Connected on 2010-03-24 09:00:00 from Listonburg, PA, US
- 7:57am
- Bugscope Team sample is done coating will be in in a minute...
- Bugscope Team pumping down
- 8:08am
- 8:14am
- 8:19am
- 8:25am
- 8:32am
- 8:38am
- 8:45am
- 8:51am
- Bugscope Team We are ready to roll...
- 9:01am
- Bugscope Team good morning, Buddy!
- Bugscope Team Where are you from?
- Guest cool
- Guest nc
- Bugscope Team North Carolina?
- Guest yes
- Bugscope Team Cool!
- Guest we are in kindergarten:)
- Bugscope Team We are waiting for today's school, in Pennsylvania , to log in.
- Bugscope Team you can have control of the scope until our school logs in if you want
- Bugscope Team these are some of the fine setae on the antenna of a beetle
- Guest thank you!
- Bugscope Team you can change the mag, choose from among the presets, change focus, click to center, click to drive (meaning you must also single click to stop)...
- Guest we have just received some technology funding, so we are exploring the web with our smart board!
- Bugscope Team the presets are kind of like thumbnails -- they take you to that place on the stub
- Bugscope Team nice!
- Bugscope Team smart boards are pretty popular
- Guest we are really enjoying ours
- Bugscope Team looks like there may be some brochosomes on the one seta in the middle here
- 9:06am
- Bugscope Team brochosomes are nanoparticles that are produced by leafhoppers but often show up on other insects
- Bugscope Team they are about 500nm big
- Bugscope Team a flea!
- Bugscope Team it has some cotton ball stuff around it
- Bugscope Team the fiirst pointy thing coming down from the tip of its head is a palp that helps it smell where it is going to bite
- Bugscope Team the second pointy thing, to the left of the first, is what the flea bites with
- 9:11am
- Bugscope Team in the background we see doublestick carbon tape, and there is a bubble in it above the flea
- Guest are those hairs we see on the flea
Bugscope Team they are called 'setae'
- Bugscope Team yes there are hairs on it
- Bugscope Team when we first see insects and similar arthropods like spiders up close, it is surprising to see so many 'hairs'
- Bugscope Team this is a kind of fruit fly, and it has little bristles between the facets of most of its eye
- Bugscope Team the little bristles sense the windspeed and direction and help the fruit fly orient itself in the air
- Bugscope Team you can see its compound eyes on the sides of its head, and you can see its antennae at the top of the head
- Guest What do we see extending from the top of the fly's head? Are those longer bristles?
- Bugscope Team those are the tips of the antennae
- 9:17am
- Bugscope Team this little fly also has palps above its mouth, kind of hard to see
- Bugscope Team the antennae have a thick pad base and then those little branch-like extensions
- Bugscope Team Good morning, Curious!
- Guest Good Morning
- Bugscope Team Where are you logging in from?
- Bugscope Team this is the eye of a moth, and you can see loose scales on it
- Bugscope Team the scales are from the wings and other parts of the body of the moth
- Guest I am with a company in Pittsburgh that does professional development for teachers in science and math. One of our members pointed me to your site!
- Guest our class thinks it looks like a snake's skin!
Bugscope Team yes those are the facets of the compound eye -- each is its own lens. they are called ommatidia.
- Bugscope Team Cool. We are s'posed to be connecting with a school in PA but they have not logged in yeet.
- Guest It does look like a snake skin.
- Bugscope Team oops 'yet'
- Bugscope Team now we see the whole head
- Guest We work with many schools in PA...maybe it is one of our schools.
- Bugscope Team you can see the compound eyes on either side of the palps, and the curly thing is the proboscis, which the moth uses to feed with
- 9:22am
- Bugscope Team Curious this is the Turkeyfoot school district. I called and left a message with our teacher.
- Guest This is a great resource for our teachers. great opportunities to use process skills
- Guest This is our favorite picture. Does the proboscis straighten out when it feeds?
Bugscope Team yes, it will fill up with hemolymph, or bug blood, when it wants to extend it
- Bugscope Team it is a lot of fun for us. students can log in as well if they are in a computer lab, for example. and we can give the students control of the microscope
- Bugscope Team the proboscis extends forward like one of those party favors on New Years' Eve
- Guest Does it use it's own blood, or another insect's?
Bugscope Team it uses its own blood
- Bugscope Team you can see part of its antenna to the right
- Bugscope Team they don't eat other insects -- they drink things like nectar, using the proboscis like a straw
- Guest Awesome!
- Bugscope Team Curious we are lucky that Buddy and his kindergarten class in North Carolina got on this morning to test our their smartboard.
