Connected on 2010-05-12 11:00:00 from Hayward, CA, US
- 8:46am
- Bugscope Team making presets for National Lab Day
- 8:57am
- 9:02am
- Bugscope Team Alex! Yay!
- 9:07am
- 9:13am
- 9:18am
- 9:23am
- 9:29am
- 9:39am
- 9:45am
- Bugscope Team We are ready. Session is unlocked...
- 10:07am
- 10:23am
- 10:38am
- Bugscope Team Hello Umesh!
- Bugscope Team Bye!
- 10:48am
- Teacher Hello folks! Michele Korb here!
- Bugscope Team hey there
- Bugscope Team Welcome to Bugscope!
- Teacher I have invited a few people - hope it turns out well!
- Bugscope Team please feel free to drive around.
- Teacher Hi Cate!
- Bugscope Team we are working with lowered expectations...
- Bugscope Team But Cate assembled a fantastic sample
- Bugscope Team this is the antenna of a male mosquito
- Teacher This is a beautiful sample! What is it?
- Teacher Oh...
- Teacher p.s. I have to log off at 10 minutes before the next hour.
- Teacher Nice eyes!
- Bugscope Team Yeah, very clean sample
- 10:53am
- Guest Hi all. Chas, are you joining via an iPad (wifi or 3G)? Does it work well?
- Guest Hi Michele! Thanks.
- Teacher Tell me about this view - what parts are we seeing now?
- Bugscope Team this is the head of a male mosquito
- Teacher Hi there!
- Bugscope Team we are seeing it from below
- Bugscope Team the rest of the body should be to the south i think
- Bugscope Team you can see the compound eyes, and below them is the throat
- Bugscope Team Not currently on the iPad, but am testing a revised interface that will be even better on iPhone/iPad
- Bugscope Team Male mosquitoes do not bite -- do not take a blood meal.
- Guest Terrific Chas. I would liek to help you test it. I just got an iPad (wifi). The mosquito is from IL (not CA), right? Is Cate our guest entomologist? Yeah.
- Bugscope Team the male does have a proboscis that looks just like that of the female but does not have the internal cutting/siphoning components.
- Bugscope Team no im here helping out not as an entomologist
- Guest But, you are, Cate, but you are an expert!
- Bugscope Team This is one of a number of mosquitoes we got from a filmmaker. I']
- Teacher It would be cool to see a female beside this one.
- Bugscope Team not sure where they came from
- Bugscope Team we had to use the females, I'm sorry
- Bugscope Team the big differences are the mouthparts and the antennae
- Teacher So, why do you think only the females bite and take blood?
Bugscope Team they do that when they are getting ready to lay their eggs. Some extra energy and protein is needed
- 10:58am
- Teacher I am playing with your controls a little. Fun! Thanks for the answer, Cate!
- Bugscope Team females cannot successfully lay their eggs until they have a blood meal
- Teacher Interesting. Do they die after they lay eggs?
Bugscope Team yes they do
- Bugscope Team there are some species of mosquitoes in which the female does not take a blood meal -- both sexes live on nectar
- Teacher Welcome E!!
- Teacher I am going to a new preset - is that OK?
- Teacher I am going to the flea. Did I send this?
- Teacher This is a flea. Might have come from my cat :)
Bugscope Team it came from out entomologist Annie's dog actually!
- Guest Why do they die after laying eggs?
- Bugscope Team i think I squished it a little picking it up
- Teacher Oh. Thanks Annie!
- Teacher So why do mosquitoes die after laying eggs?
Bugscope Team they have successfully started the next generation and really have no purpose anymore, since they do not do this repeatedly
- 11:03am
- Bugscope Team many insects are like this. some mayflies may live in the adult state for only a few hours
- Teacher Interesting!
- Bugscope Team it is safe to say that the great majority of insects, especially in temperate zones, compared to the Tropics, live for only weeks or months. or less
- Teacher No wonder animals scratch and bite at fleas. Look at the legs on this one!
- Teacher What are the long, sword like projections?
Bugscope Team those are part of the head, and they may help the flea embed itself in fur
- Bugscope Team the reason they scratch and bite is here -- you can see the laciniae to the right
- Teacher Scot - can you center and drive to the laciniae?
- 11:09am
- Bugscope Team these are the cutting mouthparts
- Teacher Oh....ouch.
- Bugscope Team see the ridges
- Bugscope Team they're like little chainsaw blades
- Teacher Poor animals!!
- Bugscope Team like a steak knife
- Teacher this is more reason for me to put flea meds on my cat now....
- Bugscope Team they work back and forth in a side-by-side sliding motion
- Teacher Can you drive to the legs and show why it is that they can jump so far?
- Bugscope Team can't really see its hindlegs here but they are big and meaty like a rabbit's legs
- Teacher That is an interesting analogy, Cate!
- Bugscope Team let's go to the other flea
- Teacher Ok - take us there!
