Connected on 2012-01-06 08:15:00 from Iroquois, Illinois, United States
- 7:21am
- Bugscope Team pumping down...
- 7:35am
- 7:42am
- 7:48am
- Teacher Hello
- Bugscope Team good morning Ms McAuliffe!
- Bugscope Team welcome back!
- Teacher Thanks :) I am currently running on internet explorer...everything seem ok?
- Bugscope Team this is Scott, at the ESEM (SEM). I am making presets. Everything looks good from here.
- Teacher Ok, good. I can see your images and move around on the screen fine right now. When my kids get here will they need the password you gave me?
Bugscope Team the kids should be able to log on without a password, as Students. Sometimes Student is not available as a selection, and they will have to log on as Guests. But either way they should not need a password.
- Teacher Ok. Is there anything else I should know before we begin?
Bugscope Team no I think we are fine. It might work better if you were to use Firefox, but if things are fine now, no problem.
- 7:54am
- Teacher I will have my kids connect through firefox. I believe that is what we did last year to speed up their control time.
Bugscope Team Cool!
- 8:00am
- 8:06am
- Bugscope Team be right back
- 8:14am
- Bugscope Team k I am back
- Bugscope Team Hello Blake and Tylor!
- Student Hey Esem
- Bugscope Team This is the underside of the head of the wasp.
- Bugscope Team The head fell off, and when we mounted it, it flipped upside down. It is difficult to handle something so small and delicate without mashing it. So we left if upside down.
- Bugscope Team Please let us know when you have questions about anything.
- Teacher will we be able to control the microscope?
Bugscope Team you should have control now
- 8:19am
- Bugscope Team one person or group at a time can have control, and Ms. M you have it now.
- Bugscope Team let us know if you have any trouble
- Bugscope Team the thumbnails on the lefthand screen are clickable, and when you click on the 'scope will drive to that stored position on the sample stage, which is inside the microscope.
- Bugscope Team so, for example, I just clicked on the housefly head
- Bugscope Team and the 'scope drove to that place
- Bugscope Team this is likely a female housefly
- Bugscope Team Hello Justine, Abby, Hannah, and Paige!
- Student What is the spot on the eye?
- Bugscope Team ask Ms M to click on that on the screen and then bring the mag up, so we can see
- 8:25am
- Student how do you know the sex of the fly?
Bugscope Team we don't always know for sure, but one of the fly entomologists told us that when the eyes are far apart they are often females, and when they are close they are often males.
- Student what is the difference between female flies and male flies
Bugscope Team sorry to take so long in answering; I had someone asking me a question here. They often look almost exactly alike from the outside. The difference of course is that the females can lay eggs and have progeny.
- Bugscope Team Ms M you did a good job driving. Hard to tell what that was. -- Some kind of dirt.
- Teacher Can we give control to Blake/Tylor?
Bugscope Team Blake/Tylor are the Supreme Rulers
- Bugscope Team you can see that the flu'
- Bugscope Team d'oh oops
- Bugscope Team you could see that the fly's limbs had broken off (after it died)
- Bugscope Team this is one of the stinkbug's claws, up close
- Bugscope Team you often find a lot of dirt, sometimes mold spores, sometimes pollen, sometimes bacteria
- 8:30am
- Bugscope Team the spines we see are almost all likely touch-sensitive -- they let the stinkbug know when it is touching something
- Student its like a moldy carrot
Bugscope Team oooh. Yes!
- Student what are the long white things?
Bugscope Team those are mechanosensory spines, kind of like cat or rat whiskers that let those animals feel in the dark
- Student everytime i go to ask a question u answer it
- Bugscope Team because insects have their skeleton on the outside, it's kind of like if you were wearing armor -- you would not be able to sense something touching the surface of the armor. So those 'hairs' stick through to help the insect sense its environment.
- Student way to stay on your game
Bugscope Team trying... Thank You
- Student What are we looking at?
Bugscope Team this is the body of the cricket, and you can see three of its six claws
- Student What was the stinkbug's claw made of?
Bugscope Team insect cuticle, including the claw, is made of chitin, which is much like what our fingernails are made of
- Bugscope Team the cricket is flashing gang signs, but we are not privy to their meaning
- Student creepy
Bugscope Team yeah that is what makes it fun
- 8:36am
- Bugscope Team not all of the setae (the 'hairs') are mechanosensory. some are chemosensory, meaning that they can sense chemical smells, or just smells; some are thermosensory, meaning that they sense hot/cold.
- Bugscope Team you can see that the cricket's antennae are busted off
- Bugscope Team its left compound eye is to the right and looks smooth
- Student How do they see?
Bugscope Team most of the insects in the 'scope today have compound eyes, which are like multifaceted lenses. they see a large number of images and their brains have to translate them into something that makes sense.
- Teacher Its smoother than I expected
Bugscope Team cricket, grasshopper, and praying mantis as well as roach eyes are often very smooth at low mag
- Bugscope Team and even at high mag
- Bugscope Team that was me driving -- I'm sitting at the microscope
- Teacher They are still multifaceted though yes?
