Connected on 2010-05-27 20:00:00 from Santa Ana, CA, US
- 7:10pm
- Bugscope Team Hello! Welcome to Bugscope!
- Bugscope Team I am just pumping down, just getting ready to set up.
- Teacher hi, we will be starting at 6:00pm and we were just connecting to make sure we get a picture
- Bugscope Team This is the inside of the vacuum chamber, and you can see the insects on the stub.
- Teacher Great! I'm just going to turn on the student computers and get the classroom ready
- Bugscope Team so you should be able to see the CCD view of the chamber, until we switch to the secondary electron detector, and you should see the controls, and the chatbox, etc.
- Bugscope Team totally cool
- Bugscope Team the star next to papke indicates that you have control of the microscope, one we unlock the session.
- Bugscope Team duh *once* we unlock the session
- Teacher thanks ... I'll get the other computers set up and talk with you in a little while
- 7:18pm
- Teacher sue: Hello, Scott ... We are so excited to be doing this. Thank you for giving us your evening.
- Bugscope Team We are excited as well. This should be fun.
- Bugscope Team It'll take a little while for the sample to pump down.
- Bugscope Team But it's moving along. Then we'll make presets. There's a millipede, a centipede, an ant named Anthony, a large beetle that might be the cause of us having to wait a little longer, a hornet, mosquito, some salt, a moth...
- 7:25pm
- Bugscope Team sry about beetle
- Bugscope Team I'm going to take the beetle out because it is not behaving...
- 7:31pm
- Bugscope Team okay we took the centipede out....
- Bugscope Team seems to be coming down nicely
- 7:51pm
- Bugscope Team Sue we were having vacuum problems and just switched to a different sample.
- Bugscope Team so we are running a bit late but will be able to pick up pretty quickly once this gets pumped down
- Bugscope Team now we have switched to the secondary electron detector...
- Teacher Scott, I haven't done this before (I think someone was supposed to come help). It looks pretty straight forward, but feel free to make any suggestions about anything ... won't hurt my feelings ...
- Teacher cool image just came up .... looks like everything is working here
- Bugscope Team If anything gets stuck during the demo, hitting the refresh button is the nearly universal solution
- Bugscope Team Scott looks like he's busy tweaking the 'scope and will be setting up presets soon
- 7:57pm
- Bugscope Team "Presets" will show up in the lower-right. These are pre-defined locations and magnifications which highlight interesting parts of the sample
- Bugscope Team They are good starting places, from which you can explore and navigate away from, zoom out and see in context, etc.
- Bugscope Team You'll probably want to give the controls a quick go to get familiar with the "Click to Center" navigation, mag, focus, etc
- Bugscope Team ... once Scott finishes making the presets
- Bugscope Team For a good demo I'd recommend starting at the presets, then zooming out to see them in context, then zooming in while using 'click to center' to move towards an area of interest. Once you start getting zoomed in enough that the image appears blurry you'll want to use the 'Focus' control and experiment with the + and - buttons to see which looks like it's making the image less fuzzy
- 8:02pm
- Teacher what is this
- Bugscope Team this is the beetle's claw
- Bugscope Team Sue do you have a class there now?
- Teacher what is this insect???
- Bugscope Team Are you going to be able to log students into computers so they can ask us questions?
- Bugscope Team this is a beetle
- Teacher so
- 8:08pm
- Teacher People are starting to come in, so we should be ready to start in a couple minutes
- Bugscope Team great!
- Teacher I copied the URL to all my classroom computers.... it looks like we are all logged in as me .... hope that works
- Bugscope Team That might cause problems actually, some things may not show up for all the computers. It would be better to log in again from each. You can use the same password, or simply login as a student or guest (it doesn't really matter)
- Teacher what type of bug is this?
- Teacher what is this insect?
- Teacher is it a bug
- Teacher what is that?
- Bugscope Team and we are looking at the haltere
- Bugscope Team you can login from here: http://bugscope.beckman.illinois.edu/live/
- Bugscope Team the haltere is a modified hindwing that balances the motion of the two wings in flight
- Teacher What is the color of this bug
- Teacher what is this
- Teacher what is this?
- Bugscope Team the mosquito is a fly -- it has two wings. plus the halteres
- Bugscope Team the original color was light brown
- Teacher what is this?
- Teacher The kids are going to start asking questions
- Teacher what is this
- Teacher what is this
- 8:13pm
- Bugscope Team Not sure on the color, we would have had to have noted that ahead of time. Because the electron microscope is using electrons to image instead of light, it doesn't capture color information like we're used to
- Teacher what is this?
- Bugscope Team now you can see into one of the spiracles, through which mosquitoes breathe
- Teacher what is this one?
- Bugscope Team and this is one of the antennae - the base of it
- Bugscope Team you can take the mag down lower to see where you are
- Teacher What is this
- Teacher what bug is this
- Bugscope Team you have control of the microscope and can drive it; one of the things you can do is change the magnification to see where you are
- Teacher can we ask ??
Bugscope Team yes you can
- Bugscope Team this is part of a mosquito
- Teacher what kind of animal
Bugscope Team this is a mosquito
- Teacher questions??
- Teacher What is this?
- Bugscope Team there Cool!
- Teacher can it have babies?
