Connected on 2010-03-05 13:15:00 from Porter, TX, US
- 12:15pm
- Bugscope Team pumping down...
- Bugscope Team 1.6...
- 12:21pm
- 12:26pm
- 12:31pm
- Bugscope Team starting presets
- 12:37pm
- 12:43pm
- Bugscope Team hi cheryl! welcome to bugscope!
- Bugscope Team wow, that was fast
- Bugscope Team we are setting up presets for the session that starts in 30 minutes
- Bugscope Team Hi Cheryl!
- Guest Is the class online yet?
- Bugscope Team The class should be online at 1:15.
- Bugscope Team if we can finish presets soon, we'll give you access tot he scope before the class gets online
- Bugscope Team Cheryl do you see the whole page?
- Guest Neat, Alex! It looks like the whole page, I see the large image on top, smaller images on the right.
- Bugscope Team Annie!
- Bugscope Team Hi kids!
- Bugscope Team Annie is our PhD entomologist, out in California.
- Bugscope Team cool cheryl. when we give you control (only one person can control at one time) then you'll see microscope controls to the right of the live image
- Guest It's a virtual world. I'll keep my eye out for the controls.
- Bugscope Team Annie, Cheryl will be working with us in an upcoming session, and she just got on to check things out.
- 12:49pm
- Bugscope Team Cool, hi Cheryl
- Guest Hello, this is neat!
- Bugscope Team we usually get 20-25 presets per session, so we are almost done
- Bugscope Team The presets we are making now run along next to the chat, as you can see. When we pluck questions out and answer them individually, they will show up on the left. And as Alex said, when we give someone control they will see those controls to the right of the viewing screen.
- Bugscope Team This is a boy earwig
Bugscope Team You can tell by the bowed cerci--
- Bugscope Team Earwigs often have mites, which is why we particularly like them.
- Guest Bugs on bugs are very cool.
- Bugscope Team Cheryl you had asked in email about the feedback. That is something you fill out, fairly short, to let us know how the session went for you and the class.
- Bugscope Team Hi cubs!
- Bugscope Team hi cubs welcome back to bugscope
- Bugscope Team this is the spider's retention plan.
- Bugscope Team super nice spider mouthparts today
- Guest Great, Scot. I just wanted to make sure that I didn't need to have surveys printed for the students.
- Guest Thank you... we will be conducting a session later in March... but I wanted the students to see what we are going to do
- Bugscope Team sometimes (Hi Rob!) students log in on their own computers, as in a computer lab.
- Guest I see controls.
- 12:54pm
- Bugscope Team If you have enough computers, it works really well if you let a couple of students share and type the questions directly
- Bugscope Team okay cheryl, it's all yours, you have control of the scope, and the session is unlocked
- Bugscope Team and sometimes we can then give them control, with the teacher's permission
- Bugscope Team these are the bristles (setae) on the compound eye of the fruit fly
- Guest We will have 10 computers so our kids can be two to a computer.
Bugscope Team that is a great way to do a session
- Bugscope Team feel free to ask us if you have any questions, otherwise you can drive around as you wish
- Bugscope Team Cheryl you can drive, change mag, select a preset, etc.
- Guest okay.
- Bugscope Team we often work with students two to a computer
- Bugscope Team They typically get really involved and ask great questions. Some of the questions are funny--they ask about digestion and excretion and other things that they think are "gross." I am always happy to answer those kinds of questions.
- Bugscope Team nice, good job!
- Guest Yup, gross is good.
- Bugscope Team now, as you drive around, kids would be asking all kinds of questions, and we will be doing our best to answer them all
- Bugscope Team these are the ommatidia -- the facets of the compound eye
- Bugscope Team each facet has a lens in it
- Guest Neat. What are the hairs? How are the presets used?
- Bugscope Team and those spikes are called setae, we think the help the insect fly
- Bugscope Team Sometimes the teachers get embarrassed when the kids ask about "bug poop"--but we don't get offended ;)
- Bugscope Team setae is pronounced see-tee
- Bugscope Team the hairs help the fruit fly assess windspeed and direction
- Bugscope Team cheryl, you are a pro at this, you will have no problem during your session...
