Team an exoskeleton would be like a human wearing a suit of armor.. like a knight...
- Teacher What is a bee comb?
Bugscope Team it is a part on their leg that has little teeth-like projects, like a comb, and it rubs them along their antennae or eyes to clean them
- 10:16am
- Bugscope Team cool, this is an ant head
- Bugscope Team you can see the two large compound eyes on either side of the head, the antenne (left one is hanging down over the head), and the pincers in front of the mouth
- Bugscope Team oops, this is a bee or wasp, not an ant. silly me
- Teacher Kornelia wants to know do bees have teeth?
Bugscope Team they don't have teeth, they have a pair of hinged jaws that open outward instead of like how our jaw works where it moves up and down
- Teacher What is this bee hamuli?
Bugscope Team flying insects often have hamuli on the edge of their wings, the hamuli can allow wing segments to connect together, i think
- Bugscope Team there are three kinds of bee combs: the antenna comb we just saw, the honey comb, and the set of spines on one set of legs that the bee uses to pack pollen into the pollen baskets
- Bugscope Team the hamuli are used to connect the hind- and forewings on bees and wasps so that they fly with essentially two, rather than four, wings.
- 10:21am
- Bugscope Team this is cool -- one of the weevil's claws
- Bugscope Team I like weevils
- Bugscope Team some of them have long pointy snouts, but this one has a short little snout
- Teacher I am having trouble seeing the whole slide. do I have it at max or min control?
Bugscope Team miss t is is as low as it will go
- Bugscope Team now you can see that the weevil has a kind of furry pad called a pulvillus that has sticky setae on it. Those sticky setae are what help insects cling to walls or ceilings.
- Bugscope Team the microscope will go only as low as 37X at this working distance
- Bugscope Team this is a scanning electron microscope, and you are using electrons to image the samples
- Teacher I guess I am still on the claw and I want to be at the weevil head
- Bugscope Team the samples are in a vacuum chamber, and you are controlling where the electron beam goes in that chamber
- Bugscope Team we are close up on the claw
- Teacher Abdulmalik wants to know if weevils fight?
Bugscope Team some insects will compete with each other for mates; I am not sure about weevils. it is likely some of them might do that, in some way
- Bugscope Team If you take the magnification down low, you can drive to the NE
- 10:26am
- Bugscope Team Miss T can we help by moving the microscope stage to the weevil head?
- Teacher Do weevils have anything to protect themselves? Francis would like to know.
Bugscope Team many insects have to work to protect themselves from ants. often they give off chemicals that the ants do not like. they also disguise themselves and stay away from ants when possible
- Teacher Yes. the weevil head would be great
- Teacher Francis wants to know if the ants like to eat the weevils?
Bugscope Team Ants will eat anything that gets in their way, although they are partial to sweet liquids.
- Bugscope Team see the head?
- Teacher thank you for moving the scope to the weevil head!
- Teacher Roy thinks it looks like a teddy bear!
- Teacher Alyssa would like to know if weevils have stingers?
Bugscope Team no they dont have stingers. I'm not even sure if they are likely to bite you either
- Bugscope Team many weevils are distinguished by having a very long pointy snout, so this is not as common. but it is cool. and it does look like a teddy bear!
- 10:32am
- Teacher We submitted a cicada that was smashed. Do we have any part of that we can see?
Bugscope Team no we dont have the cicada on here at all. sorry
- Bugscope Team sometimes what looks like a stinger on a female insect is actually the ovipositor
- Bugscope Team we got so many nice insects from you that we filled up the whole stage
- Teacher What do weevils eat?
Bugscope Team weevils eat mostly grains, and they are pests that way
- Teacher Shafia wants to know if weevils have hair?
Bugscope Team well not hair, but they do have setae (see-tee) which look a lot like hair. setae help weevil's to sense their environment
- Bugscope Team often you'll find weevil's in your dry pancake mix...:(
- Teacher roy wants to know if we can see any of the holes on the fly leg that help them hear?