Bugscope Team they have babies in the form of eggs that they lay in water
- Bugscope Team this is the head of a mosquito
- Bugscope Team We're seeing an antenna which is surrounded by a somewhat deflated compound eye
- Teacher what color is this bug
- Teacher that is soo cool!!
- Bugscope Team now you can see its body
- Teacher how do they make them?
- Bugscope Team and you can see that it had a pin through its thorax
- Teacher what is that?
- Teacher What part of the mosquito's body is that?
Bugscope Team this is the head in the middle
- Teacher what part is this?
- Bugscope Team all of the little round things are the ommatidia -- the facets of the eye
- Bugscope Team The long straight line is a pin, you can see where it's pierced the body
- Bugscope Team The head is in the center of the image
- Teacher how come you aren't answering MY questions, i asked how do they make babies?
Bugscope Team Mosquitos have sexual reproduction just like most metazoan animals (animals with more than one cell).
Bugscope Team they breed in the air, and the female lays the eggs after she gets a blood meal
- Teacher what is that animal
- 8:18pm
- Teacher what this
Bugscope Team this is the head of a mosquto
- Bugscope Team mosquito
- Teacher this is cool!
- Bugscope Team this is the wing
- Bugscope Team and you can see rows of scales
- Teacher does its body contain small hairs or something?
Bugscope Team yes it does
- Teacher how come they are so hairy??
Bugscope Team Insects wear their skeletons on the outside of their bodies (sort of like a knight in a suit of armor). They have hairs that stick through their exoskeletons and connect to their nervous system. The hairs help them to sense their environment.
- Teacher how many eyes do mosquitos have
Bugscope Team they have 2 compound eyes, but those compound eyes have many facets (like a diamond) each called an ommatium (plural is ommatidia) and those are too many for us to count
Bugscope Team they have hundreds of eye facets
- Bugscope Team and now we see tiny setae called microsetae
- Teacher what do you call their pee-pee part?
Bugscope Team the aedeagus
- Bugscope Team Yes, most insects are actually quite hairy, although we often can't see them with our eyes alone because they're too small. The hairs are called "setae"
- Teacher What is this?
Bugscope Team this is salt from wendy's fast food restaurant
- Teacher how long is the
- Teacher what bug is this
Bugscope Team this is now salt
- Bugscope Team not a bug here!
- Teacher where does it lay it's egg
Bugscope Team in calm water, like in the bole of a tree or a discarded tire or in a cup even
- Bugscope Team
- Teacher how many years this bug lives
Bugscope Team Most mosquitoes will live only a few weeks, although some can overwinter as adults in humid places like sewers and storm drains.
- Teacher does this help them survive
- Teacher What do mosquitos eat?
Bugscope Team the females drink blood, most of them, and the males drink nectar, like sugar water, from flowers
Bugscope Team females consume blood and the males often dont eat anything
- Bugscope Team Female mosquitos are the ones that suck your blood, they need it to have lots of nutrients in order to develop and lay their eggs
- Teacher are you the insects small from where you are seeing them??
Bugscope Team the insects are fairly small -- they all fit on a 1.75-in. diameter stub
- Teacher what does it eat
- 8:23pm
- Teacher what are they eat?
- Teacher are this live bugs
Bugscope Team no these are all dead in the microscope. Thankfully. I, unlike annie, am not a fan of live insects
- Teacher do ants bite you and how?
Bugscope Team Ants can bite and some can also sting, just like a wasp. They bite you with their mouths, they have big jaws.
- Teacher does it bite
Bugscope Team this might bite but it would feel like a tiny pinch
- Bugscope Team No, these bugs are all dead. They have to dry out before we can image them because these samples are actually in a vacuum chamber.
- Teacher how many times does this mosquito lay eggs
Bugscope Team She lays a raft of eggs every time she gets a full blood meal.
- Bugscope Team this is one of the claws
- Teacher are there any poisonous ants?
Bugscope Team Many people have allergic reactions to ant stings. It seems that the more you are exposed to ant stings, the more sensitive you get. Out here in California we have harvester ants...the big red ants that you see in sandy places. People can develop very serious allergies if they get bit repeatedly.
- Bugscope Team Yes, ants have large jaws called mandibles. They can use these to pinch you, but some also have a stinger with a chemical that irritates the skin
- Teacher do you feel when mosquitos bite??
Bugscope Team no you dont feel when their mouthparts stab you, but you do feel the anticoagulant they put in you to keep your blood flowing. The anticoagulant is itchy
- Teacher they look like a fly?
Bugscope Team they are flies, but they look like long skinny flies
- Bugscope Team Yes, the bullet ant is named so because the sting feels as bad as getting shot
- Teacher is this a beetle
Bugscope Team yes it is!
- Teacher what is this?
- Teacher is there any poisones kinds?
Bugscope Team There are beetles that produce compounds that can cause blisters--those are called blister beetles. There are other kinds that might be harmful if you ate a bunch of them...but generally beetles are not poisonous.
- Teacher can it be so severe that it can kill a person?
- Bugscope Team You don't actually feel the mosquito bite because it injects you with an anesthetic, but the anticoagulant they use to keep your blood from clotting causes an allergic reaction which is what itches
- Teacher What type of beetle is this, and do beetles bite?