- Guest The setae in the eye helps them fly?
Bugscope Team Yes, it helps them to navigate in the wind
- Bugscope Team and the presets let you leap from one sample to another
Bugscope Team well, that's one idea yes, those setae in the eye are mechanosensory and sense wind speed, direction, etc. and that helps the insect to react quickly to changes in the air
- 12:59pm
- Guest I think that statement alone could get more kids interested in science.
- Bugscope Team Hahaha
- Guest So I can just click on a preset and get that image?
Bugscope Team totally, go for it
- Bugscope Team yeah!
- Guest I'm scared of spiders so this will be good.
- Bugscope Team if you get lost or bored or way out of focus you can go to the next preset
- Guest And then I can move around?
Bugscope Team yep
- Bugscope Team this is the retention plan
- Bugscope Team yes you can move from here
- Bugscope Team Yes, it is easiest to use "click to center" rather than "click to drive"
- Bugscope Team take the mag up or down, drive around
- Bugscope Team click to drive is kind of hard to control remotely
- Bugscope Team You just have to be more patient using click to center--which is a problem for me
- Guest What sorts of parts do the kids generally find most interesting?
Bugscope Team Mouths, eyes, usually
- Bugscope Team they seem to like claws, they can look kinda cool and dangerous
- Bugscope Team the kids are intrigued that insects have claws, as Alex said
- Bugscope Team and they love creepy stuff, like we do
- Bugscope Team a mite stuck to the eye of an earwig -- who wouldn't like that?
- Bugscope Team this stinger is still inside the abdomen - looks like it's been used
- Guest I'm also noticing that the preset image on the right has the name of the part but not the large image - so I guess I'll announce the changes as I move around
Bugscope Team if you click on the scale bar (lower left) in the image, it will tell you what the image is, as well as lots of other cool info
- Guest Inside the wasps abdomen?
Bugscope Team yes you can see that the abdomen is busted open a bit
- 1:04pm
- Bugscope Team one thing you can do is click right on the micron bar, and you will see, superimposed on the screen, the description of where you are, the mag, etc.
- Guest Ah.
- Guest Why is the abdomen busted open?
Bugscope Team 'cause Cate is a savage and mashed it onto the stub when she made the sample
- Bugscope Team if you do click the micron bar to see that info, click the micron bar again to make it go away
- Guest Oh, Cate.
- Bugscope Team Actually the wasp was a little crushed when we got it.
- Guest Does the ant have something in it's mouth?
- Bugscope Team yeah oops :)
- Bugscope Team yeah looks like it was eating rocks
- Guest yummy
- Guest what is the wispy hair thing?
Bugscope Team some plant fiber, likely
- Bugscope Team Can we show you the inside of the microscope for a sec?
- Guest Sure.
- 1:09pm
- Guest ooh, cool. Is the platform on the left where the bugs are mounted?
Bugscope Team yes that is in the vacuum, and it is the platform, as you said. it is 1.75 inches in diameter
- Guest what other questions should I encourage the kids to ask?
Bugscope Team well, usually kids will go bonkers and ask TOO many questions. but if yours are quiet, i would suggest having the look at each body segment in detail, they'll come up with questions then...
- Bugscope Team compound eyes are also really interesting, and we always have 1-2 compound eyes in the preset list
- Bugscope Team They can ask about what the insect eats, where it lives, what are its predators (if any)
- Guest okay. I will trust that the coolness of the bugs will inspire their curiousity.
- Bugscope Team Agghhh!! What is this?
Bugscope Team heh it's a headless Pekingese
- Bugscope Team they often seem to go feral, practically
- Bugscope Team oh it is a leg
- Bugscope Team Bugs are also very hairy, so there's lots of stuff we can explain about what those hairs are and why insects need them, etc.
- Bugscope Team we can really be chatty too, it's usually never a problem, being too quiet i mean
- Guest Its a walrus nose
- Bugscope Team A very SMALL walrus!
