Connected on 2010-01-05 08:00:00 from Currituck, NC, US
- 7:21am
- Bugscope Team starting presets
- Teacher hello Bugscope scientists! This is Joyce in Moyock, North Carolina!
- Bugscope Team hi joyce, welcome to bugscope!
- Bugscope Team welcome welcome, we are setting up presets for your session
- Bugscope Team we'll be done in 10-15 minutes
- Bugscope Team if you have any questions in the meantime, please just ask
- Teacher Thank you and we are excuted to work the SEM!
- Teacher oops! excited!
- Bugscope Team great to have you back!
- 7:27am
- 7:35am
- 7:40am
- 7:46am
- 7:53am
- Bugscope Team okay, done with presets, i've just unlocked the session
- Teacher Hi SJ, Scot, and Alex! We are ready!
- Bugscope Team ok, we are ready as well
- 7:59am
- Bugscope Team This is the head of a tiny wasp
- Bugscope Team you can control the scope with the navigation controls on the right side
- Bugscope Team if you have any questions/problems please just ask
- Teacher Yahoo! Would you start by giving us a few tips about "driving" the microscope!
- Bugscope Team if you back up a little, take the mag down, you can see that it is from a collection and was stuck to a paper tab
- Bugscope Team looks like a paper surfboard
- Bugscope Team its abdomen is sticking out of the other side
- Bugscope Team it is better to use click to center than click to drive
- Teacher Connor sees the compound eyes!@
- Bugscope Team if you use click to drive remember to click to stop
- Bugscope Team yes!
- Bugscope Team the compound eyes are streamlined into the head
- Bugscope Team you can see wings on either side
- Bugscope Team this is the top edge of the aluminum stub Cate put the bugs on
- Bugscope Team you may click on any one of the presets to the right of the chat box
- Bugscope Team and the 'scope will drive you to that place
- Bugscope Team let us know if you have any trouble
- Bugscope Team (this is Scot, using another computer as sj)
- Bugscope Team Now we see the facets of the compound eye of the damselfly
- Teacher Could you tell us about the compound eyes?
- Bugscope Team the individual facets are called 'ommatidia'
- 8:04am
- Bugscope Team each is a tiny lens that gets its own image, and the images are all processed in the brain, much of which is dedicated to processing visual signals
- Teacher Monique asks, "Do all compound eyes have the hexagon shape?"
- Bugscope Team sometimes they are pentagonal, but usually the individual ommatidia are indeed hexagonal
- Teacher Mallory asks,"How many compound eyes do ladybugs have?"
Bugscope Team two compound eyes
- Bugscope Team a hexagon shape lends itself especially well to close packing, and to making the bulbous shape of the eye
- Bugscope Team ladybugs may have a couple of thousand facets to the eyes
- Teacher Kennedy says that this looks like a bag.
Bugscope Team yeah, the compound eye can deflate when the insect dies, it dry's out and changes shape
- Bugscope Team some insects may have several thousand individual facets to their compound eyes
- Teacher Alexus asks,"Why do bugs have compound eyes?"
Bugscope Team if you had compound eyes you would have very good peripheral vision, much better than we do, and you would also be able to register changes in your visual field more readily -- you would be able to see movement much more quickly, which is very important in the fast-motion insect world
- Bugscope Team you can see that the eye is collapsed, and it is indeed like a bag
- Teacher Leila asks, "What are those little bumps?"
Bugscope Team the bumps to the right, now, are bubbles in the carbon tape we use to stick the insects to the stub
- 8:10am
- Bugscope Team the duller stuff closer to the head is silver paint
- Bugscope Team damselflies eat other insects
- Bugscope Team you can see that this specimen was very dry
- Bugscope Team we mount most 'bugs' on their backs, on the dorsal side with the ventral side up, so that we can see the arms/legs
- Bugscope Team and the mouth, when it is visible
- Bugscope Team the scales have holes in them, that helps to keep them light
- Bugscope Team now we are looking very closely at a few Monarch butterfly scales
- Bugscope Team they are kind of like feathers
- Teacher Micah asks, "How do butterflies drink the nectar from the flowers?"