- Teacher does it hurt when they bite
Bugscope Team beetles can bite and they can hurt. Japanese beetles will often bite us, making them very annoying
- Teacher what is the longest life span of a ant
- Teacher can these insects kill people??
Bugscope Team most of them cannot, unless you are allergic to them
- Bugscope Team Some ant bites which are harmless to most people can kill others who have a severe allergic reaction. Those people usually have to carry an "epipen" which contains a needle with medicine that counteracts the allergic reaction
- Teacher ca you show us a centipe
Bugscope Team I don't think there are any centipedes on this stub, I'm sorry.
- Bugscope Team but mosquitoes can indeed give you diseases that could kill you
- 8:28pm
- Teacher why do they have pinchers?
- Teacher Do beetles have skeletons as the mosquito does?
Bugscope Team they have their skeleton on the outside -- it's called an 'exoskeleton.'
- Teacher can you eat types of beetles if so what kind?
Bugscope Team In many parts of the world insects are an important source of protein. People mostly eat beetles when they are in their immature stage--i.e. when they are grubs. People eat woodboring beetles, and weevil larvae, and mealworms (which are beetles).
- Bugscope Team Yes, beetles can bite with their mandibles, just like ants. Some beetles have huge elaborate mandibles, a couple inches in size. In some countries they actually let 2 beetles fight with their giant mandibles and bet on who wins
- Teacher we are looking at the spiracle .... what is that?
- Teacher do you only study insects??
Bugscope Team no we work with people who study small things that they have made, as well as plants, and bacteria, and geological samples. etc....
- Bugscope Team Yes, beetles have exoskeletons just like a mosquito, but they don't have scales attached to them like mosquitoes
- Bugscope Team sorry the previous sample that was in the scope did have a centipede and a millipede, but there was an uncooperative insect that was causing problems with the vacuum so we had to take them all out
- Teacher thank you
- Teacher Thank you for willingly sparing your time to share with us. :)
Bugscope Team thank you!
- Teacher thank you very much !!!!
- Teacher tank you
- Teacher this is super cool and thank you
- Teacher THANK YOU! i am very grateful that you were able to show us this! :)
- Bugscope Team Annie primarily studies insects because she is an Entomologist, but the rest of us work with users from all over the university to study nanoparticle, cells, rocks, etc
- Bugscope Team Sue! Are you there?
- Bugscope Team Thank you for your good questions
- Teacher your welcome! :)
- Bugscope Team It would be good before the next students come in if you would log the kids in as students on each of their computers.
- Bugscope Team Hi Joe!
- Bugscope Team Joe are you working with Sue?
- Bugscope Team Wow, is that a spiracle we're looking into? A neat striated texture in there
- Bugscope Team that is the inside of the trachea
- Bugscope Team with a scale in it
- 8:33pm
- Teacher I'm getting a new group and I'm making them log in .... So only one of us will be controlling things
- Teacher I think I get how it works now .... thanks
- Bugscope Team totally cool
- Student what is this
- Student hey
Bugscope Team Hi Jacqueline!
- Teacher We are introducing you to the next group
- Bugscope Team Papke: We can transfer control to any of the users logged in, but only one will be able to control at a time
- Bugscope Team this is a deerfly with slashing mouthparts
- Bugscope Team just ask if you'd like to give control to someone
- Bugscope Team Hi guys, welcome to Bugscope!
- Student wat insect is this
- Student what type of bug is this
Bugscope Team this is a deerfly
- Student fly
- Bugscope Team This is a haltere, a modified wing which bounces back and forth as the real wings move and acts like a gyroscope to help the insect fly in a straight path
- Student what type of insect is this??
Bugscope Team this is a fly
- Student hi
- Bugscope Team The magnified images are from a scanning electron microscope which bounces a stream of electrons (the particles responsible for electricity) off the sample to form images
- 8:38pm
- Student do flies have good eye sight?
- Bugscope Team Because electrons are much smaller than light waves, we can magnify many times higher than with a light microscope
- Student how many of those eye scales are there?
- Student how do you run this microscope??
Bugscope Team the microscope is large and has its own room, its own water, power, air, nitrogen...
- Guest Are insects full of diseases?
Bugscope Team Mosquitoes are among the most serious vectors of disease in the world. Fleas transmit bubonic plague, lice cause a type of typhus--and ticks (which are not insects) can transmit a number of diseases. But, really, most insects do not transmit diseases.
- Bugscope Team Yes, flies have very advanced compound eyes which are excellent at detecting motion
- Student hi i was wondering how can flies see so much if there eyes are so small ?
Bugscope Team compared to the rest of its body, the eyes are huge! LIke how a baby's head is so big compared to the rest of the body
- Student can you please show us his mouth?
- Student What is this?
- Bugscope Team This microscope is controlled entirely by computer. We use the keyboard and mouse to control the electronics of the microscope and the images are displayed on the screen
- Student what was your favorite kind of insect you disect
Bugscope Team I like weevils, but not to dissect
- Bugscope Team and we put the samples into it
- Student what is in the mouth?
- Guest Can we see their brain???
Bugscope Team you could, but we don't have any broken open
- Student why do flies have such a quick reaction
Bugscope Team partly because they can see you so well
- Student How many diseases does a mosquito have?
