Connected on 2011-03-29 16:15:00 from Cook, Illinois, United States
- 3:33pm
- Bugscope Team 'scope is pumping down
- Bugscope Team you can see the sample
- 3:44pm
- 3:49pm
- 3:54pm
- Guest Everything smooth so far?
- 4:01pm
- 4:06pm
- Bugscope Team we are ready to roll
- Bugscope Team yes really good
- Teacher Hi
- Bugscope Team I think the problems we had with Xavier were due to the heavy load on the 'net that day at Xavier
- Bugscope Team Hi Dr. Clishem!
- 4:11pm
- Teacher How's it going?
- Bugscope Team we are good, and good to go
- Teacher Okay. Class starts at 4:15. Some students are still strolling in. I have to give a brief intro and then we'll be ready to roll on our end. Some things look different.
- Bugscope Team yeah let us know if you have questions
- Bugscope Team the presets are visible to the left if you use the arrow to shift the screen
- Bugscope Team so you can shift the screen to the left, choose a preset, and then come back to the main screen to drive
- Teacher So when are you going to add a video feed interface of the scientists? Or would that spoil things?
Bugscope Team never. yeah how would we do it? Cate is upstairs, I am at my desk or at the 'scope or at the control computer, Chaos
- Bugscope Team also, video feed would compete with the 'scope, which is what we want to feature
- Guest hi
Bugscope Team Hi Rapbanana!
- Bugscope Team Welcome to Bugscope!
- 4:16pm
- Guest thanks! im excited!
- Bugscope Team presently, on the screen, we are looking at a small portion of the antenna of a bumblebee
- Bugscope Team the little platelike things are placoid sensilla, which are perhaps obviously sensory
- Guest OH MY GOD! wow!
- Bugscope Team we are not sure actually whether they are chemo- or mechanosensory
- Bugscope Team Dr C should have control now.
- Guest I can't believe the look of the hair by the magnification!
- Teacher We're ready to start.
- Bugscope Team mechanosensors are touch sensory
- Bugscope Team you can see that the antenna is broken off, and we are at the end of the last segment
- Bugscope Team this is a small mosquito
- 4:21pm
- Teacher I'm getting a message that my request was ignored.
Bugscope Team see if it works now
- Guest is that really his eyeballs?!?!
Bugscope Team the things that are curved around the donut like things are the eyes
- Teacher Sorry. Looks good now.
- Bugscope Team these are the individual facets of the eye]
- Teacher Why is it magnifying more when I am clicking - .
Bugscope Team what are you clicking?
- Bugscope Team I made it magnify, actually
- Teacher SJ, may I control now?
- Bugscope Team the ommatidia -- the individual eye facets -- are a little shrunken from what they were in life
- Guest Wat are those hairlike things on his eyes? between the circular things
- 4:27pm
- Guest are the insects we are looking at 2d or 3d?
Bugscope Team they are 3d. a scanning electron microscope has good depth of focus, and we are taking advantage of that
- Teacher May I use the controls now?
Bugscope Team yes try it!
- Student What are the hair like follicles called?
Bugscope Team the things that look like hair are called setae
- Guest (i'm trying to understand how the bugscope works)
Bugscope Team you are driving a $600,000 electron microscope from your classroom
- Guest How many eye facets are estimated in one eyeball?
- Bugscope Team the samples are in a vacuum chamber, and we are beaming electrons at them
- Bugscope Team the samples are coated with a few nanometers of gold-palladium to make them conductive
- Bugscope Team the electron beam rasters across the samples like a typewriter, line by line, but it is pretty quick
- Guest DOES HE HAVE A NOSE?
Bugscope Team insects mostly do not have noses; they have sensory setae that allow them to pick up smells in the air, or by contact
- Guest What is the donut shaped figure around the eyeball?
- Bugscope Team but Rapbanana this is a weird mosquito, and we don't understand why the mouthparts look like they do; it's like it just became an adult but did not unfold
- Bugscope Team in mosquitoes, the females are the ones that bite; the males don't do much other than breed. sometimes people are like that as well -- the males are relatively useless
- 4:32pm
- Teacher Can we find ther part that stings you? Where would we click?
Bugscope Team there isn't one on this skeeter, but you can for sure see the spider's poison pore
- Guest where?
- Guest poison pore?!
Bugscope Team yes spiders inject venom into their prey; the venom digests the insides of the prey; and the spider sucks it all back up like a milkshake
- Bugscope Team if Dr C clicks on the preset for the poison pore, to the left
- Bugscope Team this is live imaging using the electron microscope, but we did find cool places before the session so you would be able to look around without too much searchin
- Guest whats is like at the joint?
- Student what it like at the joint?
- Guest What are we looking? at a leg or joint?
