Connected on 2010-05-17 10:30:00 from Brattleboro, VT, US
- 9:17am
- Bugscope Team sample is almost ready; then we will be pumping down, then making presets
- 9:25am
- Bugscope Team pumping down
- Bugscope Team 3.0 x 10-4
- Bugscope Team 2.7
- Bugscope Team Some big bugs on the stub today
- Bugscope Team roach moth true bug beetle damselfly
- 9:30am
- Bugscope Team 1.9
- Bugscope Team 1.8
- Bugscope Team 1.7
- Bugscope Team 1.6
- Bugscope Team two Chas's
- Bugscope Team 1.5
- Bugscope Team Chas the sequel greyed out
- Bugscope Team 1.5...
- Bugscope Team 1.4
- Bugscope Team this is suspenseful
- 9:35am
- Bugscope Team heh 1.4
- Bugscope Team starting presets
- 9:41am
- 9:47am
- 9:52am
- 9:57am
- Bugscope Team see if this is a three-jointed proboscis
- 10:02am
- Bugscope Team done with presets
- Bugscope Team we are ready
- Bugscope Team cool
- 10:07am
- 10:13am
- 10:26am
- Bugscope Team diatoms
- 10:32am
- Bugscope Team hello, welcome to bugscope!
- Teacher Hi there - we
- Bugscope Team Welcome to Bugscope!
- Bugscope Team hi braden!
- Teacher we'll be on in about 15 minutes. Thanks for your patience - looks great!
- Bugscope Team cool
- 10:48am
- 10:54am
- Bugscope Team larval butterfly -- a caterpillar
- 11:03am
- Teacher Hello!
- Bugscope Team hi there, welcome to buscope
- Bugscope Team are we ready to roll?
- Teacher Yeah man
- Bugscope Team excellent
- Bugscope Team right now we are looking at a larva
- Bugscope Team the magnification of the scope is 159x, but you can change that anytime
- Bugscope Team you have control of the scope
- Teacher larva of what?
- Bugscope Team it's not a caterpillar and we dont know what type of larva it is
- Bugscope Team on the right side of the image you can find the controls: magnify, navigation, focus and adjust
- 11:08am
- Bugscope Team go ahead and ask any questions you may have
- Bugscope Team check out all the hairs on the bug. those hairs are actually sensory organs, called setae (pronounced see-tee)
- Teacher is that its eye?
- Teacher interesting
- Bugscope Team there is an eye in the upper right, barely
- Bugscope Team setae stick through the exoskeleton, to nerves underneath, that's how they feel things. without the setae, the exoskeleton wouldn't be able to feel anything
- Bugscope Team that is an antenna - the stublike thing
- Bugscope Team antennas can break off and leave the stub there
- Bugscope Team the eyes are called stemmata in caterpillars, and although we are not sure what this larva is, it is likely the eyes are also called stemmata. there are usually five or six, and they are simple
- Bugscope Team when a bug dies it can dry out, thus making things like antennas more likely to break off. entropy, i guess...
- Bugscope Team unfortunately the eyes are flattened here -- usually they are domelike
- Teacher and what would this be?
- Bugscope Team this is one of the eyes -- they resemble ocellli, and also spider eyes
- Bugscope Team this is still the larve, a close-up of it's head area i think?
- Bugscope Team it's collapsed, sorry
- 11:13am
- Bugscope Team this is one of the claws of the fruit fly
- Teacher What is this?
Bugscope Team this is a claw, lots of bugs have claws for feeding, defense, climbing things, etc.
- Teacher Rather, what are those hairs at the bottom?
Bugscope Team those hairs are setae. almost anything that looks like thin hairs, that's going to be setae, sensory organs that stick through the exoskeleton to nerves underneath
- Bugscope Team this claw is on a fruit fly
- Bugscope Team the hairs to the left are tenent setae
- Bugscope Team they're sticky hairs that help the fruit fly cling to surfaces
- Bugscope Team setae can be mechanosensory for feeling touch, or chemosensory for sensing smells and tastes, or some can sense temperature. setae are way cool
- Teacher Can we see cells?
Bugscope Team you cannot always distinguish cells at this level, but the bacteria, when you get to see them, are individual cells.
- Bugscope Team now we see what are more likely, as Alex says, to be mechanosensory setae
- Bugscope Team we can see blood cells but we can't see those here. We do have bacteria to see today
- Bugscope Team The other type of electron microscopy, Transmission EM, is more commonly used to see cells. It can operate at higher magnification and see through samples, but they must be cut extremely thin
- 11:18am
- Bugscope Team this is the head of a cockroach, and whoever had pinned it -- it is from a collection -- had pierced part of the mouth
- Bugscope Team roaches are generalists -- they can live in almost any environment. so they do not have specialized features like some insects
- Bugscope Team you can see that like the fruit fly, the roach has sensory setae sticking through its exoskeleton that give it information about the environment
- Bugscope Team the micron bar we see in the lower left corner of the viewing screen gives us an idea of the magnification we are working at.