- 1:14pm
- Guest click to center is easier than click to drive
Bugscope Team definitely
- Bugscope Team right on cheryl
- Bugscope Team when we get to high mag like this the electron beam can distort the sample a little
- Guest Okay, I think I've go the hang of it. I could do this for another hour but I've got other work to do and I imagine the kids will be with you any minute
- Bugscope Team Excellent driving!
- Bugscope Team Thank You Cheryl!
- Bugscope Team thanks cheryl, see you on the 13th then
- Guest Thanks so much for letting me do this!
- Bugscope Team you did great
- Guest See you on the 13th
- 1:20pm
- Bugscope Team Hi Jenn!
- Bugscope Team Welcome back!
- Bugscope Team hi, welcome back to bugscope!
- Bugscope Team we are ready anytime, we've got 23 cool presets for you today
- Teacher Thanks for having us again! This is my last class and they say hello!
- Bugscope Team Hi guys!
- Bugscope Team this is a new sample.
- Bugscope Team hi class! welcome
- Bugscope Team Hello!
- Bugscope Team hey everyone!
- Teacher Hello!
- Teacher Cool fruit fly!
- Bugscope Team here is a wasp head
- Teacher Looks cool!
- Bugscope Team notice the mandibles around the mouth area
- Bugscope Team those mandibles help the wasp to scoop food into its mouth
- Bugscope Team you can see where one of the antennae broke off, likely after the wasp died
- Bugscope Team and there's supposed to be two antennae on top of the head, but one is broken off
- Bugscope Team The mandibles are folded pretty neatly into the head, but you can see some cusps on the end, kind of like a human tooth.
- Bugscope Team the compound eyes are very interesting, they are made up of thousands of individual facets, called ommatidia, each one has a lens in it
- Teacher Oh Yeah! A sharp tooth
- Teacher It needs to shave.
Bugscope Team five o'clock shadow
- 1:25pm
- Teacher It looks ugly!
- Bugscope Team All those little hairs on the mandibles are kind of like taste buds.
- Teacher What do they eat?
Bugscope Team Some adult wasps are predatory, but others feed on nectar and sugars.
- Bugscope Team so if the wasp shaved it would not be able to taste its food
- Teacher How do they hear? with antenae or do they just feel?
Bugscope Team Good question! A lot of insects have a thin, stretched membrane called a tympanum that vibrates with noise, letting them hear. Some insects have it on their legs, others on their sides. Not sure where it is in a wasp, or even if it's present!
- Bugscope Team this is a spiracle -- this is how insects breathe
- Bugscope Team this hole, this is how they breathe, this is a spiracle
- Teacher Looks like goo!
Bugscope Team you are looking into the entrance to the tracheae -- the tubes that deliver air into the body
- Bugscope Team praying mantises have one large 'ear'
- 1:30pm
- Teacher How many ears do they have?
Bugscope Team Most insects that have ears have one--not every insect has a real "ear" and we are still learning about those that do.
- Bugscope Team It does look a little drippy. Spiracles are usually covered with hairs and flanges to help keep water inside - this is easiest place for insects to lose body water.
- Bugscope Team see how there's another spiracle just below the one we were looking at?
- Bugscope Team the joints we are looking at now are called 'petioles'
- Bugscope Team Ooh, a lot of ants today.
- Bugscope Team some ants have one petiole and some two
- Bugscope Team these are the cercopods, or cerci, of a male earwig
- Bugscope Team the male earwigs have pinchers that are more curved and open
- Teacher How long does it live?
Bugscope Team Most insects, including earwigs, will live two or three months as adults. It varies quite a bit though, with climate. For example, here is California, earwigs are around all year, so they may live longer as adults.
- Teacher How do you know if its male or female?
Bugscope Team females have straight pinchers while males are more curved and open
- Teacher What do they eat?
Bugscope Team They are sort of general decomposers. They eat rotten leaves and fungus. However, they also are serious pests of plants. They LOVE to eat leaves of garden plants--especially my swiss chard!!!
- Bugscope Team Earwigs will overwinter where I am, in Illinois. However, they probably don't live longer than a year.
