Connected on 2011-12-21 09:15:00 from Bergen, New Jersey, United States
- 7:39am
- Bugscope Team Good morning, Joyce!
- Bugscope Team we are coating the sample right now and will have it in the 'scope in a few minutes
- 7:45am
- Bugscope Team sample is now in the 'scope and pumping down
- Bugscope Team vacuum is almost ready to start setup
- 7:56am
- 8:01am
- 8:07am
- 8:13am
- 8:18am
- Bugscope Team good morning!
- Bugscope Team this is where the wasp's stinger should be...
- 8:24am
- 8:30am
- Bugscope Team Bugday we are done making presets, and you may drive around, test things out, whenever you wish.
- 8:35am
- Bugscope Team be sure to let us know if you have any problems
- 8:44am
- 9:13am
- 9:22am
- Bugscope Team one thing that is happening that should not be happening is that we have two teacher logins with control of the 'scope
- Bugscope Team hello
- Teacher hi
- Guest Hi there!
- Bugscope Team Cynthia please let us know when you have questions.
- Bugscope Team This is a true bug (Hemipteran) you sent.
- 9:27am
- Teacher We are setting up still
Bugscope Team totally cool
- Bugscope Team I just moved us to the wasp head...
- Bugscope Team but you have, when you get a chance, the option of choosing from any of the presets on the lefthand screen, reachable by clicking on the lefthand arrow.
- Bugscope Team you can also change mag, click on the screen to center a feature (at low mag that may be used to drive in a particular direction), change contrast and brightness, and focus
- Bugscope Team so this, now, is the head of a wasp
- Teacher I'm so sorry. We're having trouble getting our projector working. We should be up momentarily. The students are all here and ready.
Bugscope Team no problem at all. it is of course calm and quiet here...
- Bugscope Team you can see the wasp's antennae; its compound eyes; its mandibles, which open like gates, left and right....
- Bugscope Team you can also see that the wasp is very 'hairy'\
- 9:33am
- Teacher The students are wondering the price of the electron microscope.
- Bugscope Team this one cost about $600,000 in 1998.
- Bugscope Team it is pretty fancy; it has its own room, its own chilled water, its own power, air, nitrogen, etc.
- Teacher Wow! What is its power or magnification?
Bugscope Team it can go as high as about 800,000x but for research-quality imaging only about 200,000x.
- Bugscope Team it has 2-nanometer (2 billionths of a meter) resolution
- Teacher What is the silver stuff you put on the bugs?
Bugscope Team we coat them with a very thin layer of gold-palladium using a sputter coater -- the coating is about 20 nm thick.
- Bugscope Team the coating looks sliver because palladium is silver
- Bugscope Team using the sputter coater is pretty cool -- when we turn on the current the argon in the chamber glows purple
- 9:38am
- Bugscope Team just like any other inert gas like neon, freon, xenon...
- Bugscope Team the current turns the gas into a plasma that glows but also erodes the gold-palladium 'target' so that gold and palladium rain all over whatever is inside the chamber
- Bugscope Team you may drive if you wish, like I am.
- Bugscope Team now we see the right compound eye a bit better, and we see tiny hairs, called setae, and we see that one of the antennae is covering part of the eye
- Bugscope Team the antenna is connected to the head with a ball-and-socket joint, like our hips are attached to the pelvis
- Bugscope Team antennae are very important to insects, especially ants, which do not usually have very good eyes
- 9:43am
- Teacher Can we see the stinger?
- Bugscope Team you can see that it is a few millimeters long
- Teacher How much venom is in the stinger?
Bugscope Team it depends on the wasp. this is actually a cicada killer wasp, so it has a lot.
- Bugscope Team stingers are modified ovipositors
- Teacher Can we see another insect?
- Bugscope Team ovipositors are used to lay eggs as well
- Teacher Is that its mouth?
- Bugscope Team this is not an insect, though, but I was thinking you would not mind
- 9:48am
- Bugscope Team this is a centipede, and yes that is its mouth
- Bugscope Team see its eyes?
- Bugscope Team they look like little bumps, just above the antennae that go left and right
- Teacher Are the eyes the circles above the antenae?
Bugscope Team yes they are!
- Teacher Are they compound eyes?
- Bugscope Team they are compound eyes as well, but they have only 12 or 15 facets, whereas those of a large wasp can have as many as 17,000 facets, which are also called ommatidia
- Teacher Could we look at the legs?
Bugscope Team yes let's go down and look at them
- Teacher Do they use the hairs to find their food?
Bugscope Team some of the things that look like hairs are chemosensory, meaning that they can smell with them and find food that way
- Bugscope Team centipedes are kind of scary
- Teacher It looks like a lobster!
Bugscope Team haha yes it does!
