Connected on 2012-03-08 08:15:00 from Volusia, Florida, United States
- 7:11am
- Bugscope Team sample is pumping down
- 7:27am
- Bugscope Team good morning!
- Bugscope Team welcome to Bugscope!
- Bugscope Team please give us some time to set up presets for your session today
- 7:32am
- Bugscope Team can you see the chat?
- Bugscope Team please let us know when you have questions
- 7:39am
- 7:44am
- Student Good Morning!
- Bugscope Team good morning!
- Bugscope Team see the water strider?
- 7:49am
- Student This is so cool! Will there be audio?
Bugscope Team no we work with chat so that you have as much of a chance to speak as we do
- Bugscope Team this is the tip of the proboscis of the water strider
- Student awesome!
- Bugscope Team if we had audio it would be difficult for us to figure out who was going to speak, since we're in different places
- Student Okay,am I able to control movement, yet? WIll you guide us?
Bugscope Team I can give you control now, as 'Bugs.' Presently 'Science' has control.
- Bugscope Team so yes please let me know who to give control to
- Bugscope Team wherever you click on the image will be centered
- Bugscope Team if you check out the lefthand screen by clicking on the left arrow, you will see what other presets you may select from
- Teacher I am testing everything before my class comes in. I have two stations set up, I am projecting it to the big screen from one.
Bugscope Team that sounds great!
- Bugscope Team please try selecting a preset from the lefthand screen
- Bugscope Team (click on the white arrow in the blue circle on the left)
- Bugscope Team when you click on a preset, the microscope will drive to that place on the stub
- Bugscope Team anytime you want Buggy or Bugs to have control, please let us know
- 7:54am
- Bugscope Team you can also change the magnification, focus, and change the contrast or brightness
- Student So, I need to click a set form the left side, correct?
Bugscope Team if you want to ask the 'scope to drive to another sample, click on the arrow to the left so you can see the lefthand screen
- Teacher opps.. I was at bugs station...
- Bugscope Team then you will see the choices we have made for you on this stub, today
- Bugscope Team ha like that! totally cool
- Teacher ok
- Bugscope Team see the aphid's proboscis?
- Bugscope Team two flies talking
- Bugscope Team this is a male housefly
- Teacher amazing!
- Bugscope Team see the compound eyes?
- 7:59am
- Bugscope Team yay
- Teacher yes indeddy!
- Teacher indeed!
- Bugscope Team you can click on the image itself to get a feature to center
- Bugscope Team sweet
- Bugscope Team I still have a mosquito I can find for you, and some cool looking salt crystals
- Bugscope Team you can click the plus sign at the top of the screen on the left to bring the magnification up
- Teacher that'd be great...class is due in soon...tehyare going to be fascinated!
- Bugscope Team ESEM is at the microscope controls, Scot is at another computer in the same room, and sj is in his office.
- Teacher So , tell me what I am looking at here, please.
- Bugscope Team now we can see the antennae, in the middle
- Teacher WOW!
- Bugscope Team the pad like part is how the fly senses wind direction and wind speed
- Bugscope Team because I am sitting at the microscope I can tweak things occasionally
- 8:05am
- Teacher what part of the fly is this?
Bugscope Team this is a mosquito
- Bugscope Team so it is a fly as well: mosca = fly, and -ito = small
- Teacher ok...what part of skeeter?
Bugscope Team this is the head; the antennae are busted off
- Bugscope Team the eyes make up most of the head
- Bugscope Team the donut like things are the bases of the antennae, which are missing
- Bugscope Team coming out of the screen toward us is the proboscis, with which the females probe and then bite us
- Bugscope Team I am sorry the tip is dirty, and we cannot see any of the stylets within, if this is a female
- Teacher we're going to switch to a new insect, ok?
Bugscope Team absolutely
- 8:11am
- Bugscope Team we can tell male from female mosquitoes by their antennae. in males they are very ornate, and in females they are plain
- Bugscope Team these are scales from the wing of a butterfly
- Teacher what type?
- Bugscope Team scales are what we feel -- what seems like fine powder when we rub a butterfly's wing
- Bugscope Team this one was dark, blue, and orange and black; maybe a painted lady; in this case all I had were the wings
- Bugscope Team the scales provide color to the wings, and color is formed both by the shapes and the fine ridges and by pigment that is in those small cavities we see in the scales
- Bugscope Team scales are also helpful to butterflies, moths, mosquitoes, and silverfish because they fall off easily. that means that if the insect flies into a spider web it may leave the scales stuck to the web and slip out.