Bugscope Team yes! you should be able to see ommatidia -- the individual facets -- now
- Teacher Are insects able to individually process separate images at the same time?
- 8:41am
- Student thats a lot of lenses
Bugscope Team some large wasps can have as many as 17,000 ommatidia per compound eye
- Student Is that hair sticking out of the eye?
Bugscope Team yes it is! it is likely a mechanosensory seta
- Teacher Also, can we give the control to Justine/Abby/Hannah?
Bugscope Team Justin/Abby/Hannah are now in control.
- Bugscope Team flying insects often also have three additional 'simple' eyes, called ocelli, on the top of the head
- Bugscope Team ocelli are not as good at imaging but allow the insect to keep a sense of direction with respect to the sun, or to light
- Teacher were you able to process any of our samples?
Bugscope Team I thought these were yours. Did we get the wrong ones?
- Teacher we had a cicada larva I was hoping to see...I believe the wasp and fly are ours tho
- Student Why does it look like he is sweating?
Bugscope Team nervous about being on the web
- Student are its legs in its mouth?
Bugscope Team they look much like legs, and in a way they are -- they are accessory limbs called palps that are used to help manipulate and taste prospective food
- 8:46am
- Bugscope Team Blake/Tylor what looks like sweat is fine droplets of some kind of fluid, perhaps hemolymph, which is insect "blood"
- Student their mouths are so complex
Bugscope Team they really are -- they are confusing to us -- it looks like they've eaten a smaller insect
- Student What is in the mouth?
Bugscope Team those are the palps, which have chemosensory setae, like tastebuds, on them; they also function to help move food around and into the mouth
- Teacher do insects have pores for fluids and such?
Bugscope Team you mean to eat? a housefly, and a fruitfly, has sponging mouthparts and drinks its food
- Student Retention Plan?
Bugscope Team it is hard to tell what is happening here, but those sharp pointy things are what the spider's fangs push against to help it hold its prey while it bites it
- Student fantastic
- Bugscope Team so calling those spines a retention plan is a kind of joke. the fang is the longer curved thing on the bottom
- 8:51am
- Teacher No I mean pores for releasing "sweat" or "oil" (if insects need those things)
Bugscope Team yes the stink bug is a good example of that. They have special pores they release their stinky oils from.
- Student what is all the long rass looking stuff
- Student grass*
- Student eww
Bugscope Team haha. Spiders inject venom into their prey that dissolves its inner organs. The spider then sucks everything up like a milkshake. Apparently it is immune to its own venom.
- Student is this a poisonious spider?
Bugscope Team probably, but if it was, it's not one of the spiders that can affect humans like a black widow or brown recluse
- Teacher Can we give control to Paige now please?
Bugscope Team paige has control
- Student yum
- Bugscope Team sorry it is difficult to make out what is what -- there are actually eyes to the left. further to the left.
- Student a protein shake
Bugscope Team haha exactically!
- Bugscope Team this is one of the ocelli -- the 'simple' eyes -- I had mentioned earlier.
- Bugscope Team spider eyes look much like this
- Teacher oh, duh, nevermind
- Student is this eye more comparable to ours?
Bugscope Team it is like a weak version of one of our eyes -- it is more able to sense dark and light than shapes
- Teacher what is an ocellus?
Bugscope Team it is a simple eye that can't really see well, but it can tell the differences in light. They often help flying insects navigate because they have 3 of them
- 8:56am
- Student how can it see with all the hairs or whatever that is around it?
Bugscope Team the ocelli, because they sense light and dark, are probably not hampered as much by the setae (the 'hair") around them. also, there are three ocelli, and they are often in a kind of 'clearing' on the top of the head
- Bugscope Team this is totally cool
- Student i agree
- Bugscope Team this resembles some spiracles
- Student why does it look so sharp?
Bugscope Team probably to help catch particles before they go in. Like nose hairs
- 9:01am
- Teacher so are these pores?
Bugscope Team that is the opening that the stinky fluids come out of, and now we are looking at those fluids, dried, just outside of where they were released.
- Student wow
- Student thank you!:)
- Teacher unfortunately we have to go. Thank you!
- Student THANK YOU!!!
- Student Thank you sooo very much have a wonderful day
- Student From Blake and Tylor
- Student so this is where the 'stink' comes from?
Bugscope Team yes! there are two openings between I think the first and second sets of legs on the ventral side (of course, since that is where the legs are)
- Student :]
- Bugscope Team Thank You!
- Bugscope Team thanks for bugscoping with us.
- Student :):);)
- Bugscope Team It looks like we may have some other guests we can let drive if they wish....
- Teacher Have a great day guys!
Bugscope Team You too, Ms M!
- Teacher thanks
Bugscope Team You too! See you next year!
- Bugscope Team Duggan we just gave you control of the microscope if you would like. Today's school is done.
- Bugscope Team please let us know if you have questions, and note that you are able to select from presets and actually drive the microscope.
- Bugscope Team Duggan Middle Springfield can you read this?
- 9:07am
- Bugscope Team okay we will shut down ...
