Session 2011-004 with Orpheum Children's Science Museum

Application

The School

The Class

The Project

Miscellaneous

Live Session Transcript

Connected on 2011-04-01 15:00:00 from Champaign, Illinois, United States

• 2:23pm
• Teacher it's chris. we're just getting set up over here

• Teacher event is 3-6pm for us. we together until 4:30?

• 2:33pm

• 2:38pm

• 2:44pm

• Bugscope Team yeah that
• Bugscope Team that's fine
• Bugscope Team We are being interviewed. And it's Cate's turn...
• Bugscope Team right now Cate is SEM and I am Kaos. -- Scott

• Bugscope Team you can go ahead and start now, if you want
• Bugscope Team now I'm me.
• 2:49pm
• Teacher hi, I'm Halley and I'll be telling the kids about the bugscope when they get here
• Bugscope Team cool!
• Bugscope Team be sure and give it a try -- try driving!
• Bugscope Team and let us know whenever you have questions

• Bugscope Team Halley you can choose from among the presets on the lefthand screen -- click on one and the 'scope will drive to that place on the stub

• Bugscope Team so far everything seems to be working well here
• 2:55pm

• Teacher the kids who've come in seemed really interested
• Bugscope Team hey cool--
• Bugscope Team if they have questions or you have questions just let us know
• Bugscope Team this is a beetle's claw

• Bugscope Team and these are the tiny tenent setae that help the insect -- the beetle -- cling to surfaces
• Bugscope Team they're tiny sticky hairs

• 3:01pm
• Bugscope Team there are a few pollen grains here too!
• Bugscope Team you can see some spikey balls near the top of the screen in between some of the packs of hairs

• Bugscope Team you found them
• Bugscope Team can you see the pollen?
• Bugscope Team you can bring the mag up if you want

• Bugscope Team sweet!
• Bugscope Team the spikes help them get stuck in the "fur"
• 3:06pm
• Teacher cool

• Bugscope Team be sure and try other presets -- other places on the stub -- today

• Bugscope Team this is one of the claws of a water beetle
• 3:11pm
• Bugscope Team here is a water beetle
• Bugscope Team a whirligig beetle

• Bugscope Team you can compare this claw with those of other insects that are on the stub today
• Bugscope Team this is a little more streamlined, it seems

• Bugscope Team a lot of aquatic insects pick up diatoms from being in the water, so we often find diatoms on their exoskeletons

• 3:19pm

• Bugscope Team Halley do you have any kids there now?
• Teacher not right now
• 3:24pm
• Bugscope Team awww
• Bugscope Team you can cruise to someplace more interesting for you, if you want
• Bugscope Team do you work at Orpheum?
• Teacher no, I'm still in high school
• Teacher i don't have enough time

• Bugscope Team so here's a different kind of claw
• Bugscope Team this is cool
• Bugscope Team from a housefly

• Bugscope Team insects are covered with tiny hairs like this that are often sensory
• 3:29pm
• Bugscope Team plus the hairs we see now that are used to help the fly stick to surfaces

• Bugscope Team the hairs are called 'setae,' and they can be mechanosensory -- touch sensing; chemosensory -- chemical or smell sensing; or thermosensory -- hot/cold

• Bugscope Team some of the setae are larger bristles that are part of the self-sensing mechanism for the insect

• Bugscope Team for example if the insect's arm is overextended it can tell because some of the bristles are the arm joint are bent
• Bugscope Team a wasp!
• Bugscope Team at the arm joint, that is

• Bugscope Team you can see its mouth, and its mandibles, which open from side to side
• Bugscope Team and this is cool!
• Bugscope Team the moth

• 3:34pm
• Bugscope Team see how its proboscis is all coiled up for flying?
• Bugscope Team it can extend the proboscis, like we would blow into a party favor, to allow it to reach into a flower

• Bugscope Team it doesn't blow air into the proboscis; instead it forces hemolymph, which is insect 'blood,' into it

• Bugscope Team you can also see one of the compound eyes very well, now

• Bugscope Team it has thousands of facets

• Bugscope Team there are lots of scales here

• Bugscope Team which is the same stuff as the powder that comes off onto your fingers if you rub their wings

• 3:39pm

• Bugscope Team the scales provide color, both from their structure and from pigments, and they also serve as a helpful escape mechanism when a moth or butterfly flies into a spider web

• Bugscope Team here you can see some of the ommatidia -- the facets of the compound eye

• Bugscope Team scales are setae as well
• 3:45pm

• Bugscope Team ugh sorry this compound eye is so dirty

• Bugscope Team this is pretty cool now

• Bugscope Team scales like this also have a thermoregulatory function -- they keep the moth or butterfly from getting too hot or too cold

• 3:50pm

• Bugscope Team this is pretty nice -- you are looking right down the ridges of a single scale, and you can see a few brochosomes, which come from leafhoppers, not moths

• Bugscope Team those little ridges are about 1micrometer wide -- half the length of a bacterium

• Bugscope Team and the brochosomes are real nanoparticles, from 250 to maybe 600 nm in diameter
• Guest Is this a fairly new interface? I would like to share it with friends with little ones. It doesn't have too many users right now, huh. Do you have a facebook page? I bet you'd end up with many users!

