Connected on 2009-12-04 11:00:00 from , NJ, US
- 10:16am
- Bugscope Team bugs in scope, starting vacuum
- 10:36am
- Bugscope Team starting preset
- Bugscope Team presets
- 10:41am
- 10:48am
- Bugscope Team hi mrs. j, welcome to bugscope!
- Bugscope Team ms j, i'm sorry!
- Bugscope Team we are setting up presets right now, we'll be ready soon
- Teacher Hi Guys...guess you're still setting up. The 5th graders won't be arriving until 12:05 EST.
- Bugscope Team ok, we will be ready for em
- Teacher Thanks
- Bugscope Team no problemo, if you have any questions in the mean time, please just ask
- Bugscope Team Welcome back!
- Bugscope Team Looks like a pretty good sample today.
- Teacher We've been doing BS for the past 7 years! Lots of fun! Glad you're still around!
- Bugscope Team we are glad too. we actually have a local newspaper here today, taking photos for an article
- Teacher Great!
- 10:53am
- Bugscope Team I like that, doing BS.
- Bugscope Team HI all!
- Bugscope Team Annie! Yay!
- Bugscope Team Annie is our entomologist, and she is logging on from California.
- Bugscope Team hi annie, nice to have you logged on today!
- Bugscope Team Ms J did you see preset 12? There's a colony of rod-shaped bacteria living on the pelp.
- Bugscope Team I am a U of I alum
- Bugscope Team That's right -- Annie got her PhD here.
- Teacher Cool... How man presets will we work with?
- Bugscope Team 15 so far. likely around 20.
- Bugscope Team these are placoid sensilla on the antenna
- Bugscope Team Placoid sensilla!
- Bugscope Team heh
- Bugscope Team we are almost done with presets, just 1-2 more
- Bugscope Team stinger with a retention plan
- Bugscope Team 1 more preset, and then we'll give you control ms. j
- 10:58am
- Bugscope Team thanks for being patient
- Teacher I'm refreshing my memory...click a preset then change magnification?
- Bugscope Team Yay! A flea. I love looking at fleas!
- Bugscope Team ok we are done with presets, i'm unlocking the session now, then you'll see the controls
- Bugscope Team ok, you should see controls now
- Bugscope Team on the right side of the image
- Bugscope Team mag, nav, focus and adjust
- Bugscope Team you may need to expand your browser window to see it?
- Teacher Got it...sounds good.
- Bugscope Team ok, we are ready!
- 11:03am
- Teacher The "driving" is a little weird to operate. Not sure if I'm doing it right
Bugscope Team you are getting it, try using click to center instead of click to drive
- Bugscope Team also, you can always click on a preset to get there
- Bugscope Team see the eyespot?
- Bugscope Team there might be lag, if that's the case, try to stay away from "click to drive" and "focus"
- Bugscope Team is it going okay now ms. j? let us know if we can help
- Bugscope Team Ms J you are one of the few people who would remember the original interface -- the way we used to do this.
- Bugscope Team I think click to center is the best way--you just have to make sure you are patient and let the command complete before you click again
- Teacher yes...I remember the old interface from many years ago.
- Bugscope Team well this is supposed to be easier...
- Teacher OK, our students are here. We're going to introduce this to them and then we'll get started.
- Bugscope Team great!
- 11:11am
- Teacher We're starting with preset 1....
- Bugscope Team This is the head of the caterpillar you sent.
- Bugscope Team Caterpillar head!
- Bugscope Team the little eyes -- in a semicircle -- are called stemmata.
- Bugscope Team Caterpillars are eating machines
- Teacher where are the eyes?
Bugscope Team they are the little round bumps on the sides of the head.
- Teacher kids are having a hard time seeing them
Bugscope Team they are on the right side of the mouth area. little bumps on the head
- Bugscope Team I think there are 6 on either side
- Bugscope Team you can click to center on them and then magnify them
- Bugscope Team I can do it for you...