Bugscope Team that was a legjoint, exactly, on the mosquito
- Bugscope Team this, now, is the tip of a spider's fang
- 4:37pm
- Bugscope Team anyway, in a scanning electron microscope the electron beam rasters across the sample and causes secondary electrons to be ejected from the surface of the sample. those secondary electrons provide the signal that becomes the images we see
- Guest did the mosquito die in the cold? how do you find unsquished ones to put in vaccum chamber?
Bugscope Team often they do die in the cold -- when I catch them I put them in the freezer to kill them
- Student id this a wing?
Bugscope Team yes it is!
- Bugscope Team the 2ndary electrons that are ejected from the sample actually come from the conductive coating of gold-palladium we put on the sample
- Bugscope Team so now we are looking at the microsetae on the surface of the wing
- Guest ohhhhh, ok, thanks for answering all my questions!
Bugscope Team be sure to ask whenever it doesn't quite make sense
- Bugscope Team if a sample is super fresh and juicy the 'scope may not pump down
- Guest Why are insects soooooo hairy?
- Guest setae who said was a smell sensor?
Bugscope Team some chemosensory setae are smell sensors; other setae may be touch sensitive or hot/cold (thermo) sensory
- Guest Why are insects covered wih hair?
Bugscope Team mostly because they need something that will help them sense their environment through the chitin, or cuticle -- the exoskeleton
- 4:42pm
- Guest what are insects so hairy? (its like my beard! but all over)
Bugscope Team it's like if you were wearing a coat of armor -- you would not be able to sense what was touching the surface of the armor -- so insects have setae that stick through and help them sense their environment
- Bugscope Team so the hairs (setae) are mechanosensory -- like a cat or rat's whiskers; or chemosensory; or thermosensory
- Guest ?
- Guest Where is the venom pore, at the center?
Bugscope Team yes if Dr C takes the mag to a lower mag it will be a little more impressive
- Bugscope Team some setae are also sticky, like those on the 'palm' of a fly
- Bugscope Team now you can see part of the 'retention plan'
- Bugscope Team ooh you can see how the fangs are serrated to cut into insects
- Bugscope Team those bumps are what hold the insect feature the spider is biting close to it
- Teacher Please give Rapbanana the controls.
Bugscope Team got 'em!
- Bugscope Team Rapbanana if you keep taking the mag down you will see what the spider appears to be holding
- Bugscope Team now we see that we are between the chelicers
- Guest what are chelicers?
- 4:47pm
- Bugscope Team and you see someone's antennae, and part of his/her head
- Guest chelicers are what the spider uses to bite and inject venom?
- Bugscope Team the chelicers -- the chelicerae -- are the power behind the fangs
- Bugscope Team you can see that a small flying aphid is on top of the spider
- Guest is this a female or male?
Bugscope Team I think it is a female spider because we don't see those large pedipalps
- Guest what kind of insect did this spide have for dinner?
- Bugscope Team the aphid actually just settled there when we processed the samples in a critical point dryer
- Student What kind of spider is this?
- Student Is there a mouth?
Bugscope Team they don't really have a mouth -- they suck their dinner up through the pores in their fangs as a liquid
- Student What do you suggest we look at next?
Bugscope Team the spinnerets
- Guest where are the fangs?
- Guest does this spider spin webs?
Bugscope Team yes it does, or did, or could have
- Bugscope Team scientists have not been able to duplicate the spider's ability to produce web that goes from a liquid to a solid instantly
- Bugscope Team moths can see UV light, which we cannot
- Bugscope Team these are a few of the ommatidia -- the facets of the compound eye
- 4:53pm
- Bugscope Team butterflies can also see UV light, and for example the cabbage white butterflies, which look pretty much white to us, have more detail in their wings that we cannot see
- Bugscope Team the tiny bumps we are seeing now -- parts of the single ommatidium -- are nanoscale
- Bugscope Team you can see they are may 300 nm in diameter
- Bugscope Team maybe, I meant to say...
- Bugscope Team meaning that speaking of UV light, those little bumps are about the same size as the wavelength of near UV light
- Bugscope Team ha you are at over 150,000x
- Bugscope Team if we were closer to the sample we would have better resolution
- Bugscope Team when we do Bugscope we operate at a long working distance so we can go to low mag when we need to
- Bugscope Team these are wing scales
- Bugscope Team scales are actually modified setae as well
- Teacher Please give Letitia the controls.
Bugscope Team got it!
- Student Is the wing of the moth similiar to the butterfly?
- Student Do they serve the same function as setae?
- 4:58pm
- Guest are these 'particles' the 'dust' that falls of the wing, when you touch it?
Bugscope Team yes they are; they supply color, reflective and refractive, and they are also thermoregulatory
- Guest are wing scales similar to feathers on a bird? protecting skin, providing warmth etc?
Bugscope Team the scales also protect butterflies and moths and silverfish (which also have them) by falling off when the insect runs into a web, thus in some cases allowing the insect to escape
- Guest how do these structures help the moth?