- Teacher You are a great tour guide, Scot!
- Bugscope Team now I think you can see more clearly how big the legs are
- Bugscope Team they're like jackrabbit legs, as Cate says
- Teacher Yes, they are quite meaty :)
- Bugscope Team they can jump, as you know, many times the length of their bodies
- Teacher What is the life cycle of a flea like?
- 11:15am
- Bugscope Team they can go through very long stages of dormancy if the eggs are not disturbed.
- Teacher I think this dormancy phase lasts a long time and the fleas survive all year here in CA. Sort of annoying!
- Bugscope Team fleas live 30-90 days on average
- Bugscope Team but like you said with good conditions they can live for around a year
- Bugscope Team you can walk into an abandoned house and suddenly awaken adult fleas that have been resting in their cocoons, waiting for you
- Teacher Sounds like a horror movie!
- Teacher What great material for teachers and students - good material for creative writing!
- Bugscope Team that is tough about California -- it is so warm year-round that insects such as fleas do not die in the wintertime
- Bugscope Team the flea life cycle runs from the adults, which lay eggs, to the larval stage, to the pupae, and then to adults again
- Teacher And the spiders get HUGE! I am going to try to find a tarantula soon. They are supposed to be hatching soon and they close roads so they don't get smashed while crossing.
- Bugscope Team when you disturb them and they suddenly awaken, they are coming from the pupa
- Teacher That is a scary thought. On to the butterfly!
- 11:20am
- Bugscope Team tarantulas do not like to be bothered, and they have special 'urticating hairs' that they release to deter the curious
- Teacher I have heard that about tarantulas.
- Bugscope Team they break easily
- Teacher They break for ESEM prep easily?
Bugscope Team they break in real life easily. if you drop a tarantula it can break open and die
- Bugscope Team this is the head of a butterfly, and I am not sure what happened to its mouthparts
- Teacher Hmmm...
- Bugscope Team we have to be careful when handling them even when they are dead
- Teacher Oh -I had no idea they were so fragile. Sort of bebunks the myth of their scariness.
- Bugscope Team that is a desiccated insect of some sort caught in the 'hair'
- Bugscope Team it may be a mite, hard to tell
- Teacher free loading insect on a butterfly?
- Bugscope Team dustmites are softbodied, like spiders
- Bugscope Team not sure what it is
- Bugscope Team so when they die they shrivel terribly
- Teacher Can you show us the wings on this butterfly?
- Bugscope Team dustmites are not insects, however -- they are arachnids
- Bugscope Team preset no. 8 shows part of one of the wings
- Bugscope Team i removed the wings from it but I put a small patch of the wing by the butterfly
- Teacher I learned something new today then! Arachnids encompass a group of organisms that I was not aware of.
- Bugscope Team we have only 1.75 inches to work with, so there would not be much room if we put the whole butterfly on the stub
- 11:25am
- Bugscope Team if you look at spider mites it is clear that they are tiny spiders
- Teacher Gotcha - so I am going to preset 8 to look at the butterfly wing. VERY cool!
- Bugscope Team this is way up close on one of the scales
- Guest what are the perforations?
- Teacher Looks like a beautiful fabric!
- Bugscope Team many wing scales like this produce both structural colors and colors that come from pigment
- Teacher e: what are the perforations?
Bugscope Team yes as Cate says the latticework makes the scales that much lighter
- Bugscope Team structural colors derive from the shapes of the scales at this microscopic level
- Bugscope Team there are little spaces in the wings to make them lughter
- Bugscope Team the structure of those spaces also gives the wings color
- Bugscope Team by refracting light a different way
- Guest Are earwigs from the Forficulidae family?
- Bugscope Team um they are dermaptera -- let me look it up
- Teacher Wow - great question!
- Teacher I am going to the earwig preset now.
- Teacher Here is its claw....nice.
- Bugscope Team some earwigs are indeed Forficulidae
- 11:30am
- Bugscope Team there are at least six families
- Bugscope Team you can tell the females from the males by the shape of the cercopods -- the cerci
- Bugscope Team did you see the mites, there?
- Teacher What is the cerci again? the feet? Show us the cerci and the mites :)
- Bugscope Team this is the head, of course; sometimes the eyes are like this, and sometimes they fill out the whole orb shape there
- Bugscope Team the cerci are the pincers
- Bugscope Team you can see the mites on the way down...
- Bugscope Team there they are!
- Bugscope Team this is a female.
- Teacher Why do earwigs have the pinchers?
Bugscope Team they are defensive, as you will find if you try to pick one up
- Bugscope Team in male earwigs the cercopods are more bowed
- Teacher We read a book in my education class called "the Icky Bug" and the earwig brought up questions. We don't think they are icky at all.
- Bugscope Team they will bend their whole body around to try and pinch you
- Teacher I have never been pinched.
Bugscope Team heh
- Bugscope Team here this is cool
- 11:35am
- Teacher what is this?