- Guest do insects have good eye sight
Bugscope Team some do and some do not; often they do not see the same colors we do
- Student can we see the heart
Bugscope Team We will not be able to see the heart of the insect. We are only looking at the outside.
- Student what is the most harmless insect?
- Student what do the flies feed from?
- Student can we see the heart?
- Student what was in the mouth?
- Guest Can we see samples of other insects???
- Bugscope Team Some insects have excellent eyesight (have you ever tried to hit a fly with your hand?), and some, especially those that live under ground, have extremely poor eyesight
- Guest How do mosquitos ay their eggs
Bugscope Team The females have an ovipositor--a tube that is connected to her reproductive system. The eggs pass through that tube.
- Student is it possible for flies to loose thier hair
Bugscope Team they can be scraped off
- Student how small is their brain
- Student what if I am right behind the fly, would they still have a quick reaction
Bugscope Team because they have compound eyes as well as ocelli -- simple eyes -- they can see when you are behind them
- Student what was the weirdest insect you seen
- Student how long do insects live?
- Student how many years can it live for?
- Student WHAT ARE THE WHITE DOTS ALL OVER THE HEAD?
- Bugscope Team How long insects live varies *greatly* across species. Some live less than a day, some live for years
- Student how do you know if a insect have a disease
Bugscope Team There is not a good way to tell just by looking at it. Mostly you have to squish it up and test its for the presence of the DNA of the disease-causing organism (like a virus or a protozoan()
- 8:44pm
- Student do flies sometimes eat their ofspring
Bugscope Team I would say it is unlikely in flies because they typically have mouthparts that are adapted for sucking liquids. It would be hard for them to eat their offspring unless their offspring became liquidy.
- Student ant??? dang
- Guest do flys have strong feet to keep them selves up
- Guest What is that in the mouth
Bugscope Team what looks like something sticking out of the mouth are the huge jaws of the trapjaw ant
- Bugscope Team the very biggest insect is a lobster
Bugscope Team Scott!
- Student how many babies can it have?
Bugscope Team It depends. A mosquito can lay several hundred eggs each time it gets a full blood meal.
- Student if the mosquito has a disease cold it give it to the human body?
Bugscope Team yes it can
- Student lot*
- Bugscope Team Many flies actually have pads full of hairs with sticky tips that help them hold onto walls and ceilings, etc
- Guest Are mosquitos bad or good like if they bite you
Bugscope Team I think the consensus is that mosquitoes are bad dudes.
- Student how long does a fly live?
Bugscope Team It depends on the fly. There are over 100 000 species of flies. Some live a few days or a few weeks. Some have multi-year life cycles.
- Student i think for a few weeks
- Student how do you know which insects are girls or boys?
Bugscope Team sometimes you can tell easily, like by size of by whether they have a stinger or ovipositor, and sometimes there is not way to tell from outside
- Student what type of beetle is poisenous
- Student are ant able to survive without their heads
- Student People say that dragonflies live for only 24 hours. Is this true?
- Student so if it bit a person with hiv could it give it to me?
- Student it's so small
- Student do insects sleep
- Bugscope Team Determining whether insects are male or female can be very difficult in some cases. Sometimes researchers don't know until they dissect the insect and examine the genitalia under a microscope
- Student what are the white dots all over?
- Student What are the white dots around the body?
- Guest are lobsters insects
Bugscope Team no they are crustaceans, but the roly poly, which we often think of as insects are crustaceans!
- Student do insects ever sleep?
Bugscope Team Yes but not like we do. They enter a stage of immobility called torpor, much like fish
- Bugscope Team The white dots are actually bubbles in the double-sided tape used to hold the insect specimens in place
- Student Where do flys lay their eggs?
Bugscope Team Again, it depends on the fly. Some flies lay their eggs in grody things like dead bodies, poop, rotting food, garbage. Other flies lay their eggs in water or on plants or in soil. There are a lot of flies, so some fly probably lays its eggs on almost anything you can think of.
- Bugscope Team Different flies lay eggs in different places. Some lay eggs on the undersides of plant leaves
- Student how long do insects live?
- Student how many insects do you study a day?
- Student few weeks
- Bugscope Team Some flies lay their eggs on or under the skin of dead animals
- Student study???
- Student what disease could it give the human?
Bugscope Team yellow fever, malaria, west nile virus...
- Student what kind of deases do insects have and die from or sickness ?
- Student the queen ant can only lay eggs right?
- Bugscope Team there are some mosquitoes that do not bite people or drink blood
- Student can we see spiders?
- Student Do any insects have their own reproductive system?
- Guest Can we see a dragon fly???
Bugscope Team Julian I am sorry we do not have one today.
- Guest could we eat insects like crickets with chocolate cause i see people sell them
Bugscope Team You can if you want. They will not hurt you. I don't particularly care for insects, because they taste like dirt to me. I prefer eating other things.
- Student can a mosquito kill you
- 8:49pm
- Bugscope Team Yes, insects all (nearly all?) have reproductive systems
- Student can a insect have a deadly disease like the h1n1 virus
Bugscope Team Insects get sick just like people and dogs and chickens do. I actually took a class in graduate school called "Insect Pathology" where we took four months studying the diseases of insects. There are viruses, bacteria, fungi, nemtodes all that infect only insects.