- 10:37am
- Teacher What is this at the end of the claw we are looking at?
- Bugscope Team the fly antennae on the head pick up sounds
- Teacher Roy thinks he heard that there are holes on the fly legs. Are there? What do they do?
Bugscope Team yes, i'm not sure these are the same holes roy heard about, but many insects have holes on them, their abdomens or their legs, and those holes are called spiracles, they are used for breathing! insects don't breath through their mouths like humans do, instead air goes into these spiracles and circulates into the body that way
- Teacher Shafia wants to know if flies use their claws to eat other bugs?
Bugscope Team flies use their claws to grasp things, but houseflies like these do not eat other bugs
- Teacher Prachi wants to know if house flies are bigger or smaller than other flies?
Bugscope Team houseflies are all different sizes. but they are larger than fruit flies and generally smaller than horseflies, for example.
- Bugscope Team I think I remember the cicada. But we got so many other good samples that we used up all of the space on the microscope stub today. It is 1.75 inches in diameter.
- 10:42am
- Teacher Is there any way to figure out if our fly is a male or female? From Francis
Bugscope Team often, with flies, the males have eyes that are very close together, and those of the females are spaced further apart. so we believe this is a female
- Teacher Mindy wants to know if females have their eyes that way to protect their babies?
Bugscope Team having more widely spaced eyes may give the females an advantage in seeing three-dimensional space, and it may help them avoid predators when they lay eggs. I don't believe they stay around to protect the larvae -- the little maggots
- Teacher Do flies eat ants?
Bugscope Team there are some flies that have piercing mouthparts (instead of sponging) that eat other insects by piercing them and drinking out their insides
- Teacher That was a question from Abdulmalik.
- Teacher Rachel wants to know if the legs are at the bottom of our view on the left side?
Bugscope Team yep, those look like leg segments
- 10:48am
- Teacher Noah wants to know what the dots are around the ant?
Bugscope Team those are dents in the carbon tape that we stick the insects too in the microscope
- Teacher Lisa wants to know what is an ant comb?
Bugscope Team antennae are very important to many insects, and the combs are used to help keep them clean. insects often get a lot of helpful information -- in the form of sounds, or smells, or touch -- that they use their antennae for. So the comb is a good thing to have.
- Bugscope Team isn't that cool-looking?
- Teacher Jeremy says yes!
- Bugscope Team alex said it looks like a wing to him
- 10:53am
- Bugscope Team ants and other insects don't have pockets for things like that, so they are built in. like Edward Scissorhands.
- Bugscope Team those were called plumose setae because they are like elongated Christmas trees -- very good at picking up vibrations from the air or from a web
- Bugscope Team and here the pincers are. Daddy Longlegs aren't the kind of spiders called Arachnids. They are more closely related to crabs.
- Teacher The first graders are pretty much finished. Attention span is waning. Thank you all for the cool information and for letting us participate in this activity. Is there anything else you need from me before we sign off?
- Teacher Can we get pictures from these slides?
Bugscope Team all these images are saved to your member page
- Bugscope Team miss t, remember your member page, it contains all the chat and images from today's session: http://bugscope.beckman.illinois.edu/members/2009-099
- Bugscope Team oops I was wrong Daddylonglegs are Arachnids but not spiders.
- Bugscope Team this is perfect. we had a good time working with you.
- Bugscope Team for all chat and images from today's session, visit your bugscope member page: http://bugscope.beckman.illinois.edu/members/2009-099
- Bugscope Team Thank You!
- Teacher Thanks. It was fun.
- Bugscope Team you can review all the chat and images anytime with your students, we'll keep that page up forever...
- 10:58am
- Bugscope Team nice samples, and we had a good time. see you next year!
- Teacher I'll book you early! And let my colleagues know :)
- Bugscope Team thanks miss T, you did a great job today
- Teacher For someone who isn't swift with technology, I enjoyed it.
- Bugscope Team glad to hear that, we try to make bugscope usable by all