- 1:35pm
- Bugscope Team here we see one of the setae that are sensory -- that stick through the cuticle and connect to nerves beneath it
- Bugscope Team Annie has not been very thrilled about earwigs lately
- Teacher why Annie?
Bugscope Team They are eating all my plants!! I can't grow anything because the earwigs and slugs eat the seedlings as soon as they emerge
- Bugscope Team it's because Annie goes outside more often, to mess around in the dirt
- Teacher What is a palp?
Bugscope Team It's an oral appendage - kind of like a leg around your mouth. The tip is covered in tiny sensory structures to taste and feel the food.
- Bugscope Team the things we see now are thought to be chemosensory -- they help the ladybug taste its food
- Bugscope Team they're like tastebuds
- Bugscope Team My yu choy is a goner and my Swiss chard is chewed up!
- Teacher Sorry about your plants
- Bugscope Team :(
- 1:40pm
- Teacher What do ladybugs eat?
Bugscope Team they eat other insects
Bugscope Team They love to eat aphids, which makes most ladybugs very beneficial predators.
- Bugscope Team But onto palps!!
- Bugscope Team heh, there's another palp to the right
- Bugscope Team yeah aphids are soft, not so crunchy like most bugs
- Bugscope Team now there's a ball right in the center, i don't know what it is but we are going to go check it out
- Bugscope Team Other ladybugs eat scale insects, which are another big pest.
- Teacher How high do ladybugs jump?
Bugscope Team I've never seen one jump - but they are decent at flying and will do so when disturbed. I imagine they can fly several hundred feet in the air.
- Bugscope Team this is odd, a perfectly shaped sphere...
- Teacher Where do most ladybugs live?
Bugscope Team There are species of ladybugs all over the world. They live anywhere there is a food source for them--so farm fields, forests. There are some species of ladybug that actually eat plants and are considered pests. They are more restricted in their range to places where their host plants grow.
- Teacher What is the sphere?
Bugscope Team well, we weren't sure at all, although it's odd it was so perfectly round.
- Bugscope Team sometimes we find small spheres like this. they may be combustion byproducts; they may be latex from tires. we don't know for sure
Bugscope Team We've been debating that. None of us are quite sure. :)
- 1:46pm
- Bugscope Team this is a ladybug wing
- Bugscope Team some mites have eggs that a almost perfectly round like that too
- Bugscope Team are, that is
- Bugscope Team In the eastern US, one species of ladybug will live in your house during the winter. It's quite annoying.
- Bugscope Team these are microsetae
- Bugscope Team they are not likely to have a sensory function
- Teacher Looks like thorns
- Bugscope Team I think they add surface area to the wing and help catch air. also, if you had smooth wings and they got wet they would be hard to unstick from flat surfaces. but if you had tiny setae on them they would not stick so readily
- Bugscope Team when we are a super high mag like this the electron beam distorts the image we see
- Bugscope Team Jenn would the class like the see the inside of the microscope?
- Teacher Yes please
- Bugscope Team this is the inside of the microscope chamber
- Bugscope Team see all your bugs on the stub there?
- Teacher How big is the SEM? Can it fit in a classroom?
Bugscope Team the entire scope is the size of a desk, yeah it can fit in a classroom
- Teacher Wow!
- Bugscope Team the electron beam comes from the top, and the secondary electrons from the conductive coating on the surface of the sample are attracted to the cage on the right
- 1:51pm
- Bugscope Team the chamber we see now is in a fairly high vacuum
- Teacher A science lab table size or smaller classroom desk size?
- Bugscope Team more of the science lab table size
- Bugscope Team the scanning electron microscope needs its own chilled water, its own air, its own nitrogen, and its own filtered electrical power
- Teacher They cost alot right?
Bugscope Team they can be quite expensive , but as scot said, this cost us 600,000
- Bugscope Team yes this was around $600,000 11 years ago
- Teacher Over half a million!
- Bugscope Team there are small SEMs that sit on a table, but they are not as good as ours -- they do not have the same high resolution capabilities
- Teacher Your SEM is awesome!
- Teacher Thank you for sharing it with us!
- Bugscope Team we train people to use the microscopes to do their own research
- Bugscope Team it is really so much fun to be able to do this
- Bugscope Team there's another perfectly shaped sphere in the lower left
- Teacher Who thought of Bug Scope first?
Bugscope Team 11+ years ago the head of our group, Clint Potter, thought of this
- Bugscope Team these hooks are tenent setae on a ladybug
- 1:56pm
- Bugscope Team he is long gone, and we have refined the original idea, but it is really basically what he had imagined
- Teacher Thank you for doing this we love it!
Bugscope Team that is so great that you are all having so much fun!
- Bugscope Team I was hired to set up the SEM -- before it came in, and the first project was to make this work
- Bugscope Team these are tiny setae that help the ladybug stick to surfaces
- Bugscope Team We're looking at the underside of a ladybug foot, in case you lost us.
- Bugscope Team the setae are on a pad called a 'pulvillus'
- Bugscope Team now you can see more of the tarsi, which is what the forearm segments are called
- Bugscope Team you can see the claw at the bottom of the image we see now
- Bugscope Team These claws help the insect hang onto rough surfaces, like tree bark.
- Bugscope Team the claw opens and closes when the ladybug moves a tendon called an unguitractor that is inside of the shaft of the tarsus
- Bugscope Team Whereas the tenant setae you saw earlier are useful for smoother surfaces like leaves (or window glass).
- 2:02pm
- Bugscope Team there is the wing, part of it, sticking out from under the elytra, which is the shell that covers the wings, normally
- Bugscope Team Most insects have two pairs of wings, but in beetles the forewings are hardened into a protective shell, and are called "elytra." The second pair is used for flight, and that's what we see poking out.
- Bugscope Team this is a mold spore
- Bugscope Team and this is the head of a cockroach!]
- Bugscope Team you can see that the antennae are broken off
- Teacher Looks pretty cool
- Bugscope Team and the eyes are there, but they are hard to see because they are streamlined into the curve of the head
- Bugscope Team the compound eyes here are hard to distinguish
- Bugscope Team see the golfball-like surface now?
- Bugscope Team that is the compound eye -- it is so smooth!
- Teacher We like mini golf
- Bugscope Team this is super mini golf!
- 2:07pm
- Bugscope Team each one of those bumps is a facet, with a lens in it
- Bugscope Team the facets are called ommatidia
- Bugscope Team the lens's are stuck in position though, they don't move around like our eye lens's can
- Bugscope Team hmm, what's this? juju or something else?
- Bugscope Team looks like there is a thin film on the surface of the eye -- some dried liquid
- Bugscope Team the ommatidia are really hard to see here
- Bugscope Team now we see the head of a rolypoly
- Teacher Looks like its mad
- Bugscope Team its eyes are sometimes hard to find
- Bugscope Team yeah they do look mad to me as well
- Bugscope Team These guys are called Armadillidium, because they can roll up like an armadillo.
- Teacher Armadillo are our state animal in Texas!
- Bugscope Team roly poly's are very cool, one of my favorite crustaceans...
- Teacher Why do they have claws?
Bugscope Team most insects have some kind of claws, they help them grab onto food, or for defense, or holding onto things they are climbing. some claws might have a comb on them too, to hep brush dirt away from compound eyes or mouths...
Bugscope Team Crustaceans are "biramous" - every appendage ends in a claw. Insects are "uniramous," which means their legs end in a single segment (usually).
- Bugscope Team Like Alex said, they are crustaceans, not insects - they are closer to a crab than a bug.
- Bugscope Team they are also called 'isopods' because all of their little feet are the same
- 2:12pm
- Teacher How do they smell?
Bugscope Team Similar to insects - they use special hairs on their antennae and other body parts.
- Bugscope Team Monarch butterflies, famously, can smell with their feet.
- Teacher Do they swim?
Bugscope Team This particular species doesn't like to be in water and will drown. But if you head to the coast (say, Corpus Christi), you will find very similar little guys living on docks that love the water.
- Teacher What part is this?