- Bugscope Team see the scale now?
- Bugscope Team by the way to the right we see silver paint
- Teacher So the scale is from.....
Bugscope Team the scale is from another insect: likely a butterfly or moth or silverfish
- Teacher Did it pinch something before it died for Bugscope?
Bugscope Team not sure, it was in a vial someone had collected for us a while ago. It's possible they got pinched though
- Teacher What are all the spores?
- Bugscope Team those are brochosomes, from yet another insect
- Teacher Right - remind us what brochosomes are again?
- Bugscope Team brochosomes are produced in the Malpighian tubules of leafhoppers, and they are said to be used to prevent eggs from drying out.
- Bugscope Team or thought to be...
- Teacher Interesting! Insects really get into each other's lives alot huh?
- Bugscope Team sometimes they are ovoid, but we almost always see them as spheres
- Bugscope Team they hang around in the same places
- Teacher Let's try the millipede....
- Bugscope Team and sometimes they eat each other, of course
- Teacher It's an insect eat insect world out there!
- Bugscope Team you can see its head there, and you can make out the compound eye
- 11:40am
- Bugscope Team streamlined into the head
- Bugscope Team these are not insects, of course
- Bugscope Team they're isopods -- meaning that their feet are all the same shape
- Teacher That is very cool! So, the eye is almost continuous with the body? Isopods!!
Bugscope Team that's right!
- Guest What specimens/things (other than bugs) has Bugscope used in the last 10 years?
Bugscope Team we have some salt from a Wendy's restaurant in the 'scope now. We have also looked at worms, which we had to critical point dry; and clock parts; bacteria; other kinds of crystals; plants; rocks; fossils...
- Guest Wow what an image - cover for a magazine for sure.
- Teacher I would like to know that too, Policy Fellow.
- 11:46am
- Bugscope Team insects and other arthropods are the most fun because kids can readily relate to them and they are full of surprises.
- Teacher Insects are great to use and compare to children's literature. We will be doing this alot next week in my sessions on May 19 and 20 with the Cal State students!
- Bugscope Team millipedes are not actually in the Isopoda -- they are in Diplopoda. But they do have iso- feet.
- Bugscope Team that sounds really interesting
- Bugscope Team this is cool -- a little backswimmer
- Bugscope Team this is a waterboatman actually
- Teacher I have also talked to friends in the fashion industry (some of them are online now looking) about ways to use insects and these images to inspire fashion design!
- Bugscope Team and you can see its eyes as well, streamlined into the shape of the head
- Bugscope Team it's a type of true bug that lives in/on water
- Bugscope Team they resemble leafhoppers
- Teacher So is this backswimmer a diplopod too?
- Teacher It looks shy!
- Bugscope Team some insects -- some beetles -- are used for the color (carmine) that comes from squishing them
- Teacher Hide and seek back swimmer? I am thinking like a 5th grader now of course...
- Bugscope Team insects are segmented, much like the way clothes often go onto your body
- Bugscope Team and insects have an exoskeleton, which we think of like armor, but it could also be like clothing
- Guest Also, is there a limit to number of participants that can join in on a given session? I am wondering what would happen if a session information was released on Twitter which as a big base?
Bugscope Team we can work with about 30 logins at a time
- 11:51am
- Teacher Very good analogy! There are lots of great ways to parallel human activity and clothing to insects. Armor, layers of clothes, scarves.
- Teacher I have to leave....I am sorry I have to go to a meeting now at a local school. I will see you all on Bugscope next week on Wed and Thursday. I sent my bugs :) Talk to you later!
- Guest Thanks, Scott, what an impressive type of specimens.
- Bugscope Team see you next week Michele!
- Teacher Bye!
- Bugscope Team Thank You!
- Teacher Thank you!!
- Guest Thanks, Scott.
- Bugscope Team sure!
- Bugscope Team this is the most fun thing we do.
- Bugscope Team when we work with students, and when they log in on their own computers, that is the best
- Bugscope Team we are using insects and scanning electron microscopy as a Trojan horse to get students interested in science -- to get them to consider seriously the possibility of science as a career.
- Bugscope Team Policy Fellow we gave yoiu control if you would like to drive...
- 11:56am
- Guest I must go now. Thanks, Scott!
- Bugscope Team Thank You!
- Bugscope Team e you are the only person left...
- Bugscope Team let us know if you would like to drive
- Guest This is the best NLD project demonstration.
- Bugscope Team Thank You. If we don
- Bugscope Team 't have any more takers, though...
- Bugscope Team we will go ahead and bow out
- 12:03pm
- Guest How often do you have sessions?
Bugscope Team we do them about 3 times a week
- Bugscope Team E, we usually have between 1-3 sessions a week. It varies with the school year
- Bugscope Team we try not to have any more than 3 a week so that other people can use the microscope
- 12:11pm
- Bugscope Team we are going to shut down the session now