- Bugscope Team looks like you're there...
- Bugscope Team nice, there they are
- Bugscope Team they're simple eyes, like spider eyes
- Teacher where is the mouth?
- Bugscope Team the mouth is south
- Bugscope Team there it is!
- Bugscope Team see the 'toothed' jaw?
- Bugscope Team the jaws open sideways, like a gate
- Bugscope Team and you can see palps, down below, that are used to taste and manipulate food into the mouth
- 11:16am
- Teacher are these arms?
- Bugscope Team you can see its tiny forelimbs now, on either sside
- Bugscope Team yes!
- Teacher we're moving onto #2
- Bugscope Team awesome
- Teacher what's a damselfly is it like a dragonfly?
Bugscope Team yes very similar
- Bugscope Team caterpillars have six legs like insects do, of course, and they also have prolegs
- Bugscope Team this damselfly has HUGE compound eyes
- Bugscope Team Near the middle of the head you can see its skinny jaws
- Bugscope Team see the giant eyes on either side of the head?
- Bugscope Team quite a contrast to the caterpillar
- Bugscope Team it looks like it is putting its hand into its mouth
- Bugscope Team Damselflies and dragonflies are both in the order Odonata. Dragonflies have eyes that meet, and damselflies have eyes on either side of their heads. Damselflies are more delicate than dragonflies.
- Bugscope Team the eyes are hexagons
- Bugscope Team wow -- those hexagons are the ommatidia, the individual facets of the compound eye
- Teacher Thanks for the information. Why do bugs have eyes that look like this image?
Bugscope Team Well, this is a compound eye, insects often have them. they are made up of thousands of individual facets, called ommatidia
- 11:22am
- Bugscope Team compound eyes provide GREAT eyesight to flying insects, they can see things moving while flying very well
- Bugscope Team if you had to pack thousands of eyes into a sphere -- a round shape like this -- it would work best if the eyes were hexagonal
- Bugscope Team and if your compound eyes were spherical, you would be able to see more of what is around you without moving your head
- Bugscope Team human eyes are different. we have a complex socket that allows the lens to move around. compound eyes don't have that. they have single static lenses in each ommatidium, and it is pointed in one direction. that is why the eye has so many facets that curve around, giving the insect a 180 degree view of the world
- Bugscope Team also, you would be able to register motion much more quickly than we do --- you would get better updates if someone was trying to smack you out of the air
- Teacher We're checking out the #3
- Teacher What are the spikes for?
Bugscope Team They are mostly for the insect to feel things I think
- Teacher Are they soft?
Bugscope Team no they are stiff, but very small, atleast to us
- Bugscope Team the spikes are fairly rigid
- Teacher Do these spikes help them "stick" to things
Bugscope Team they probably serve a lot of purposes: they may be sensory, letting the insect feel what is touching it; they may help it to stick to the things it wants to settle on; they may help keep other insects from biting it.
- Bugscope Team This is a claw on the end of the leg
- 11:27am
- Teacher We're headed to #4
- Bugscope Team This is the wing of the damselfly. There are even spikes on it to help it fight
- Teacher what happened to the wing?
Bugscope Team sorry about that...
- Teacher We're onto #5
- Bugscope Team The wings of dragonflies are fairly delicate. They often get shredded over time
- Bugscope Team this is a spiracle, a breathing hole for insects
- Bugscope Team They are attached to a trachea that runs along the body.
- Bugscope Team Since they have a hard shell around them, they cant expand really when they breath so their size is limited to the amount of oxygen in the air
- Bugscope Team wings break easily
- Bugscope Team That's why in prehistoric times there were really huge insects-- there was more oxygen in the air at the time
- Bugscope Team you can see the spiracles on each segment of the abdomen here
- Teacher what's the sword looking thing?
Bugscope Team that is one of the tarsi -- the end of one of the legs
- 11:32am
- Bugscope Team wings break easily but they do not decay easily -- insect wings are often spit out by birds that eat the rest of the insect; the wings are also often well-preserved in fossils
- Teacher We're on to #6
- Teacher is this the tarsi?