- Student What is your favorite insect?
- Student yeah what is it
- Bugscope Team you are looking at insects on a stub that is inside a scanning electron microscope
- Bugscope Team Yes, it's safe to eat many kinds of insects, but it's best to only eat the ones that were raised for consumption so you know they've eaten clean food and not gotten into anything toxic
- Teacher It's not letting me move the image
- Guest so can we
- Student Is the west nile virus truly that bad?
- Student how are ants harmful?
Bugscope Team Ants are generally helpful. However, in the jungle some ants with nasty bites cause harm if a person accidentally invades their space
- Student do flies have heart beats like a human?
- Student Do insects have a defense like venom?
Bugscope Team many insects have a variety of defenses against ants, including toxic chemicals
- Student which of the insects is the most dangerous?
Bugscope Team the mosquito is the deadliest
- Student why are insects so small?
Bugscope Team One reason why insects are limited in size is that their breathing system is much simpler than mammals and much less efficient, meaning they wouldn't be able to breath enough if they got significantly larger
- Guest do insects live for a long time
Bugscope Team some do, but not always as adults -- like 17-year locusts
- Student how good is ants vision?
Bugscope Team not very good, some dont even have eyes. They spend so much time underground they dont rely on their eyes, their rely on their antennae
- Student wats the most deadliest insect
Bugscope Team Mosquitoes for sure!
- Student Why do bees die if hey lose a stinger?
Bugscope Team when the stinger comes out it has a little pump on it like an outboard motor, and that leaves a big hole in the body, so the bee loses all of its hemolymph and dies, like bleeding to death
- Student my dad ate a cricket ... 'tasted like french fries" (he fried it?)
Bugscope Team Hahah
- Teacher This group is asking better (and funnier) questions
- Student what*
- Student why are the red ants harmful
Bugscope Team Well, those red ants that we have out here in southern California are actually very helpful--despite the fact that they bite. The are responsible for planting the seeds of our native plants and wildflowers and they are the only food of some of our native lizzards--like the horned toads. Red ants are our friends!
- Student What is the biggest insect?
- Student with what could you fight it back or is there any medicine?
- Guest are the eggs small
- Student why do people eat bugs, because bugs don't eat people
- Student the bugs are small the eggs are small
- Student how small is their poop?
Bugscope Team different sizes, of course. it is called 'frass,' and of course 'flyspecks.'
- Guest Can i eat crickets??? when im in the woods lost???
- Student What otherr kind of microscopes do you use at the lab
Bugscope Team We have another kind of electron microscope called a transmission electron microscope, a lot of different light microscopes, an atomic force microscope
- Student do insects pee
Bugscope Team Yes, sort of. They mostly have solid waste because in most insects water is too valuable to be eliminated. Most insect "pee" looks like bird droppings.
- Student Are there any ants that can shoot acid from it's body?
Bugscope Team Ben yes there are. Often it is formic acid. Which horned toads need as a nutrient.
- Student how long have you guys been studying insects?
Bugscope Team ive been doing bugscope for about 5 years, but I never studied them like annie did
- Student can insects cry?
Bugscope Team No, insects don't have tear ducts or glands, so they can't produce tears. They have to use their arms to wipe their eyes clean if they get dirty
- Student how many eggs does a flay put ?
- Guest Are insects smart???
- Guest when your in the woods can u eat which ever insect
Bugscope Team I wouldn't recommend eating just any insect, some can be poisonous.
- Student How do insects eat?
- 8:54pm
- Student were do they leave their eggs?
- Student can flies pee while flying
Bugscope Team they are more likely to poop, to conserve liquids.
- Student Do insects get sick?
- Student how long have you studied insects annie
Bugscope Team I have been studying insects exclusively since 2003 (when I started graduate school). But, I have always liked them :)
- Student are insects good to eat
- Student can they fart
Bugscope Team Termites definitely "fart"
- Student what are ants composed of
Bugscope Team The exoskeleton is made of chitin, similar to the material our fingernails are made of.
- Student do insects have feelings
- Guest are scorpionas insects
Bugscope Team Nope--they are arachnids, more closer to a spider than a cricket!
- Student Have you guys always wanted to study insects?
Bugscope Team I always liked being outdoors and capturing creatures, but I didn't want to be an entomologist until I was in high school.
- Student do flies have heart beat?
Bugscope Team Flies don't have well-developed circulatory systems like mammals. Instead they have a tube-like structure which does pump some of the hemolymph onto the brain
- Student what insect can you eat and what insect can you not eat?
- Guest Could flies eat rotten food
Bugscope Team Yum yum, it is the favorite food of many insects.
- Student so chitin is their protective shell?
Bugscope Team yes it is
- Student do insects have bones?
Bugscope Team Nope, they have exoskeletons--which are hollow tubes. They wear their exoskeleton on the outside and all of their muscles and organs are inside the exoskeleton.
- Student Is dissecting bugs the major thing that is done in this lab
Bugscope Team no we don't work with insects as much as a number of other things: materials, biomaterials, and other biological samples
- Student ;]
- Guest do you like flies
Bugscope Team I actually really dislike flies. They are my least favorite insect order.
- Student do insects eat all other insects
Bugscope Team Yes, many of them do
- Student how do you know if an insect has poison?