- Teacher Thanks very much - we have a break for lunch but will be back at 12:00CT!
- Teacher (this is Mr. Braden again - that was a student) Where are the bacteria? Thanks!
- 11:23am
- Bugscope Team preset no. 20
- Bugscope Team this shifted a bit since we saved it
- Teacher Wow. Needs some antibiotics!
Bugscope Team heh, yeah, we sometimes see a lot of bacteria on bugs
- Bugscope Team scott is fixing the focus on this image now
- Teacher Sorry to be on late today and the lunch break. A new class will be on in half an hour and stay on for half an hour. Appreciate all your info - there was a lot of good discussion going on in the classroom!
- Bugscope Team bacilli are often about 2 microns long
- Teacher Great image.
- Bugscope Team whereas eukaryotic cells can be 8 to 12 to 15 or 30 microns in diameter
- 11:29am
- Bugscope Team Mr B be sure to drive around if you would like.
- Bugscope Team these are comparable to the setae we saw at the tip of the tarsus on the fruit fly
- Bugscope Team if you take the mag down you will get an idea of where you are
- Bugscope Team you can scroll through the presets -- those are only the top few
- 11:34am
- Bugscope Team moth head
- Bugscope Team the tongue is extended, at least a bit
- Bugscope Team and you can see one of the antennae -- the other is busted off
- Bugscope Team moths and butterflies are difficult to image because they charge up with electrons very easily.
- Bugscope Team we can see some of that now, in the excessive brightness over the eyes
- Teacher their wings charge up easily?
- Bugscope Team yes for sure because of all of the individual scales
- Bugscope Team this is a critical point-dried female mosquito
- 11:39am
- Bugscope Team critical point drying makes the features that would normally shrivel when they dry look much more lifelike
- Bugscope Team such as the ommatidia -- the facets of the eyes
- Bugscope Team the mangled stuff is the internal components of the proboscis
- Bugscope Team there are at least four cutting mouthparts and a siphon tube
- Bugscope Team When you air-dry a sample, the capillary force of the water draws surfaces together and leaves samples looking matted and deflated. Critical point drying removes the liquid without allowing the capillary action
- Teacher So how do you critical point dry?
Bugscope Team it's the liquid carbon dioxide that replaces the ethanol that reaches the critical point
- Bugscope Team when we critical point dry a female mosquito, the fascicle -- the internal component of the proboscis, often comes out in the open -- it springs apart
- Bugscope Team The name comes from the critical point, a combination of temperature and pressure at which ethyl alcohol is both a liquid and a gas at the same time
- Bugscope Team So we first slowly replace the water in the sample with ethyl alcohol, then use the critical point drier to reach the critical point. Then you can slowly let the gas bleed out and it will be removed as a gas instead of a liquid
- Bugscope Team it is also called supercritical drying
- Teacher I follow. Thanks.
- 11:44am
- Bugscope Team I suppose because the critical point is a specific pressure/temperature, and anything above that is "supercritical"
- Bugscope Team we replace the ethanol with liquid carbon dioxide and then take that above 31 C and about 1100 psi; then we slowly let the CO2 off as a gas
- Bugscope Team there is no phase change between liquid and gas above the critical point, so the gas sublimes away
- Bugscope Team oh, yeah sorry: I said we bring ethyl alcohol to supercritical, Scott's right that it's actually CO2
- Bugscope Team without damaging the tissue -- the cell walls
- Bugscope Team Probably could do it with alcohol too, but the critical point might require temperature and pressure that's less easy to work with in a small table-top device
- Bugscope Team this is the siphon tube
- Bugscope Team yes Chas is right -- CO2 is one the chemicals that has the best properties for doing this under lab-achievable conditions
- 11:49am
- Teacher Great - thanks!
- Teacher New class here now - question for them is .. what is this?
Bugscope Team we are looking at part of a mosquito eye. You can see the cones on the eye here which is cool
- Bugscope Team this is the surface of one of the ommatidia in the compound eye of a mosquito
- Bugscope Team at 21,440x
- Bugscope Team this is highly magnified
- Bugscope Team mosquitos have compound eyes, which just means they have many facets like a diamond, each called an ommatidium
- Bugscope Team we are looking at a single facet of the eye, and it has a lot of juju on it
- Bugscope Team and the stuff that looks like dirt and such, that's juju, like scott says
- Bugscope Team now, there one ommatidia
- Bugscope Team that has a lens in it
- Bugscope Team We usually only see this kind of detail on the ommatidia when the insect has good vision. Ants, normally have a smoother more featureless surface to the ommatidia
- Bugscope Team the lens is fixed, can't move around like human eye lenses can
- Bugscope Team But because they have facets that wrap around almost their whole head, they still have a very wide field of view, even without being able to move their eyes
- 11:54am
- Bugscope Team if you had compound eyes you would have better peripheral vision; it would be hard to buy sunglasses and likely to get dates; and you would have a better ability to gauge motion.