- Guest so setae is a very common feature to many insects and there are many kinds of setae to tell insects different things about the condition of the environment...
Bugscope Team yes it is pronounced see-teem and the singular form is 'seta.'
- Bugscope Team oops see-tee no m
- Bugscope Team scales that are not perforated are a feature of more primitive moths
- Guest so are these scales what we find on our fingers, when we catch a moth?
Bugscope Team yes they make it feel slick, or silky; and to us they feel like fine powder
- 5:03pm
- Bugscope Team let me go to the 'scope and see if I can make this look better...
- Bugscope Team that is a little better...
- Guest Thanks.
- Guest whay are moths attracted to lihjt?
- Guest light?
- Bugscope Team the widths of the ridges and the shapes of the scales can produce what are called 'structural colors'
- Teacher Does this shape help the moth fly?
Bugscope Team it may help it hold onto the air; to an insect air feels thick, like water does to us
- Teacher What part of the moth is attracted to light (why are moths attracted to my porch light)?
- Guest sorry for my SP
Bugscope Team hey no problem at all
- Guest i see, so structural colors form the spots/patterns/camoflage on moths.....
Bugscope Team structural colors are like what you see when you hold a black record in your hands and see colors coming from the grooves, if you remember what records are like
- Guest does anything about the shape of pollen explain why people are allergic to it?
- Student Does anything about the shape of pollen explain why people are allergic to it?
- Bugscope Team other colors come from pigment
- Bugscope Team not sure that last chat message went through about structural colors...
- 5:08pm
- Student Just said that other colors come from pigment
- Student nothing about structural colors
- Bugscope Team yeah that didn't work
- Bugscope Team our software has some goofy tricks to it, sorry
- Guest do all pollen look alike, or share a common feature considering the many diff. types of plants?
Bugscope Team they are often quite different
- Guest how many grains of pollen would be in a flower?
Bugscope Team thousands and thousands
- Teacher Please give Jacqueline the controls.
Bugscope Team Jacqueline is the supreme ruler.
- Bugscope Team structural colors are refractive colors like when you hold a record, which is normally black, and the grooves, when they are held in the right position in the light, show colors
- Bugscope Team wing scales may have both pigment colors and structural colors
- Bugscope Team this is one of the claws of a cricket
- Bugscope Team it has a lot of fungal hyphae on it -- it is rotting
- Guest does it use its claw like an animal carnivore does?
Bugscope Team yes it does
- Guest *on* the end
- Guest is this one the end of each leg? or just front or back?
Bugscope Team there is one on the end of each leg, usually, of all six legs
- Teacher We'll be ending in about 10 minutes. I'd like to ask a special favor before we sign off.
Bugscope Team what would you like, Dr C?
- 5:13pm
- Guest and what can it 'crush' with that claw?
Bugscope Team ha not too much -- it is more for grasping things, hooking onto them
- Bugscope Team the pad that is drooping down in the middle is called an 'arolium,' and it can inflate and deflate to help the cricket get a purchase on a branch or leaf
- Bugscope Team or really, a crevie
- Bugscope Team a crevice
- Guest very nice
- Bugscope Team other insects have a pad called a pulvillus that has what are called tenent setae on it that help it stick to surfaces -- like glass
- Bugscope Team tenent like 'tener' in Spanish
- Teacher Well, Scott might remember when my son, John, was in 6th grade. He used Bugscope for his science fair project which had to do with looking at teeth that were exposed to diet pop. Anyway, he's a student now at UI studying broadcast journalism, and he wanted me to ask you if he could do a video essay project on Bugscope.
- Bugscope Team leafhopper!
- Bugscope Team yay!
- 5:18pm
- Bugscope Team Dr C!
- Bugscope Team is everyone gone?
- Guest we're here
- Bugscope Team someone is driving
- Student We are in awe of the leaf hopper
- Guest what's the most interesting insect the bugscope has ever examined?
- Guest we just want to know what part of the insect is this
- Teacher Jacqueline is driving.
- Bugscope Team this is the ventral side of the bug, so I guess it is the front
- Bugscope Team sorry the software is acting goofy I have to move from computer to computer here
- Bugscope Team now I am back but cannot see any chat
- 5:23pm
- Student Thank you
- Guest Thankkkkssss!
- Guest Thanks for your time!
- Guest thanks!!!
- Guest thank you!!!!!
- Bugscope Team Thank You!
- Guest Thank you!
- Guest thanks :)
- Student Thank you very much for your time. It was educational!!!
- Guest we have to go now. Thank you for yor time and answers! Goodday!
- Student Thank you for this experience!
- Guest hey, scope, scott and sj.....thanks!
- Student thank you
- Bugscope Team ha yeah I see Thank You!
- Guest Thank you very much for all your answers. It was very informative! I appreciate your knowledge and helpfulness.
- Teacher Guys, should I tell John to contact you?
- Bugscope Team thank you all!