- Student is a scorpion an insect?
Bugscope Team no it is not
- Student do you need to have a masters degree in this job?
Bugscope Team annie has a phd, but I only have a bachelor
- Guest what is the most deadliest spider of all.
Bugscope Team I guess that would be the Sydney funnel web--from Australia.
- Student do fles beat up other flies
Bugscope Team Flies will eat other flies. That is the ultimate beat up.
- Student what is the largest or like tallest insect in the world?
- Guest do flies have blood
Bugscope Team Insects have a fluid called hemolymph which helps circulate nutrients like our blood, but it lacks hemoglobin to carry oxygen (so it's not red like our blood)
- Student where did you do for graduate school
Bugscope Team I went to the University of Illinois for graduate school. Now I am a post-doc at UC Riverside--just over the hill from you guys.
- Student are a lot of insects cannibals?
- Student were do they leave their eggs
- Student how do you now if it is a boy?
- Guest Is it fun to study about insects???
- Student Have they recently discovered new insects?
Bugscope Team Yes, they're discovering new species all the time. Most of the new species are discovered in jungles and other remote areas
- Student So then you do study the human body
- Student how do you call the study of ants
Bugscope Team Myrmecology!
- Bugscope Team scorpions are more closely related to spiders
- Guest who do u think would win a fly or a mosquito
- Student how can ants defend
Bugscope Team they can bite, sting, spray formic acid
- Student do flies have a heart
- Student do ants have blood
- 8:59pm
- Student which is better eating a cricket raw or cooked
Bugscope Team Cooked..doesn't move around so much
- Student what color is an insect's blood?
- Guest are flies hairy like spiders
- Student How do they name the new insects?
Bugscope Team Sometimes new insects are named after the place it was first found, like Prionus californicus, the California root borer. Other insects are named after how they look--and it is usually a Latin description of somehting like a like or a color. Other times people name new species after people that they know or people who have helped them. My collaborator and I are going to name a beetle after our friend--it will be Euderces streiti.
- Student thanks
- Student Thank You
- Student thank you
- Student What universities did you attend to earn this degree,
Bugscope Team I got my bachelor's at Macalester College, and my Master's here at the University of Illinois
- Student Thank You scientists
- Student what is the harriest insect
- Student Thank YOU.
- Student thank you Mr. Sir
- Student Thank you , for your cooperation
- Student thank you for taking your time and answering our questions
- Student Thank You !!!
- Student thank you for giving information about insects.!.!. :]
- Student Australia*
- Guest THANK YOU NICE JOB!
- Guest Thank you!!! i have to go have fun with insects
- Student thank you for answering my questions it was fun!
- Student have to go bye
- Bugscope Team Thanks for joining everyone!
- Student THANK YOU for being with us bye
- Student THANK YOU VERY MUCH it was fun
- Guest I LOVE INSECCTS BYE
- Student :]
- Teacher We have a new group coming in
- Teacher .... last one
- Bugscope Team We're ready :)
- Teacher you guys must get CRAZY questions all the time ... thanks
Bugscope Team makes it more fun
- Teacher These groups are junior high kids .... and their brothers and/or sisters
Bugscope Team You know what, I am always happy to answer "gross" questions...if the kids are curious I am happy to supply the answers.
- 9:05pm
- Student for what
- Bugscope Team Not that junior high students are the only ones who ask "gross" questions.... :)
- Student woah what is this ?
Bugscope Team this is the edge of the fang of a spider
- Bugscope Team You're seeing live images coming from a scanning electron microscope here at the University of Illinois
- Student Is it a dust mite
- Student how fast are the ants
- Student ahhhh;;is this a spider??
Bugscope Team yes it is
- Student do you have slides of scorpions?
Bugscope Team sometimes we will put scorpion claws or stingers in the microscope
- Student yep
- Student yup
- Student whats the biggest worm?
Bugscope Team some kind of nightcrawler?
- Student Woah, do you do this all the time
- Bugscope Team These aren't just slides, you're actually sending commands to an electron microscope which is sending back images in real time
- Student that is so cool, wut is that??
- Student what is it
- Bugscope Team the biggest worm is likely a marine worm, not sure
- Student rony u suck
- Student are they ponsion
- Student ha ha
- Student This is a cool picture
- Student wat r those bumps?
- Student I like bugs ^^
- Student nice
- Student you suck tota
- Student Woah is that leg squished and flat?
Bugscope Team Sometimes the samples have gotten a little beat-up, or they shrivel when they dry out
- Student what is the picture
- Student you suck
- Student EEWWWW hairy legs =D lol funny
- Student whats the most dangerous spider?
Bugscope Team there are some very poisonous spiders in South America and in the Tropics
- Student what kind of spider ? black widow ?
- Bugscope Team these are live images from the scanning electron microscope, so all we can see today is what we put in
- Student no
- Student why those it have like thorns on it's leg?
Bugscope Team It is hard to know exactly without knowing about the behavior of this insect. Often the spines help to defend the insect or help it to hold onto things.
- Student does*
- Student oh ok still cool btw
- 9:10pm
- Student hmm yh ut right ian why are they
- Student is that an ant
- Student tota sucks
- Student franky is homo
- Student woah!!!