Bugscope Team they use the proboscis, which extends out from the face area
- Bugscope Team when you handle a butterfly or moth and it feels silky, and powder comes off -- the scales are the powder
- Teacher Justin is going to drive the microscope now.
Bugscope Team okay, go justin!
- Bugscope Team you can click on any preset to move the scope to that location
- Teacher Justin wants to know what the "lines" are.
Bugscope Team those are the ribs of the scales, they hold it together, but yet are very light
- Bugscope Team scales are very helpful if you fly into a web, because you can just leave them stuck there and possibly get away
- 8:16am
- Bugscope Team moths, butterflies, mosquitos, very few beetles/weevils, and silverfish have scales
- Teacher Leah asks, "How do butterflies fly in the rain?"
Bugscope Team if it's raining hard they will not try to fly
- Teacher Madilynn is the driver now.
Bugscope Team madilynn, go ahead and click on a preset in the lower right
- Bugscope Team hey Madilynn
- Teacher Madilynn asks,
- Teacher Madilynn asks, " Do Painted Ladies migrate like Monarchs?"
Bugscope Team well, i don't think it migrates as far as a regular monarch, but it does migrate in tropical zones
- Teacher Jacob is the driver now.
- Bugscope Team Jacob you can select another preset if you would like, from those on the right of the chat box
- Bugscope Team hey drivers, if you want to move somewhere fast, just click on a preset. or you can use "click to center"
- Bugscope Team you can see silver paint on the right, scales in the middle, and scales on the right that are charging up with electrons
- 8:21am
- Bugscope Team way to go jacob!
- Bugscope Team this is what Monarchs eat
- Bugscope Team this is milkweed
- Bugscope Team this is some of the fluff from a milkweed pod
- Teacher David is the driver now.
- Bugscope Team hi david!
- Bugscope Team Hi David!
- Bugscope Team to the left is the Monarch itself
- Bugscope Team sans wings
- Bugscope Team milkweed is also a very important nectar source for bees
- Bugscope Team to the south is some salt, which is kind of cool
- Teacher Hannah asks, "Why do you like bugs?"
Bugscope Team i like learning about them because its amazing how much detail they have, detail that we can't see with our naked eyes, but with an electron microscope, wow!
- Bugscope Team milkweed bugs can also be found on the plants in the late summer/early fall
- Bugscope Team you can move by taking the mag down as low as it will go, then using click to center at the edge of the screen
- Bugscope Team they are black with yellow or orange markings
- Bugscope Team yeah bugs are cool because they do lots of the same things we do but differently
- Teacher Graeme asks, "Why do Monarch caterpillars eat milkweed?"
Bugscope Team well, when the monarch is a caterpillar, it will feed on the milkweed nectar
- Bugscope Team we can see how they are adapted to live in their environments, and how they deal with eating, and grasping things, and getting around
- Teacher Madison asks, "What is the part shown on the screen right now?"
Bugscope Team that is just one bit of fluff from inside a milkweed pod, and we see that the fluff is hollow, making it very lightweight
- 8:26am
- Teacher Cannon asks, "What are crickets' adaptations?"
Bugscope Team crickets do not have as many adaptations as many insects -- they are more generalized, allowing them to survive under a variety of conditions
- Teacher Monique is the driver.
- Bugscope Team welcome monique
- Bugscope Team Crickets have spines on their wings that when they rub their legs on them, they produce sounds that attract other crickets
- Bugscope Team You can also tell how cold it is by how fast or slow the cricket is chirping
- Teacher David asks,"What adaptation does a praying mantis have?"
- Bugscope Team did you know that you can calculate the temperature by the rate of the crickets chirping? using something called Dolbear's Law
- Teacher Leila thinks this is an eye.
- Bugscope Team praying mantises have spikes on the inner parts of their forearms so they can hold onto their prey while they are biting it
- Teacher Monique thinks this is fur.
Bugscope Team it does look very furry, and really it is, just with different kinds of hairs- setae
- Bugscope Team praying mantises also have big eyes, as many predators do, especially flying ones, so they can easily follow their prey
- Teacher Connor is the driver.