- Bugscope Team this is a beetle, it's head area
- Bugscope Team this is a beetle, and we are looking at the underside of the body
- Bugscope Team the mandibles are in front of the mouth, and curved, i think those are mandibles....?
- Bugscope Team The mandibles are at the top of the picture.
- Bugscope Team and now we are going to look at the compound eye, nice!
- Bugscope Team Now we've got the eye. Great view!
- Bugscope Team see how the ommatidia are much better defined here than they were on the roach
- Teacher Looks like tiny balls
- 2:17pm
- Bugscope Team yep, each ball has an eye lens in it
- Teacher How much can you magnify till?
Bugscope Team well, the scope can mag up to 600,000 times or more, but for a generalized presentation like this, we go no more than 40,000 times....
- Bugscope Team the insect brain combines the hundreds of images into one concrete image. human brains do that as well, but with only two different images
- Bugscope Team that was a fracture of the mud or whatever it is on eye
- Bugscope Team when we use the microscope for Bugscope we are at a long working distance from the electron beam so we can go to lower mag
- Bugscope Team so the high mag images are not as good as they can be
- Bugscope Team these are the mandibles
- Bugscope Team a close-up of one of the mandibles
- 2:22pm
- Bugscope Team this is the base of an antenna i think?
- Bugscope Team we are down on the thorax now
- Bugscope Team here's a fruit fly
- Bugscope Team fly's usually have very large and well defined compound eyes
- Bugscope Team the proboscis is sticking out of its mouth area - this proboscis is very messy
- Bugscope Team the fruit fly has a little comb built into its arm
- Teacher hello! Looks like it waving hello
- Bugscope Team yes it is happy to see you
- Bugscope Team yes just like yesterday, but this is a different fruit fly
- Teacher How do they defend themselves?
Bugscope Team they seem to be poorly defended, but they can see very well with those round lobe-like eyes, and that helps them get away from predators
- Bugscope Team the proboscis -- the projecting mouthparts -- are a little dried up. they are usually more swollen, and kind of sponge-like
- 2:27pm
- Bugscope Team i think part of most insect species defense is the ability to reproduce at enormous rates. each individual doesn't have super powers, but as a whole, they are pretty unstoppable in most cases
- Bugscope Team very cool image from the scope here
- Bugscope Team this is the shaft of the haltere, which is a modified hindwing that beats opposite the way the wings beat
- Bugscope Team these are called hypertrophied mechanoreceptors, i believe, right scott?
- Bugscope Team yes!
- Bugscope Team they let the fly feel how its halteres are beating in response to the wings
- Teacher Looks like a tunner
- Bugscope Team the haltere beets opposite to wing, and bounces off the insect, like a punching bag
- Bugscope Team now we are looking at the haltere itself
- Bugscope Team this is creepy now, scary
- Bugscope Team these are spider fangs!
- Teacher oh!
- Bugscope Team kind of scary
- Bugscope Team the fangs have sharp edges that help cut into the spider's prey
- Teacher What are those things beside the fangs on the right?
- 2:32pm
- Bugscope Team that is the spider's retention plan ;)
- Bugscope Team the spider grabs its prey and holds it between the fangs and those spikes to ensure that it has a good grip
- Teacher Thank you so much for such a wondeful opportunity! We really enjoyed this! Thank You All!
- Bugscope Team remember...
- Bugscope Team Thank You!
- Teacher We love Bugscope!
- Bugscope Team See you next year!
- Bugscope Team all the chat and images are saved to your member page: http://bugscope.beckman.illinois.edu/members/2010-003
- Bugscope Team over and out!
- Bugscope Team awesome! sign up again for your future classes!
- Bugscope Team you can review the session with any students, anytime
- Teacher You will :)
- Teacher I filled out evaluation yesterday do I need to do another one
Bugscope Team no, one eval is fine, thanks for doing that, it helps us make sure bugscope is a good experience for teachers
- Bugscope Team we are going to have to run now, we've got some scientists that need to use the scope for another projects
- Bugscope Team okay, gotta run, thanks and great job!
- Bugscope Team closing down the session now