- Student rodney has a big head
- Student rony live in africa so watch out for the spiders
- Student I think I'm going to barf!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
- Student is that a fly
- Student succk tota
- Student will the pincers hurt me if it attacks me
Bugscope Team Most times the mouthparts are too small to cause damage to people, they'd break before your skin broke, but some can give you a significant pinch
- Student never knew spiders were really hairy
Bugscope Team some of the hairs we see are there to help the spider sense its environment by gathering vibrational information. and some of the hairs spiders have are released into the air to irritate animals that are bothering them
- Student i never knew beetles had alot of hair
Bugscope Team insects are hairier than they seem, but it's needed to help them sense what's going on around them
- Student can they kill pepole
Bugscope Team Most spiders cannot kill people with healthy immune systems. The most poisonous spiders can cause painful bites and skin lesions, but typically don't kill people.
- Student oh
- Student frank sucks
- Student why are there eyes like thatt??
Bugscope Team Insects have compound eyes which is a simpler design than mammalian eyes. It allows them a wider field of view and they require less maintenance (no eyelids, tears, etc)
- Student eh ugly
- Student where are the spiders mostly located?
- Student toata sucks
- Student rony ur ugly
- Student this is fun!
- Student do you wish you had compound eyes?
Bugscope Team nope....it would make driving hard,
- Student can they kill
- Student do they have a nose??
Bugscope Team Most insects and other arthropods sense smell with hairs--on their antennae, on their mouths or on their feet
- Student no
- Student how big are the ants
- Student What is a mite
Bugscope Team a mite is a very small arachnid, mostly, that may or may not live on a larger creature
- Student do you spiders kill alot of people?
Bugscope Team Spiders kill very few people, really.
- Student how does the color see thru compounded eyes ? color or black & white ?
Bugscope Team It depends upon the insect/arthropod. Bees can see some color and can also see UV light. Some spiders can also apparently see some colors. Moths that fly at night can only see black and white.
- Student why are they so hairy
Bugscope Team Because they have their skeleton on the outside, they need the hairs to sense touch, temperature, smell, etc
- Student what's in the background of the pictures? are they cells..?
Bugscope Team Those are actually just bubbles in the double-sided tape we use to stick the samples down
- Student nice pinchers
- Student why do they have big eyes
Bugscope Team the eyes help them see in all directions; it is tough being an insect
- Student does that beetle live in america
- Student which spiders are the most poisonousspiders
- Student do they have bones??
Bugscope Team No, they have a rigid shell called an exoskeleton which supports their body -- inside they have only soft tissues
- Student how long can a beetle be?
- Student are those two different beaks?
- Student are they gaint spiers in the tropicas
- 9:15pm
- Student are beetles poisonous?
Bugscope Team There is one or two kinds of beetles can can cause chemical burns/blisters. The rest of the beetles are not poisonous--unless you ate a bunch of them, and even then you would just puke, not die.
- Student whats a potato bug
Bugscope Team In California, what people call potato bugs are actually a kind of cricket.
- Student what if I'm allergic to mites
- Student how long do beetles live?
Bugscope Team Most insects live about a year. However, some beetles feed underground or in wood for very long times--20 or more years.
- Bugscope Team if you had compound eyes you would have very good peripheral vision, it would be hard for you to get sunglasses that fit, it might be hard to get dates, and you would have a better ability to see motion.
- Student can they kill humans
- Student do they eat eachother??
Bugscope Team some of them do, yes
- Student Is that what we eat and love?
Bugscope Team salt, yes
- Student can they eat humans
- Student can that piece of salt kill a slug
Bugscope Team it is very small, so it might just get washed away in the slime
- Student why does salt have holes in it
- Student why does it look like a cube??
- Student What do spiders eat the most
- Student why is salt bad for the liver?
- Student who invented the salt?
- Student is that really,really salt
Bugscope Team yeah Dude
- Student why does salt dissolve slugs and snails
Bugscope Team Salt is bad for slugs and snails because they have moist body surfaces and the salt causes that water to get sucked out of their body
- Student why does salt have holes?
- Student why are the pic's black
Bugscope Team we are seeing live images from the scanning electron microscope, and the images we see are collected in black and white -- actually gray scale -- because they represent the signal from electrons that are ejected from the surface of the samples we are looking at.
- Student oh
- Student why is slat small
- Student how come camel crickets are similar to ants? are they in the same family?
- Student is that a hole
- Student why is there a hole in it?
- Student how deep is the hole
- Student Ar you a bug?
Bugscope Team Not so far as I have been able to tell. I definitely ca't fly and don't have antennae.
- Student why is there a hole in salt
- Student how bigs the salt
- Student why are bugs small
- Student how many types of salt is there in the world?
- Student is salt sodium?
- Student wutt is that??
- Student is it true that mosquitos can cause death? my aunt told me someone was bit by one and died..
Bugscope Team Usually mosquitos can't cause significant harm on their own, but they can spread blood-borne disease from host to host
- Student woah
- Student who invented the salt?
Bugscope Team someone figured out how to add an anti-clumping agent to the salt, but we do not know who. salt has been around forever, since before there were people or insects or anything almost
- Student why do they bite people for the blood??