Bugscope Team yes it is
- Bugscope Team see the claw? in the center and closer to us is a pad that we think helps the cricket stick down on leaves and branches
- Bugscope Team Excellent driving here!!
- Teacher how many claws do they have?
Bugscope Team insects will have a claw per leg
- Bugscope Team the tarsi are the last several segments of the limb
- Bugscope Team oh so cute
- Teacher is the eye on the right?
Bugscope Team yes!
- 11:37am
- Bugscope Team it is a compound eye, but we have noticed that they are very smooth in grasshoppers, crickets, and praying mantises; it is more difficult to see the indvidual facets of the eye -- the ommatidia
- Teacher Are legs coming out of it's mouth?
Bugscope Team they are palps, but they do often look like an insect is climbing out of its mouth
- Bugscope Team the antenna have been lost, somewhere -- they are broken off
- Teacher what are palps for?
Bugscope Team they are used to help taste or move food around in its mouth
- Bugscope Team they are very much like legs that were specialized long long ago to work as accessory mouthparts
- Teacher why do insects have random hairs?
Bugscope Team The hairs help the insect to sense its environment...it needs so many hairs because otherwise they won't know what is going on around them. Their exoskeletons are like a suit of armor.
- Teacher we have a debate going on...do insect eyes tend be hexagonal?
Bugscope Team yes. If they have compound eye they are almost always hexagonal. There are some exceptions like mosquitos will have round ommatidia.
- Bugscope Team we can see the ommatidia but they are a little harder to make out in these insects
- 11:43am
- Teacher what is this?
Bugscope Team WE were looking at the head of a true bug...you can see the straight tube that the bug uses to suck juices
- Bugscope Team if you took a bunch of oranges, and you wanted to stack them, you would likely come up with a pattern that looks hexagonal
- Teacher what is a true bug?
Bugscope Team A true bug is an insect in the order Heteroptera. They have sucking mouthparts and incomplete metamorphosis.
- Bugscope Team that is, the best way to stack oranges would be in a pattern that creates a hexagonal shape
- Bugscope Team the best shape for lenses that will form into a spherical shape is hexagonal -- like Buckminster Fuller's domes. Which also may have pentagons in them...
- Bugscope Team ohhh
- Bugscope Team it's a tick!
- Bugscope Team UGH!
- Bugscope Team this one was swollen with blood
- Teacher wow. was this your tick? I don't think we sent this one.
Bugscope Team No I added this in there along with the flea
- Bugscope Team when they are empty they have little ridges that let them expand to this size
- 11:48am
- Bugscope Team so yes it was ours
- Bugscope Team this is the tip of the head -- the capitulum
- Bugscope Team the center part sticks into your skin, and the palps, on either side, fold away
- Teacher could a tick explode?
Bugscope Team I think it COULD explode, but it probably has some stretch receptors in the gut that will tell it when it is getting too full
- Bugscope Team All those little scales are backward facing, which makes it difficult to remove a tick
- Bugscope Team this is the rasping part that cuts into your skin and gets the blood flowing
- Bugscope Team the other side, which we don't see, has longer backward-facing spines that help the head stick into your skin
- Bugscope Team people could use stretch receptors at Thanksgiving...
- Teacher that's what the kids said
- Bugscope Team this is a pretty nice-looking ladybug
- Bugscope Team see the palps?
- Teacher are those the worm-like things
Bugscope Team palps once more!
- Bugscope Team they have little tastebuds at the ends
- Bugscope Team here -- this is cool -- we can see bacteria!
- Teacher is it the clump?
- Bugscope Team the tiny rod-shaped things among the sensory setae are bacteria
- Teacher can the ladybug's head be retracted?
Bugscope Team I don't think so, not much. It is protected by the little hood, called a pronotum.