- Bugscope Team this is a dermestid beetle caterpillar -- a larval beetle
- Bugscope Team it is covered with aphids which were collected at the same time
- Bugscope Team you can see the aphid at the top in another preset, or you can change the mag to see it from here
- 8:16am
- Bugscope Team aphids are plant pests; they stick their proboscises into leaves and drink the fluids from the leaves; they can kill plants
- Bugscope Team ladybugs are one insect that helps keep the aphid population down
- Bugscope Team ladybugs love to eat aphids
- Bugscope Team good job driving!
- Bugscope Team the aphid's proboscis is more than 200 micrometers long
- Teacher we just chatted about ladybugs, too
Bugscope Team cool!
- Bugscope Team a micrometer is also called a micron, and it is one one thousandth of a millimeter
- Bugscope Team so 200 micrometers is one fifth of a millimeter
- Bugscope Team this is a water strider
- Bugscope Team it eats other insects that fall or live in/on the water
- Bugscope Team you can see its compound eyes, and in the middle you can see that it has a sturdy proboscis that it pokes into other bugs so that it can drink their bodily fluids
- Teacher cool!
- Teacher what part is this?
Bugscope Team this is the thorax and the head of the water strider; you can see its first set of legs as well
- Bugscope Team now you can see its antennae
- 8:21am
- Bugscope Team it is covered with fungus, and the fungus has a bacterial biofilm on it
- Teacher yes we see it!
- Bugscope Team fungus (mold) and bacteria help break things down when they die so they turn back into organic material like dirt again
- Bugscope Team the background is carbon doublestick tape
- Teacher we're switching again..
- Bugscope Team when we use the scanning electron microscope (SEM) to collect images, we use electrons rather than light, and electrons are very small, smaller than atoms, so we do not see in color
- Bugscope Team the images we see come to us as signal
- Bugscope Team this is the mouth of the male housefly
- Bugscope Team many flies, like this one, have sponging mouthparts
- Bugscope Team they spit up on their food to dissolve the sugars in it, and then they sponge it up
- Bugscope Team the lower, bent part is the proboscis -- the sponging mouth
- Bugscope Team the two spiny things in the opening are palps, which help taste and also manipulate food toward the mouth
- 8:26am
- Teacher yuck!
Bugscope Team haha yeah they are gross
- Teacher what are the hairy things?
Bugscope Team insects do not have skin like we do, with nerve endings, and they do not have noses; insects have an exoskeleton, which is like a shell, or like a suit of armor. so to be able to sense their environment they have lots of setae, which is what the hairs are often called
- Bugscope Team setae can be mechanosensory -- touch sensitive like cat or rat whiskers
- Teacher thx
- Bugscope Team setae can also be chemosensory -- helping insects smell their food and also scents from the environment, and also pheromones -- like perfume from other insects
- Bugscope Team setae may also be thermosensory -- giving the insect the ability to sense hot and cold
- Teacher mold spores..tellus more!
- Bugscope Team the small pill-like things we see -- the capsule shapes -- are bacteria
- 8:31am
- Bugscope Team when mold takes over, it has branch-like elements called hyphae, and it also forms spores, which it releases. the mold spores are carried in air currents to other places, where the mold can form from them when they land
- Bugscope Team bacteria come in three basic shapes, and we see the capsule-like shapes -- the rods, or bacilli -- most often
- Bugscope Team they also come in more rounded shapes, and are called cocci; and the really bad ones come in spiral shapes
- Bugscope Team bacilli -- the rod-shaped bacteria -- can form biofilms, which are a slime coating in which they live
- Teacher what colors are bacteria?
Bugscope Team they seem to be mostly browns and yellows
- Bugscope Team when bacteria form biofilms, they protect them from being washed off of fruits and vegetables, for example; it makes them more dangerous
- Teacher Julia wants to know what the inside would look like?
Bugscope Team bacteria have thick walls, and inside they have what are called organelles that help them digest nutrients and also grow and divide; they can communicate via chemicals, but it is not like the way we talk
- 8:37am
- Teacher How long would it take for bacteria to form on my dirty dishes? asks Tavion!