- Bugscope Team the individual facets of the eye are, as Alex says, individual lenses, so they are like indvidual sensors that detect changes quickly
- Bugscope Team mosquitos are probably the most dangerous organism on the planet, to humans anyway, because of their disease carrying capabilities
- 11:59am
- Bugscope Team adult mosquitos, the ones we see flying around, usually only live 4-8 weeks. the mosquito will spend a large part of its life as an egg, larva and then pupa
- Bugscope Team you can see the mark we left on the sample from sitting at high mag in that same area for awhile
- Bugscope Team dragonfly's will eat mosquitos though, so next time you see a dragonfly, say hi to em...
- Bugscope Team dragonflies, i meant to spell...
- Bugscope Team when we use the microscope for Bugscope we keep the sample about an inch from the polepiece, where the electrons come from. that lets us see more of a large insect at low mag. but it also keeps us from having the best resolution at high mag.
- Bugscope Team now we can see the thorax, to the left
- Bugscope Team and we can see the base of one of the antennae, and well as both antennae, and we can see the mouthparts, all coiled around, plus the sheath they normally fit into
- Bugscope Team you all have seen "jurassic park", right? well, in that movie they find a mosquito in amber that is way old. that premise is true, the oldest known modern looking mosquito was found in amber from 79-million years ago, in the cretaceous period. but we didn't pull dino dna from it, of course....
- 12:04pm
- Bugscope Team insects were bigger than too
- Bugscope Team this is like a bacterial plaque that you might have if you don't brush your teeth
- Bugscope Team and they carried around little tiny shovels to dig into the dino skin...
- Teacher hello
- Bugscope Team hi!
- Bugscope Team we've been chatting with you, are you just here now?
- Teacher what is this?
Bugscope Team this is a claw from a true bug. Claws are found at the end of each of an insect's legs
Bugscope Team this is the claw of a true bug. lots of bugs have claws
- Teacher we've been here
- Bugscope Team now we see the proboscis and one of the antennae
- Bugscope Team and one of the legs, folded up a bit
- 12:10pm
- Bugscope Team the proboscis is entended, which is unusual
- Bugscope Team usually it is coiled up
- Bugscope Team in the very center is the antenna
- Bugscope Team running top to bottom
- Bugscope Team oops 'extended'
- Bugscope Team this is a millipede, and its head is in the center
- Bugscope Team see the compound eye?
- Bugscope Team upper right
- Bugscope Team not now
- Bugscope Team there it is
- Bugscope Team there is also a scale next to the antenna
- Bugscope Team see the mouth?
- Teacher what type of larva is this?
- Bugscope Team two sets of palps to help it taste and manipulate its food
- 12:15pm
- Bugscope Team we don't know for sure
- Bugscope Team because it does not have crochets, which would go on prolegs, which it doesn't have either, we know that it is not a Lepidopteran larva -- it is not a butterfly or moth caterpillar
- Bugscope Team see the jaws, which open from side to side?
- Bugscope Team the antennae are busted off
- Bugscope Team but you can see at least one set of palps as well
- Bugscope Team in the background we see silver paint and the doublestick carbon tape the insects are adhered to
- Bugscope Team the tendon that makes the claws open and close is called an 'unguitractor.'
- Bugscope Team we can give it a try...
- 12:20pm
- Bugscope Team scott is going to try to focus on the brochosomes
- Bugscope Team they are very small excretions from a leafhopper
- Bugscope Team they are about 1-2 mircons or less even
- Bugscope Team the brochosomes kinda look like soccer balls
- Bugscope Team sorry we are mnot getting a good view of the few brochosomes on the claw here
- Bugscope Team ok so I'm pretty sure the larva is a lady big larva
- Teacher how do you know it's from a leafhopper?
Bugscope Team brochosomes only come from the leafhopper, that is the only organism in the world that produces them
- Bugscope Team brochosomes were first discovered in the late 1590's when they put a leafhopper under an electron microscope
Bugscope Team the late 1950's i mean. silly me can't type.
- Bugscope Team bacteria!
- Teacher what type?
- Bugscope Team ooopss!!! the late 1950's!!!!
- Bugscope Team they are some sort of bacilli
- Bugscope Team of course there are thousands of different types of bacilli...
- Bugscope Team this is 112,000x
- 12:25pm
- Bugscope Team anthrax, E. coli...
- Teacher thank you very much we got to go
- Bugscope Team Thank You!
- Bugscope Team See you next year!
- Teacher yessir
- Bugscope Team don't forget, all the chat and images are saved to your member page
- Bugscope Team http://bugscope.beckman.illinois.edu/members/2010-022/
- Bugscope Team http://bugscope.beckman.illinois.edu/members/2010-022
- Bugscope Team over and out!
- 4:21pm
- Bugscope Team which is here:
