Connected on 2011-10-19 12:30:00 from Randolph, North Carolina, United States
- 11:41am
- Bugscope Team we are making the presets for today's Bugscope session
- 11:48am
- 11:53am
- 11:58am
- 12:05pm
- 12:11pm
- 12:16pm
- Bugscope Team we are finished with the presets and ready to roll!
- 12:22pm
- Bugscope Team Hello Ms M!
- Bugscope Team Welcome to Bugscope!
- Bugscope Team I just switched computers and am sorry if I made you wait.
- Bugscope Team please let me know if you have any questions, right away or at any time.
- Bugscope Team you have control of the microscope right now
- Bugscope Team the screen to the left, if you click on the white arrow in the blue circle to the left, shows you the preset positions we just stored for today's session with your school.
- Bugscope Team you can click on any one of those presets, and the microscope will drive to that place. you'll then see that on the central screen above.
- 12:28pm
- Teacher hello
- Bugscope Team Hello!
- Bugscope Team let us know whenever you have questions
- Bugscope Team please
- Teacher ok
- Bugscope Team you can change mag on the screen above using the controls across the top of the screen; you can also focus and change the contrast and brightness
- Bugscope Team if you click on an element within the screen, the microscope will center that element
- Bugscope Team that means of course that if you go to low mag, you can drive the 'scope in a particular direction by using the click to center feature
- Bugscope Team be sure and click on the one of the presets, to the left, once you have had enough of this area
- Bugscope Team or take the mag down here, to see where you are on the spider
- 12:33pm
- Bugscope Team you can see that they're hexagonal, compared to the salt crystals, which form cubes
- Bugscope Team also please let me know if something does not respond properly
- Bugscope Team SEM is at the microscope and can easily make changes for you, when you wish.
- Teacher how do you zoom in
- Bugscope Team click on the plus sign at the top right of the viewing screen
- Bugscope Team oops I mean top left
- Bugscope Team just above the image
- Bugscope Team totally cool
- Bugscope Team this is some kind of raw sugar, kind of yellowy
- 12:38pm
- Teacher what is this
- Bugscope Team this is one of the Japanese beetle's claws
- Bugscope Team they're asymmetrical
- Bugscope Team insects have a head, a thorax, an abdomen, and six legs. they also often have a set of claws at the end of each leg
- Teacher can a japanes beetle's bug fly
Bugscope Team yes it can!
- Teacher can you find it in the us
Bugscope Team yes you can! these are from here in Illinois, from earlier in the summer
- Bugscope Team they have metallic green elytra -- the wing covers
- 12:43pm
- Bugscope Team I just moved us to the head.
- Teacher is those the hands
- Bugscope Team those things that look like submarine sandwiches are the tips of the antennae
- Bugscope Team they are lamellated antennae, meaning that they have layers, and they can fold open sideways, like a paper fan
- Teacher do you have a tick
- Teacher we can look at
- Bugscope Team no I am sorry -- they are so cool to look at
- Bugscope Team the closest things to ticks in the 'scope now are mites
- Bugscope Team here are two, on the leg of an earwig
- Bugscope Team you can see that they are less than 200 micrometers long -- about a fifth of a millimeter long
- Teacher what is a mite
Bugscope Team mites are tiny creatures, I believe they are related to spiders, that often live on other small creatures like insects
- Teacher can you get sick from mite
- Bugscope Team people are said to have mites living in their eyelashes, but I have never seen them
- 12:48pm
- Bugscope Team and there are also dustmites, which live in pillows and bedclothes and eat flakes of hair
- Bugscope Team dustmites are responsible some people's allergied
- Bugscope Team oops allergies
- Teacher are they small?
Bugscope Team they are very small; you can barely see these
- Teacher is that the feet
Bugscope Team that is one of the legs of the earwig, and the mites are on that leg
- Teacher is that hair
Bugscope Team the tiny bristle-like things that look like hair are called setae, pronounced see-tee.
- Bugscope Team insects do not have bones on the insides of their bodies; they are invertebrates, which means they do not have backbones. but really, they do not have bones at all'
- Bugscope Team oops
- Bugscope Team so they have an exoskeleton -- a shell -- instead
- Teacher were the eys at
Bugscope Team you can see them on the left and right
- 12:54pm
- Bugscope Team this is one of the eyes, called a compound eye
- Bugscope Team it has lots of individual facets, each called an ommatidium
- Teacher it look like a corn on the cob
Bugscope Team yes it does!