Bugscope Team if the dirty dishes are wet and do not have detergent on them, it can happen in a matter of hours and then get worse
- Bugscope Team that is why it is not good to leave food out in the air for long
- Bugscope Team bacteria also form spores that move through the air
- Bugscope Team that is why you want to reheat your food when you get it out of the fridge
- Bugscope Team heat can kill bacteria...
- Bugscope Team the compound eyes of female flies are often far apart, whereas those of males are close together
- Teacher Arielle wants to know if these are alive?
Bugscope Team They are dead. Someone caught them and froze them for us.
- Bugscope Team the freezing killed them, and then we let them dry out
- Teacher freeze-dried!
- Teacher how are they "talking"?
Bugscope Team I thought that it looked like the one on the right was whispering to the one on the left.
- Teacher :-)..me too!
- Bugscope Team normally they communicate through chemicals they release, and also through movement -- through visual cues
- 8:43am
- Bugscope Team the compound eyes have thousands of tiny facets called ommatidia thay work like indivdual lenses
- Bugscope Team let's go up close...
- Teacher Desmond wants to know what is that thing between his eyes?
Bugscope Team the two things that look like pads are part of the antennae, and the branched things are part of the antennae called aristate antennae
- Bugscope Team you can see that the fly also has 'microsetae' on its head, almost like fur
- Bugscope Team these are some of the ommatidia
- Teacher Jennifer needs to know how the flies react to "talking" to each other.
Bugscope Team if they are male and female, it may be that they determine they are the same species and can mate, so the female can lay eggs that are fertilized, and the eggs will hatch into little maggots
- 8:48am
- Teacher Haleigh, on the little spots on the eyes, do they have multiple eyes???
Bugscope Team flies and other flying insects have compound eyes, which have multiple lenses or facets like we see now; they also have three more eyes, called ocelli, or simple eyes, that register the position of light, such as where the sun is, so they don't get lost
- Teacher Tammy wants to know how many eyes are in the compound eyes?
Bugscope Team there are several thousand ommatidia, often, in just one compound eye. some wasps can have as many as 17,000 facets in one eye
- Teacher Cheyenne wants to know why flies seem to always rub their "hands" together ?
Bugscope Team sometimes they are cleaning the surface of their hands; we can look at some of the hands
- Bugscope Team so this is for Cheyenne, so she can see what the hands look like when they are clean
- Teacher do they eat with THOSE hands?
Bugscope Team they eat with their mouthparts
- Bugscope Team their claws help them grasp things, and this part of the hand is called the pulvillus
- Teacher ok...then!
Bugscope Team I didn't mean to be rude -- they usually do not use their hands to move food toward their mouths
- Teacher :-)
- 8:54am
- Bugscope Team the tiny setae we see are kind of like suction cups, and they are why flies and some other insects can walk on glass and on the ceiling
- Teacher why do some flies have red eyes/ blue eyes, asks Chase!
Bugscope Team the colors of the eyes help them identify each other; also the patterns on their heads and on their thoraces -- the 'trunk' part of the body
- Bugscope Team these are the sticky setae that help the fly cling to the ceiling
- Teacher Alexa wants to know how many egs they hatch at a time?
Bugscope Team it depends, of course, but probably an average would be a hundred or so
- Bugscope Team females are said to be able to lay 500 eggs in batches of 75 to 150
- Teacher What type of crystals are these?
Bugscope Team They are some kind of chemical that formed very quickly and thus did not form nice even crystals
- 8:59am
- Bugscope Team this is also for Cheyenne, because the crystals are on a fly's pulvillus -- the pad with the sticky setae on it; this is why they rub their hands together -- to get rid of things like this
- Bugscope Team now you can see where we are -- this is on another fly's claws
- Bugscope Team we saw those fine suction-cup like setae earlier, and they were clean; these are mucked up with those round crystalline objects
- Teacher Thank you so much! My class has to leave now! They loved it! You are gettign a rousing round of applause!
- Bugscope Team Sweet!
- Bugscope Team Thank You for connecting with us today!
- Bugscope Team http://bugscope.beckman.illinois.edu/members/2011-115
- Bugscope Team this is your member page, with a transcript on it
- Teacher SO awesome!
- Bugscope Team yay!
- Bugscope Team we are lucky to have this kind of equipment and thrilled to be able to share ti
- Bugscope Team oops 'it'
- Bugscope Team good job driving today, and very good questions
- Bugscope Team bye!