- Bugscope Team setae are those hair looking things. pronounced sea-tea
- 8:31am
- Bugscope Team since insects have a hard exoskeleton that cannot feel things, they have those setae which stick through the exoskeleton to nerves underneath, and that's what they use to feel
- Bugscope Team hi connor
- Teacher Madilynn says that it looks like a praying mantis body,
Bugscope Team it does from here, doesn't it?
- Bugscope Team we are looking very closely at the caterpillar mouthparts
- Bugscope Team this is an interesting caterpillar because it appears to have only piercing/sucking mouthparts
- Bugscope Team we don't know what kind of caterpillar it is
- Teacher Claire asks, "Why do most insects have antennae?"
Bugscope Team insects often use their antennae as much or more than they use their eyes. antennae have arrays of chemosensors on them that allow the insect to sense chemicals (smells) in the air
- Teacher Micah is the driver.
- Bugscope Team be sure to take the mag down if you want to see more
- Bugscope Team go micah!!!
- Bugscope Team if you were an ant, you would get most of your information as useful smells
- 8:36am
- Bugscope Team if you take the smell of a dead ant and put it onto a live ant, the other ants will interpret that smell as telling them that the live ant with the dead smell on it is really dead
- Bugscope Team so you can see that sometimes the antennae get information that might not be true
- Teacher Leila asks, "How do you see the stick bug in nature? Because since it blends in, how do you see it?"
Bugscope Team well, it helps to see it when it moves, because it'll move unlike the sticks and plants move
- Bugscope Team boy you could really be a successful spy ant if you used that trick...
- Bugscope Team lots of camouflage animals in nature are safer if they stay still. once they move, they are more vulnerable
- Bugscope Team we can train ourselves to see things like walking sticks because we have a little more information at our disposal -- we know that those branches or twigs we see are out of place
- Bugscope Team look at the little eyes!
- Teacher Kennedy says that it looks like a beetle.
Bugscope Team it does look like a beetle, doesn't it? but we can tell it's probably not because of the simple eyes
- Bugscope Team those are the simple eyes, called stemmata, on the caterpillar head
- Teacher Kennedy asks, "What is the ladybug's adaptation?"
Bugscope Team there are so many adaptations to each insect. one of the ladybug's is its spots and color, which warn other insects and birds that it tastes terrible
- Teacher Mallory is the driver. She wants a new preset.
Bugscope Team go ahead and click on any preset to go there
- Bugscope Team hi mallory, click on a preset and it'll take you there
- 8:41am
- Bugscope Team nice job mallory!
- Bugscope Team this is a pollen grain, near the top left
- Bugscope Team this is a pollen grain on the inner curve of the claw of the Monarch butterfly
- Teacher Connor wants to know that "pollen gran on Monarch claw" means.
- Bugscope Team the pollen grain is the spikey thing
- Bugscope Team pollen grains sometimes have spikes on them so they can easily cling to insects
- Bugscope Team well, it means a pollen grain ended up on a monarch's claw
- Bugscope Team pollen is what flowers produce, and what many insects carry from flower to flower, for example, so that the flowers become pollinated and fruit grows, and seeds are produced in the fruit, and the seeds are disseminated by birds or people or insects or bears and end up growing new plants
- Bugscope Team Monarch butterflies are noted for being able to smell with their feet
- Teacher Joseph asks, "How can you see a praying mantis and a walking stick because the walking stick looks like a stick and the praying mantis looks like grass?"
Bugscope Team well, you can see it, because the shape of the entire mantis has a pattern to it and your brain learns to see that pattern, especially when the mantis moves. this is true for other animals that need to recognize the mantis as well, or any other insect. but sometimes you can't see it, that is true. camouflage does work
- Bugscope Team when they land on a plant and want to find out if it is edible,for example, they scrape it with these claws, and the smell that comes from the wound to the leaf can be sensed by some of the setae.
- 8:46am
- Bugscope Team it's usually when insects move that we can see them
- Teacher Alexis says it looks like stones.
Bugscope Team yes! those are little blocks of salt!
- Teacher Leila says it looks like "cube blocks".
Bugscope Team absolutely!
- Bugscope Team these are salt crystals from wendy's restaurant
- Teacher Leah says it looks sugar cubes.
- Bugscope Team sodium chloride (salt) forms cubic crystals, like these.
- Teacher Mallory asks, "How do bees make their hives?"
Bugscope Team The colony of bees including the queen move into a dark place like a tree trunk, roof, or wall cavity, and the worker bees use honey that they have stored in their tummies as they left their original hive to make wax (bees wax). they chew up this wax and shape it into a new comb with hexagonal cells. The queen lays new eggs in this and the new colony starts.
- Bugscope Team sugar cubes are cubic because we have formed the crystals into that shape, but if we were to look at the individual crystals of sugar we would see that they themselves are not cubic!
- Teacher Madilynn asks," What is the green stink bug's adaptation?"
Bugscope Team the green stinkbug is colored to blend into its environment, and it can also produce a bad smell that discourages other insects and birds and people from bothering it
- 8:52am
- Bugscope Team click again to stop!
- Bugscope Team when using click to drive, you must click twice, once to start moving, then again to stop
- Bugscope Team good job!
- Bugscope Team what is interesting is that stinkbugs are said to find their own stinky smell bad, themselves
- Bugscope Team click on a preset to go to an interesting location
- Bugscope Team stinkbugs actually have little adaptations, little places on their exoskeleton, that help them dissipate the bad smell
- Bugscope Team caterpillars have what are called prolegs
- Bugscope Team prolegs are like 'pre' legs or prototype legs
- Bugscope Team hey cool!
- Bugscope Team this is the head of the Monarch
- Teacher Holland asks, " How do you get bees out of their hives without getting stung?"
Bugscope Team smoke
- Teacher Connor thinks bees aren't insects.
Bugscope Team bees have six legs and three body segments: the head, thorax, and abdomen; those are the main requirements for being an insect
- Bugscope Team Beekeepers wear protective clothing so they won't get stung so easily
- 8:57am
- Bugscope Team beekeepers also use smoke to confuse the bees and slow them down so they will leave the hive without getting too radical and stingin everyone
- Teacher Madilynn is reading a butterfly field guide and wants to know the difference between a Monarch and a Viceroy butterfly.
Bugscope Team well, they do look a lot alike don't they. but viceroys are mimics of monarchs, and we believe they mimic the monarch because the monarch tastes very bad to predators, so if a predator things you taste bad it may not eat you. but the viceroy is a different species than a monarch
- Bugscope Team that was a really good question!
- Bugscope Team they taste bad because of the milkweed they eat, which either tastes bad to insects are are poisonous
- Bugscope Team there are some flies that look like bees, and that appearance keeps them from being bothered
- Teacher Leah asks, "So, other butterflies get eaten, right?"
Bugscope Team yes they do
- 9:03am
- Bugscope Team you would wonder why an insect would be brightly colored if it calls attention to itself
- Bugscope Team the answer is that if you call attention to yourself that could be a warning that you are dangerous
- Teacher Monique asks, "Do all bugs have bones?"
Bugscope Team no insects have bones, they have an exoskeleton instead
- Bugscope Team that's the way tattoos used to work, as a warning
- Bugscope Team bugs have their bones on the outside
- Bugscope Team insects are invertebrates, meaning no bones or skeletal structure
- Teacher Hannah asks, "What is your faviorite bug?"
Bugscope Team I like earwigs and weevils
- Bugscope Team 95% of all animal species are invertebrates
- Bugscope Team they are called invertebrates because they do not have vertebra -- or 'backbones'
- 9:08am
- Bugscope Team earwigs are interesting because they often have mites
- Bugscope Team i like mites, they are insects that bug other insects!
- Bugscope Team and weevils are just super cute
- Bugscope Team well, mites are arachnida, not insects... sorry
- Bugscope Team spiders arent insects but I like them. they have cool features
- Bugscope Team hi joseph
- Bugscope Team see here? this is the proboscis of the Monarch butterfly. it is coiled up because it is not being used
- Teacher Alexus asks, "Why do you call bugs "insects"? You could call them bugs."
Bugscope Team some insects are bugs
- Teacher Mallory asks, "Do all female bugs lay eggs?"
- Teacher Madison asks, "Where did you get the bugs?"
Bugscope Team oh, we have a collection from our homes, work, anywhere. bugs are all over the place
- Bugscope Team true bugs are the insects called Hemiptera
- Bugscope Team true bugs have piercing mouthparts
- Teacher Cannon wants to know how you get the bugs into the microscope.
Bugscope Team we fix them to an aluminum disk that has carbon tape on it. We coat the samples with a metal alloy of gold/palladium. Then we vent the microscope and put them on the stage and pump the vacuum back
- 9:13am
- Teacher Kennedy asks,"What is the bee's adaptation?"
Bugscope Team here is one adaptation honeybees have: they have a place on two of their legs that they cna pack honey onto
- Teacher Leila asks, "How would you see a leaf bug in nature if it is camouflaged in a leaf, how would you see it?"
Bugscope Team we train ourselves to see the overall pattern -- the shape of the bug -- but also its position and whether it is moving
- Bugscope Team wait, i meant Wingless insects, not flying insects. live are wingless insects
- Teacher Leah asks, "Do you know what a may beetle's prey is?"
Bugscope Team well, i think may beetles eat plants only, they don't eat other insects
- Bugscope Team lice are wingless insects....
- Teacher Cannon is the driver.
- Teacher Connor wants to know if those are leaves its eyes.
Bugscope Team those are scales from another insect
- Teacher Cannon wants to know why the thorax looks "floppy".
Bugscope Team the thorax is the 'chest' portion of the insect that the legs are attached to, so it is not really floppy
- Bugscope Team the scales are on the eyes because the wasp was collected with other insects that shed their scales
- 9:18am
- Teacher Madilynn is wondering if the scales from the other insect hurts the wasp.
Bugscope Team well, i don't think so, no in such a small quantity
- Bugscope Team the wasp could wipe the scales off of its eyes if it was alive
- Bugscope Team this is the fruit fly eye
- Teacher Alexus says it looks like sticks coming out of a wasp.
- Teacher Kennedy says it looks like a compound eye.
Bugscope Team it is a compound eye!
- Bugscope Team the fruit fly eyes have little setae sticking out of them that allow them to sense wind speed
- Bugscope Team and wind direction
- Bugscope Team now you can see more of it
- Bugscope Team now you can see ooops not now -- one of the spiracles
- Bugscope Team if you click to drive you must also click to stop
- Teacher Connor asks,"What is that on the right side of the eye?"
Bugscope Team that's part of the head, area between the eyes
- 9:24am
- Bugscope Team that is the vestiture
- Teacher Leila was the driver of the fruit fly eye.
- Bugscope Team the vestiture is the 'dressing' on the head
- Bugscope Team to the right are the antennae
- Teacher Madilynn asks,"Why is s ladybug called a ladybird?"
Bugscope Team well, they call it a ladybird in the UK, ireland, australia, pakistan and south africa. but in america, they are known as ladybugs. probably just regional language differences.
- Bugscope Team they are also called lady beetles
- Bugscope Team Joseph it is time for us to shut down and let other people use the microscope.
- Bugscope Team joseph, all the images and chat from todays session are on your member page:
- Bugscope Team yes it is mostly likely because the words are so similar
- Bugscope Team http://bugscope.beckman.illinois.edu/members/2009-131
- Teacher Here are our final questions: Do bees have six legs because I have not caught one before and I wanted to know.
Bugscope Team yes. Bees are insects, and all insects have 6 legs
Bugscope Team yep, they always have six legs
- Teacher What do you do to figure all that stuff about bugs?
Bugscope Team some stuff we know because we have been doing this for so long, and some things we have to look up!
- Teacher What is your favorite thing about Bugscope?
Bugscope Team we love having the opportunity to share this technology and give students the chance to control a high-resolution scanning electron microscope
- 9:29am
- Teacher Thank you for sharing all of your bug stuff with us. Thank you for answering our questions. Thank you for showing the bugs that you showed to us.
- Teacher Have a good day! Love, Mrs. Metger's class!!
- Bugscope Team no problemo, thank you!
- Bugscope Team thank you for all your great questions!