- 11:53am
- Bugscope Team the bacteria are small 2um long
- Bugscope Team that is a better view of bacilli
- Teacher what is in preset 13
- Bugscope Team the small bright round things are called brochosomes
- Bugscope Team rod-shaped bacteria like E. coli pr anthrax
- Bugscope Team the presets shifted a little but you can still see some here
- Teacher great! Nice to see from a distance.
Bugscope Team heh
- Teacher life span of a ladybug?
Bugscope Team It depends on the place where they live. In warm places, lady bugs can have two generations a year. Typically though, adults hibernate in the winter, the eggs are laid in the summer and the larvae pupate and turn into adults in the late summer. So, most live one year.
- Bugscope Team brochosomes are produced only on leafhoppers but sometimes they will travel to other insects
- Teacher What is preset 16
Bugscope Team those are called placoid sensilla -- it means they are plate-like
- Teacher We're going to be signing off in 3-4 minutes...so I'll be rushing through.
- Bugscope Team they are sensory structures on the antennae
- Bugscope Team this is the stinger
- Bugscope Team it has little barbs on it
- Bugscope Team it's also broken and has some stuff on it, it looks like
- Bugscope Team if you look closely you can see the barbs Cate mentioned.
- Bugscope Team ha what is this?
- Bugscope Team this is the other thing I put on that was ours- a flea
- Bugscope Team the head is to the north
- Bugscope Team eyespot
- Bugscope Team Fleas are some of my favorite things too look at during Bugscope
- Bugscope Team the round spot is the eye
- 11:58am
- Bugscope Team it's much better to look at them in Bugscope than in person
Bugscope Team yeh, you got that right!!
- Bugscope Team this is the part that the flea bites with
- Teacher what is in preset 19?
Bugscope Team this is the main mouth part of the flea
- Bugscope Team it has sharp edges that slide against each other to cut into your skin
- Bugscope Team laciniae are the cutting mouthparts
- Teacher OK, our students are preparing to leave.. they thank you! Can I still look around?
- Bugscope Team Yes you may.
- Bugscope Team As usual where you go will be saved to your member page.
- Bugscope Team we are a little disappointed that some of our presets moved a bit since we made them; sometimes that happens
- Teacher Everything was fine and the kids reall enjoyed it!
- Bugscope Team great!
- Bugscope Team tenent setae!
- Bugscope Team We hope the kids had fun
- Bugscope Team these are on the lady bug tarsi
- Bugscope Team they are on a pad called a pulvillus
- Teacher This is reall cool...so delicate-looking.
- Bugscope Team they will move at high mag when the electron beam heats them up
- 12:03pm
- Bugscope Team this is how ladybugs stick to things so well
- Bugscope Team the bacteria are all over but a little hard to resolve
- Bugscope Team bacteria -- the rod-shaped bacilli -- are usually about 2 microns long
- Bugscope Team you are doing a good job driving
- Teacher I don't think we've ever seen bacteria in the past. This is reall great.
- Bugscope Team they don't show up nearly as much as you might expect, being told to wash your hands all of the time...
- 12:08pm
- Bugscope Team true bug!
- Bugscope Team this is an assassin bug
- Teacher Is it like a fly?
Bugscope Team it's more closely related to a beetle
- Bugscope Team it pokes its proboscis into other insects and sucks the juice out
- Bugscope Team they can fly, or some of them can
- Bugscope Team they can be kind of big and scary, and they fly slowly, from what I have seen
- Bugscope Team It is actually more closely related to neither! It is more closely related to an aphid ;)
- Bugscope Team stemmata
- Bugscope Team if you drive south you will find the prolegs, but they are a little hard to make out
- Bugscope Team they have little hooks called crochets
- Teacher Very cool.
- Teacher OK, everone. I think I'm done. Thanks so much for a great session. See you again next year!
- Bugscope Team Thank You.
- 12:13pm
- Bugscope Team Thank you!
- Bugscope Team See you next year!
- Bugscope Team ;)