- Guest Thank you for answering our questions! We have really enjoyed it and will visit again soon.
- Bugscope Team Thank you for connecting, Buddy!
- 9:27am
- Bugscope Team Curious if you would like we will give you control of the microscope.
- Bugscope Team you have control now...
- Guest ooh thanks
- 9:32am
- Bugscope Team this is the abdomen
- Bugscope Team if you get to a place that is not interesting, go ahead and click on a preset
- Bugscope Team I just got through to our teacher, and both she and her technology coordinator will be on around 11 their time.
- Guest this is really interesting
- Bugscope Team we often have a second hour built into the session in case there is a time zone problem
- Guest one of the universities here is hoping to get grant funding to develop a very small electron scanning microscope for classrooms
- Bugscope Team Curious if you click on the micron bar in the lower left corner of the screen you will open a display that show some of the parameters
- Guest so the only input is text?
- Bugscope Team there are very small electron microscopes now
- Bugscope Team like the FEI Phenom
- Guest really? They made it osund as if the smaller size was novel. they want theirs to be less than 8 inches
Bugscope Team our electron microscope is huge in comparison and will also get much better resolution
- Bugscope Team hi mrs barlow
- 9:39am
- Guest thank you Scot for the test drive...and the additional information about smaller scopes
Bugscope Team Thank you, Curious!
- Bugscope Team Mrs Barlow you have control of the microscope as soon as you want. We are glad to see you!
- 9:45am
- Bugscope Team Hi Becky!
- Bugscope Team Welcome to Bugscope!
- Student Hello Scot, this is Mrs. Barlow. Where are the controls for the microscope at on the page.
- Bugscope Team Becky we are going to give you control of the microscope since Mrs Barlow is greyed out for some reason.
- Bugscope Team Heh
- Bugscope Team there you are!
- Bugscope Team Only one person can have control at a time, so you have it now.
- Student Great I see them. I will practice in a minute. Now that I have this running I will send for the students.
- Bugscope Team we can confer control to whomever you wish, or you can keep control the whole time.
- 9:52am
- Bugscope Team this is a beetle, and I have been driving around looking at it
- Bugscope Team this right now is a moth or butterfly scale
- Student Can I run the controls now?
- Bugscope Team you should need to click only once rather then twice to get a control to work
- Bugscope Team yes
- 9:57am
- Bugscope Team this is a single scale- it's the same powdery stuff that comes off their wings
- Bugscope Team if you use click to drive, click once to go in a particular direction, depending on where the cursor is on the screen
- Bugscope Team and click once to stop
- Bugscope Team these are the mouthparts of the beetle and we are sorry there are a few beetles in here we did not recognize
- Bugscope Team cool!
- Student What is this?
- Bugscope Team that is the ball-and-socket joint that connects the antenna to the head, and one of the compound eyes
- Bugscope Team the bumpy part is a compound eye
- Bugscope Team the hexagonal facets are called ommatidia, and each is a lens
- Bugscope Team there are also a lot of setae, or insect hairs, all over
- Student We are zooming to see the eye closer. This is soo neat!
- Bugscope Team when you focus, the focus will be up or down
- Bugscope Team so if it gets worse, go the other way
- Bugscope Team it goes in little steps...
- 10:02am
- Bugscope Team if you had compound eyes you would likely have better peripheral vision
- Bugscope Team and you would also have a better ability to see motion
- Bugscope Team there is some kind of film on this compound eye
- Bugscope Team it might have gotten on there after the beetle died
- Bugscope Team Mrs M be sure to select from among the presets if you want to go somewhere else.
- Student Ok, this is the REAL Becky =)
- Bugscope Team Hi Becky!
- Bugscope Team Welcome to Bugscope!
- Bugscope Team let us know as soon as you have questions about anything
- Student My class wants to know if you are a professor or a student
- Bugscope Team Cate and I are here to help; Chaos is the control computer and not very helpful at answering questions.
- Bugscope Team Cate and I are both electron microscopists.
- Student Cool!
- 10:07am
- Bugscope Team Cate has a physics degree, and when she is not doing this she trains researchers -- grad students and postdoctoral researchers -- to run the electron microscopes, and also to prep their samples.
- Student Do you know what these beetles eat?
Bugscope Team not specifically no. We aren't sure what type it is, but most beetles can eat just about anything- other insects, decaying matter
- Student Could we have multiple computer logged on at once?
Bugscope Team yes you can, it can actually be easier on you and more fun for everyone else
- Bugscope Team this is an interesting beetle, too. it looks superficially like a roach, but it has these kind of specialize mouthparts with the little filtering setae on them
- Student Bye Scot and Cate! My friend Rachel is going to drive next =)
- Bugscope Team ok cool
- Student Hi Scot & Cate! This is Rachel!