- Bugscope Team some of the lower legs have little vents on them that the centipede can let fluids come out of
- 9:54am
- Teacher What are those points at the end of its legs?
Bugscope Team those are the tips of its feet
- Teacher Also, is there a name for the ridges along the bottom of its body?
Bugscope Team they're body segments
- Teacher Why do they need fluids to come out of their legs? Yuck!
Bugscope Team they can issue smelly chemicals to deter things like ants and other predators
- Teacher Aha! Very useful.
Bugscope Team many insects and comparable arthropods need to have some kind of protection specifially against ants
- Teacher Are those vents for breathing?
Bugscope Team that is where the chemical fluids come out
- Bugscope Team but they do look much like spiracles, which are used for breathing
- Bugscope Team many of the tiny hairs or spines we see are sensory
- Teacher Wow!
- 9:59am
- Teacher Can we see a different bug?
Bugscope Team this is a millipede
- Bugscope Team this is its head
- Teacher What do millipedes eat? Do they have teeth?
Bugscope Team I think they eat mostly plant material
- Bugscope Team millipedes are indeed herbivorous
- Teacher Where are the eyes?
Bugscope Team you can see them now, above the ball and socket of the antenna
- Teacher Yes, the students spotted them pretty quickly!
- Teacher Are they related to the centipede?
Bugscope Team they are distantly related to centipedes
- Teacher There was a bug we sent in with a sticky note asking what type of bug it was. Do you know which it was and what type of bug it is?
- 10:05am
- Teacher Does the cicada killer actually kill cicadas? Can it sting us?
Bugscope Team it can sting and carry cicadas away to lay eggs in it, I believe. they will sting people only defensively
- Bugscope Team we work with entomologists who study parasitic wasps, also called parasitoids, and they say that there is a parasitic wasp ready to lay eggs in every species of insect and every life stage of insect
- Teacher Can we see the wasp's body?
Bugscope Team here are its arms and legs
- Bugscope Team and here is its abdomen
- Bugscope Team on this wasp the sting is not visible
- Bugscope Team all insects as adults have six legs, a head, a thorax, and an abdomen
- Teacher Why do they curl up their legs like that? Is it just something that happens when they die?
Bugscope Team yes it is the way the tendons inside the limbs tighten up when they die
- Teacher What's inside the abdomen?
Bugscope Team there is a venom gland, and the intestines, called malpighian tubules, and there are tracheae that carry oxygen to the organs
- 10:10am
- Teacher Did you preset either the stinkbug or the praying mantis?
Bugscope Team yes we did
- Bugscope Team the praying mantis's head is very dirty, and also very large for the SEM
- Bugscope Team this is the praying mantis's eye
- Bugscope Team now we can see that the head is very dirty
- Teacher Does the eye stick out or protrude from its head?
Bugscope Team yes it does!
- Teacher It was found on the field; thus the dirt. Is there anything interesting we should see on the mantis?
Bugscope Team these are some odd fanlike setae that we found on the forelimbs, which are what the PM uses to catch its prey
- Teacher What are those things that look like feathers?
Bugscope Team they are setae, and it is a mystery to us just what they do -- certainly they are sensitive to wind currents
- Teacher Are they sticky?
Bugscope Team I don't think so, not like tenent setae that flies and some beetles and wasps and bees have on the limbs
- Bugscope Team these are the raptorial forelimbs the PM uses to grasp its prey
- Teacher How big are the legs?
Bugscope Team they are huge compared to the claws, for example -- a few centimeters
- 10:15am
- Teacher Thanks!
- Bugscope Team when Cate was preparing this and putting it on the stub, one of the spines stuck through her glove
- Bugscope Team Thank You!
- Teacher Did it hurt?
Bugscope Team I think she was more surprised than hurt. They are very sharp.
- Bugscope Team we see something quite similar on ambush bugs, which are related to the stinkbug
- Teacher We really enjoyed it. So sorry for the delay at the start from technological difficulties. The students are off to lunch now. Thanks again for everything!
- Bugscope Team hey no problem
- Bugscope Team you can access this all later, from your home page. this is the stinkbug -- a true bug -- that you sent
- Bugscope Team http://bugscope.beckman.illinois.edu/members/2011-172
- Bugscope Team the true bug is making gang signs with its claws, but we don't know what they mean
- Bugscope Team see you next time!
- 10:20am
- Bugscope Team Bugday we have a faculty member coming in this morning with his kids, so we may use your sample to look around and show them the microscope. when that happens, as long as we are still logged in, those images will also be stored on your member page.
- Bugscope Team brb
- 10:30am
- Teacher Thanks, guys Hope next year is smoother.
- 10:35am
- 10:43am
- 10:59am
- 11:18am