- Bugscope Team each of those facets (like the facets of a diamond) is a lens that gives the insect an image of its environment
- Bugscope Team the insect can tell very quickly when something changes, like when something is trying to grab it, because the eyes wrap around the head, and the images update quickly in the brain
- Bugscope Team spiders, on the other hand, often have eight eyes but cannot see very well
- Bugscope Team the big things we see in front of the eyes are chelicers, or chelicerae. at the tips of the chelicerae are the fangs
- 12:59pm
- Teacher what is ths
- Bugscope Team now we see just a few of the spider's eyes
- Bugscope Team can you tell what this is?
- Teacher what is that
- Bugscope Team it's an ant
- Bugscope Team very small
- Bugscope Team almost all ants you see are females
- Teacher why is all of the ant females
- Bugscope Team the males have wings, and all they do is breed with a queen, at some point, and then they're pretty much worthless
- Bugscope Team the females do all of the work
- Bugscope Team the only other ant that may have wings is the queen, when she is young and flies out from the nest
- Bugscope Team when she gets back the other ants pull her wings off, and she grows large, becoming an egg producer for the colony
- 1:05pm
- Bugscope Team ants respond to chemical signals more than they use their eyes
- Bugscope Team so if you take the scent of a dead ant and put a drop of that on a live ant, the ant workers who clean things up will throw the live ant away even if it is struggling, because it smells dead
- Teacher what is that
Bugscope Team this is one of those things that look like hairs, on the leg of the spider
- Bugscope Team insects and arthropods like spiders use the setae --- the hairs --- to get information about what is around them, like what is touching them, how hard the wind is blowing, whether something is hot or cold
- Bugscope Team also, some of the hairs are set up so that they can smell very faint scents in the air
- Bugscope Team we just saw the centipede head, and now we are looking at salt crystals from a Wendy's restaurant
- 1:10pm
- Bugscope Team the sodium and chloride atoms in the salt form cubic crystals like this
- Bugscope Team ha but obviously not all of the crystals are cubes, here
- Bugscope Team normal salt does not have this cool incised look to it
- Bugscope Team normal salt is smooth, still cubic, but kind of boring
- Bugscope Team I think this is cool.
- Teacher why do they have crevices
Bugscope Team we don't know for sure, but we think the crevices result from the company that made the salt having added an anticaking compound that keeps the salt from sticking to itself
- Bugscope Team so cubes form, and often you see small cubes within the larger ones
- Teacher is horse salt the same thig as human salt
- Bugscope Team yes it is also sodium chloride
- Teacher what is this
- Bugscope Team some salt, like for people and maybe for horses as well, has iodine added to it
- 1:15pm
- Bugscope Team this is a centipede head
- Bugscope Team see its eyes, on either side of the head?
- Teacher can a human eat horse salt
Bugscope Team I think so, but you wouldn't need much, and salt is not that good for you
- Teacher what is that
Bugscope Team we were just looking at the mandibles, which are what the centipede uses to bite
- Bugscope Team in insects and arthropods like the centipede, the jaws usually open side to side, like a gate
- Bugscope Team in people of course the jaws open up and down
- Bugscope Team so your lower jaw is called a 'mandible,' and your upper jaw, part of your head, is called a 'maxilla.'
- Bugscope Team see the eyes on this centipede?
- Bugscope Team they're not very complex, and it likely cannot see very well
- 1:21pm
- Bugscope Team it almost certainly relies more on its sense of smell and ability to sense vibration (both senses come via the tiny setae, and especially those on the antennae) to get around in the world
- Teacher do you have a pic of lice
Bugscope Team we have looked at them before, but I don't have one in the 'scope today
- Bugscope Team http://bugscope.beckman.uiuc.edu/members/2007-051/
- Teacher do you have a bee
Bugscope Team not today!
- Bugscope Team I am sorry -- we have a stinkbug in the microscope today, but it is all covered with hemolymph or some other kind of fluid
- Teacher is it oky to get off
- Bugscope Team of course!
- Bugscope Team Thank you for connecting with us today!
- Bugscope Team http://bugscope.beckman.illinois.edu/members/2011-082
- Bugscope Team below is the transcript of this session
- Bugscope Team next time we connect please be sure to ask for a bee, and a tick or louse
- 1:26pm
- Teacher your soo wellcome think u for working with us today u show us a good time
- Bugscope Team Thank You!
- Bugscope Team Whenever you have questions please feel free to write us.
- Bugscope Team you know you were driving a $600,000 electron microscope from your classroom
- Bugscope Team Bye!