Bugscope Team Our blood is full of nutrients which make it a great meal for them
- Student do you guys work with fire ants
Bugscope Team I don't think we've had anyone bring them into the lab yet, no
- Student is it dead
- Student where are it's eyes?
- 9:20pm
- Student how did mosquitos come about?
- Student why when they suck your blood it leaves you a little bump
- Student do some mosquitos kill that are from africa?
Bugscope Team They are spreading the disease malaria from person to person, it's not actually the mosquito itself that's killing people
- Student why is the mosquito wierd
- Student do mosquitos have eyes
Bugscope Team yes they do and we can see them if we move to the right place on the mosquito
- Student can a certain blood type be harmful to mosquitos?
Bugscope Team That is a good suggestion, but it doesn't happen as far as we know.
- Student are ants very resistant? if you ever try squishing one or you accidentally step on one, it doesn't die right away
- Student how fast can a mosquito go?
- Student they look like fethers??!!
Bugscope Team scales are very similar to feathers
Bugscope Team Yes, the scales are very similar to bird feathers
- Student is that hairs on its legs or what?
- Student why cant mosquitos bite something else instead of us>8l
Bugscope Team some live only on nectar, but very few. most need blood, or the females do.
Bugscope Team Mosquitoes feed on birds, frogs and lizards, mice, bears...anything that lives on land and has red blood!
- Student what type of mosquitos are these?
- Student dont they lay their eggs near some water??
Bugscope Team yes they do! in the water, even a tiny bit of it
- Student (8l) sighh hate this type of bug
- Student how do you distinguish the one that cause malaria or yellow fever vs benign ones?
Bugscope Team people who work with them can tell them by shape and color and how they behave as well
- Student oh kk ty
- Student what is that
Bugscope Team this is a place on the stub where we took something off.
- Student how long can a mosquito live?
- Student What is a ants job
Bugscope Team Ants are very important! They take plant seeds of flowers and grasses, they help to decompose dead things, and they are the food of things like horned lizards.
- Student why are the wings transparent
- Student how come when mosquitos bite the spot that they bit swollens and itches?
Bugscope Team That's actually due to your body having an allergic reaction to the anticoagulant the mosquito injects so that your blood doesn't clot
- Student oh okay so the gurls have to lay their eggs on/in the water??
Bugscope Team yes they do! that is why when people try to eradicate mosquitoes they make sure there are no places for stagnant water to collect
- Student are there different types of mosquitos that can kill
- Student can a mosquito bite you and not be harmful?
- Student why do they have wings
- Student this was fun
- Student thanks for the information
- Student why do they LOVE blood??
Bugscope Team They don't have a choice. That is what they eat.
- Student i hope we do this again
- Student thanks for asking our questions
- Student why thanks, i hope one day i become intelligent as you! ^^
- Student what's your real,birth name
- Student this was cool thanks:D
- Student thanks for the information
- Student who made them
- Student thanks for the info
- Student Thanks a lot for answering all our questions! ^^
- Student thankx so much 1 day i hope i can be a smart person like u :D and thanx for answering our queestionss
- Student thanks for the cool/disgusting information
Bugscope Team heh, Thanks, Dakota
- Student is thta the only thinq that they eat??
Bugscope Team some eat nectar, like sugar water, from flowers
- 9:25pm
- Bugscope Team You're welcome, thanks for joining us everyone!
- Student do you guys get freaked out htat much?
Bugscope Team I jumped once when I thought I'd killed a spider and started looking at it under a light microscope and it started moving again
- Student why dont you answear my quations
- Student or did you get used to it?
- Student why don't they bite animals instead of us
Bugscope Team they do bite animals too
- Student they qive out HIV????
Bugscope Team they are said not to be able to transmit it
- Student are some of the ants deadly? i watched nat. geo and then it showed these purple ants that just scared the heck out of me
Bugscope Team Most ants aren't deadly to people, except some people who have a severe allergic reaction to them. Some of the more powerful ants can kill someone if they swarm them and you get bitten many times
- Student like butterflys??
- Student do the animals also die if they get bitten?
Bugscope Team no they itch like we do, usually
- Student what kind of bug is this
Bugscope Team this now is a female mosquito
- Student you guys rock
- Student bye
- Student bye thanks bye
- Student whats the difference between the female and male mosquito?
- Student where did you stab the mosquito
Bugscope Team in the thorax, which is like the chest area
- Student k g2g bye bye ty so much good info here =D
- Student ty mang
- Bugscope Team Thank You! Bye!
- Student thanks, bye now
- Student thanks for those nice pics and the info
- Student good nite
- Student thanks again
- Teacher Hey guys ... thanks so much. I think I finally figured out how to work all this by the third session. All the kids are leaving ... ssession over. This was really cool. Thanks
- Teacher I think the kids really lliked it.
- Bugscope Team Great, seems like it went really well
- Bugscope Team You guys did a great job
- Teacher Have a good night
- Bugscope Team You too, bye
- Teacher bye
- Bugscope Team the reason mosquitoes do not transmit hepatitis or HIV is because they would have to bite a person with it and then bite another person without it and exchange some of that blood, and that is not likely to happen to the extent that the disease moves from one to the other.
- Bugscope Team Chaos = Scot, Scott
- 9:31pm
- Bugscope Team Thank You!