- 10:13am
- Bugscope Team Hi Rachel!
- Bugscope Team these are the cercopods -- the pincers -- of a female earwig
- Bugscope Team they are also called cerci
- Bugscope Team those of a female are straight, like these, and those of a male are curved
- Bugscope Team this is a kind of fruit fly
- Student this is so awesome!
- Bugscope Team you can see the compound eyes on either side of the head, and the mouthparts
- Bugscope Team and now we see some of the legs
- Bugscope Team the segments at the end of an arm, or leg, are called tarsi
- Student What is the purpose for the hair on the legs?
Bugscope Team insects and other arthropods use the hair (setae) to help them gather information about their environment
- 10:19am
- Student Can you look at anything other than insects?
Bugscope Team we can, we just dont do it often. Kids like the gross out factor of insects the most, and also when they dry out they don't change too much in how they look.
Bugscope Team we look at lots of other things here in the lab, but other samples often require specific knowledge about their function, whereas insects/arthropods just kind of make sense.
- Bugscope Team because they do not have skin, with nerve endings in it -- they have an exoskeleton instead -- they use the setae to sense smell, hot/cold, touch...
- Student hi Scot
Bugscope Team Hi Seth!
- Bugscope Team Here we have salt, which is a noninsect example
- Student ahh ok
- Bugscope Team wow everyone is coming on now!]
- Bugscope Team cool
- Bugscope Team this is salt from a Wendy's restaurant
- Student Thats cool.
- Student How does the salt get with the insect?
Bugscope Team Cate put the salt on separately.
- Student so salt is actually a bunch of squares???
Bugscope Team yes it is, and compared to sugar crystals, especially -- sugar is not square, or cubic
- Bugscope Team it is cubic, like sodium chloride crystals are, but it has this incised pattern
- Student hay this is kellie
- Student can you give control to seth? my teacher wants to know...
Bugscope Team Seth has control now.
- Student Okay, so are we able to look at spiders too? or is it just certain insects?
Bugscope Team we can look at spiders too! sometimes they pop in the 'scope and shut the vacuum down temporarily
Bugscope Team oh yeah we can look at other things like that, arthropods
- Student Oh okay
- Student Hello we are Kailee, Alysha, and Pam= KAP
Bugscope Team Cool: KAP!
- Student What all do you have slides of?
Bugscope Team this is a single 1.75-inch-diameter stub that Cate made yesterday using the insects you sent plus a few more.
- Student hahaha
- 10:24am
- Student What is the most complex slides to look at?
Bugscope Team the fruit fly preset is pretty cool
- Student Can we look at one that we sent?
- Student OK, thanks
- Bugscope Team you sent the ladybug which is pretty cool and the house fly and true bug
- Student So, when you look at something is it dead or alive????
Bugscope Team they are all dead and dried out
- Student Can we see the True Bug
Bugscope Team the person who is driving can select the presets for the ladybugs: nos. 9 and 10
- Bugscope Team click to stop, and go to a lower mag if you do not see anything
- Bugscope Team oops the True Bug: preset 8
- Student Thank YOu
- Student do you have a praying mantis?
Bugscope Team not today -- if you go to the Bugscope website after this session -- anytime -- you can search for a praying mantis
- Student Are those eyes?
Bugscope Team yes! those are eyes, and in the center is the proboscis
- Student How large is the true bug in reality?
Bugscope Team i think it was around an inch and a half or so
- 10:29am
- Student thanks
- Student So if i stick a bug in the freezer, and then let it air dry.. will it dry out?
Bugscope Team yes. that's how we usually put our insects to sleep
- Student thanks
- Student approximately how many people view bugs on this website each year?
Bugscope Team well...we usually do 3 sessions a week with maybe around 20 kids a session
- Student to sleep?
Bugscope Team sort of permanent sleep. but some will wake up, surprisingly
Bugscope Team our humane way of killing
- Student can you plz pass control to megan,kristie,tara
- Student what makes them wake up? A will to live?
Bugscope Team some insects have a built-in antifreeze -- often some of the ants, for example. so once they are warm again they get up and start cruising around
- Student thank you
- Student so if they wake up what do you do with them release them or stick them back in the freezer for longer??
Bugscope Team yeah we just wait longer and that usually does the trick
- Student well you've got about 30 kids in this session
Bugscope Team very cool!
- Student :)
- Bugscope Team this is the abdomen, and that is one of the claws
- Student What is a proboscis
Bugscope Team that is the extended mouth, and sometimes it means 'nose,' of course, like in an elephant. The trunk is a proboscis.
- Student bugs have claws?
Bugscope Team yes they have claws per each leg (unless we handled them a little roughly and they happen to be missing some legs)
- Student what is this claw used for?
- Student Is there a certain size bug you can veiw or is it all sizes?
- Bugscope Team in insects it is the piercing mouthparts, often
- Student That is awesome! I never knew that.
- 10:35am
- Student Can we look at the ladybug?
Bugscope Team I think we were just looking at the elytra of the ladybug
- Bugscope Team you can see that the tip of this true bug's proboscis leaked some juju -- something it was drinking, perhaps
- Student Oh okay
- Student Can you switch the control to maddie&ali?
Bugscope Team got it
- Student please
- Student Whats the elytra?
Bugscope Team the elytra is the shell on the back of the insect -- like a beetle -- that covers the wings
- Student What is the elytra?
Bugscope Team it's the part of the back that covered the wings. You see it easily when a ladybug is flying, the elytra will expand out
- Student Are we able too Look at all sizes of bugs? like are you able to look at big spiders like trantula's?
- Student So the specimens still have food in them. I never thought of that=D
- Student whats that?
- Bugscope Team click once to drive and once to stop
- Student about how many bugs do you do this procees to in a day?
Bugscope Team we run maybe three sessions a week, and there are often 10 or 15 critters
- Bugscope Team this is the mosquito
- Bugscope Team oops not now -- this is the little wasp
- Student How long is a wasp's life span?
Bugscope Team it depends on the wasp species, but usually a few months
- Student the eyeballs are really cool!
Bugscope Team yeah they are
- 10:40am
- Student Will you switch control to Jay please?
Bugscope Team jay has control
- Student Thanks
- Student what is the difference between a wasp and a yellow jacket?
Bugscope Team a wasp is a type of yellow jacket
- Bugscope Team Maddie&Ali you can click to stop....
- Bugscope Team and you can click on a preset to go to a new place
- Student can you look at bigger insects like trantulas?
Bugscope Team sorry we did not get to answer that earlier. we can look at parts of tarantulas, but they are so big we cannot put the whole dude, or dudette, in the 'scope.
- Bugscope Team it is a single click to stop
- Student What are we looking at now? Are we in gray space?
Bugscope Team this is carbon tape that we use to help stick the bugs on the stage
- Student Thank You!!!
- Student Ok what Insect is this?
- Student couldnt you make a bigger scope or lense to view larger organisms?
Bugscope Team we could have a bigger 'scope but it would be more expensive and take longer to pump down. also, larger chambered 'scopes often do not have as good resolution as this one
- Student its cool thanks for answering DuDe :D
- Bugscope Team tarantulas have what are called 'urticating hairs' that they release when you bother them. they get in your nose and make you want to get away
- Student whats urticating hair?
Bugscope Team it's hair that makes you itchy
- Student Bye Scot and Cate! Thank You.
Bugscope Team bye! thanks for driving the scope today
- Student I will never look at a bug the same again ;) Good bye and thanks
- Student bye scot! it was so awesome getting to talk to you! thanks! and cate! =]
Bugscope Team Thank you! See you next year!
- Bugscope Team go to your member page at anytime (http://bugscope.beckman.illinois.edu/members/2009-153/) to look at your images and transcript from today
- 10:45am
- Student thanks for letting us veiw these amazing insects its been a life experience thanks and good bye
- Student oh and give controls to becky
- Student plz
- Student This is Mrs. B again. A couple of students are still here, but they will be leaving soon for lunch.
- Bugscope Team Fine to take a few a little more time if you want.
- Student This is so neat. I feel bad we weren't more organized, but the experience was very educational.
- Bugscope Team the transcript of this session will have a few visitors on it, from earlier
- Bugscope Team and we will be glad to work with you next year
- Bugscope Team it is a lot of fun for us
- Bugscope Team these are another kind of hair (setae) whose purpose is helping the insect climb vertical surfaces
- Bugscope Team the setae are sticky -- called 'tenent' setae
- Student That is fine. Thank you for calling and allowing the extra time. We will be more prepared. Our tech person is not here today, so I am relieved we could even do this. We will definitely sign up again.
- Bugscope Team Cool!
- Bugscope Team See you figured it out without your tech person. That makes us happy.
- Bugscope Team in the old days it was not so easy, sometimes
- Student I must leave for duty, but I will be sure to complete the follow up survey. You guys are great. What a wonderful program.
- 10:50am
- Bugscope Team thank you!
- Bugscope Team Bye!
- Student Thank you!! Bye!!