• Bugscope Team bugscope has been around since 1999, though it's interface has changed a couple times

• Bugscope Team we used to have a facebook page....
• 3:55pm

• Guest oh. I bet the interface has changed for the better! Did you get to increase your magnification abilities?

• Bugscope Team Penny if we were closer to the sample, we would have better resolution
• Bugscope Team we stay far away, generally, because we want the kids to be able to appreciate how high the mag is by seeing it at low mag as well
• Bugscope Team this is 200,000x and would look better if we were a few mm away rather than 30 mm as we are now

• Bugscope Team a female housefly
• Bugscope Team the background is carbon doublestick tape, and some silver paint
• 4:01pm
• Bugscope Team the sample itself is coated with gold-palladium, but with only a few nm
• Bugscope Team sometimes participating schools will send insects to us and sometimes we can supply our own

• Guest neat! Do you have a tiny URL address, so I can share this page, or should I just share the home page and let them manuever til they find this interface?
• Bugscope Team the high vacuum in the specimen chamber allows us to beam electrons at the samples -- at what we see now -- and get what are called secondary electrons back from the conductive coat on the surface of the insects
• Bugscope Team we are at bugscope.beckman.illinois.edu
• Bugscope Team because we share the microscope with researchers, this live imaging can be done only an average of twice a week
• Bugscope Team for this session there is a member page which you can have people see the transcript and images from today as well : https://bugscope.beckman.uiuc.edu/members/2011-004
• Bugscope Team but you can look up archived sessions -- d'oh as Cate says -- from the homepage
• Guest Thank you both.
  Bugscope Team hey you bet!
• Bugscope Team if you have more questions we are here 'til 4:30 today
• 4:06pm
• Bugscope Team http://bugscope.beckman.illinois.edu/members/2011-004
• Bugscope Team without the s
• Guest o.k. Thanks for the link!
• Guest amazing technology!
• Bugscope Team Penny where are you now?
• Guest Carson WA
• Bugscope Team Sweet!
• Guest I worked at our local school district in special ed for 13 years, and my daughter currently works in preschool. We WILL be sharing this info. :)
• Bugscope Team great!
• Bugscope Team we are often booked a month or so ahead of time, \
• Guest What time zone are you? It is 2:09 here.
• Bugscope Team central: it is 4:10
• Guest o.k.
• Bugscope Team but we are happy to connect with people anywhere
• 4:11pm
• Bugscope Team sometimes we have to get up early to connect with Europe, or stay up late to connect with Australia
• Bugscope Team usu we work with people inside the US, though
• Guest That is great! I bet you could/have been able to discover very interesting things on this adventure of Bugscoping!
  Bugscope Team it is really a lot of fun for us to work with the kids
• Bugscope Team we can give them control -- they can drive a $600,000 electron microscope from their classroom
• Guest Thanks for being buggy!
• Guest Have a great evening!
  Bugscope Team You too!
• Bugscope Team Thank you, Penny.

• 4:24pm

• 4:30pm

• Bugscope Team hello Nanodays!

• Bugscope Team we were getting ready to shut down -- but please let us know if you want to run a little longer

• 4:35pm

• Bugscope Team these are on a wasp's antenna

• Bugscope Team lots of sensory pores and hairs
• Bugscope Team mostly chemosensory

• Bugscope Team this is a cerambycid beetle

• Bugscope Team related to the Emerald ash borer

• Bugscope Team and now the moth head

• Bugscope Team this is an aquatic beetle
• 4:40pm
• Bugscope Team a whirligig beetle
• Teacher how does it eat
• Bugscope Team you can see its mandibles there, in the middle -- its jaws
• Bugscope Team they are very small
• Bugscope Team these beetles are carnivores that generally prey on smaller insects on the surface of the water

• Bugscope Team they swim on the surface of the water

• Bugscope Team this is called a 'water penny' beetle
• Bugscope Team it looks like a flattened out rolypoly

• Bugscope Team and a nice claw
• 4:45pm
• Bugscope Team one of six, of course, on the longhorn beetle -- the cerambycid

• Bugscope Team a lot of times we find diatoms on insects that spend time in the water
• 4:53pm
• Bugscope Team okay I think we're gonna shut down...
• Bugscope Team Thank you for working with us today!
• Teacher yep! that's fine
• Bugscope Team see you next time