Connected on 2011-11-29 17:30:00 from Alameda, California, United States
- 4:39pm
- Bugscope Team sample is pumping down
- Bugscope Team still pumping
- Bugscope Team brb
- 4:47pm
- Bugscope Team mold spore on fly leg
- 4:54pm
- 5:01pm
- Bugscope Team hello!
- 5:06pm
- 5:11pm
- 5:17pm
- Bugscope Team Hi MKorb!
- 5:22pm
- Bugscope Team playing with the microscope from my desk.
- Guest Hey there - thanks for getting things set for today. I hope it wasn't any trouble. I mailed some insects to you today:)
- Bugscope Team Totally cool.
- Bugscope Team I had already planned to work late with the Aus people. So it was pretty easy.
- Guest Loving the preset, "Beetle Gang Signs"
- Guest Oh that's good. Sorry they couldn't make it.
Bugscope Team They acted like they'd been doing me a favor and were sorry they couldn
- Bugscope Team heh yeah
- Guest Oh no....well, I will totally enjoy this session -maybe you can drive the scope this time and show some features that I am not aware of yet...or explain more of the SEM features so I can learn more before the Australia gig.
- Bugscope Team I just gave you control.
- Bugscope Team Let me know if you have Q's about anything.
- Guest rad gang signs. Did not know beetles were so hip.
Bugscope Team they have like six hands so they are totally hip
- 5:27pm
- Bugscope Team you can see some kind of tiny insect on the thorax there
- Bugscope Team and also, the claw to the right is grasping a flying aphid\
- Bugscope Team we have been super busy. Cate will be back next week and I am looking forward to it.
- Guest IF kids only knew what sort of beetle gangs were out there. And my student just called me - she should be online soon.
- Guest whoah....very cool.
- Bugscope Team aphids are hemiptera -- true bugs
- Bugscope Team so they have piercing mouthparts
- Bugscope Team but they are very small and have soft bodies, so sometimes it's hard to tell where the head is, what is a leg, etc.
- Bugscope Team if we critical point dry them they don't shrivel
- Bugscope Team but that takes about 40 minutes and is labor-intensive
- Bugscope Team Kim!
- Bugscope Team Welcome to Bugscope!
- Guest Kim is online
- 5:32pm
- Bugscope Team so it is like you are the teacher now; you have all of the control a teacher does
- Bugscope Team you can use the controls at the top of the viewing screen
- Bugscope Team also, as you just showed us, you can click on any of the presets to get the microscope to drive to that place
- Guest are earwigs really that scary
Bugscope Team this is a little rotten, from being old
- Bugscope Team but if you try to pick one up it will whip its tail around and pinch you
- Bugscope Team the tail portion is like a pair of pliers that can pinch
- Bugscope Team when you want to focus, you have to click plus or minus once and then see if the image gets sharper or more out of focus
- Bugscope Team 'cause you don
- Bugscope Team t really know if you want to focus up or down
- Bugscope Team once it starts to focus better you keep going in that direction
- 5:37pm
- Bugscope Team you can see its mouthparts, and you can see one of its compound eyes, to the left
- Bugscope Team the compound eye is still visible, with the little bumps, to the left
- Guest what am I seeing
Bugscope Team the things at the top that look like little legs are called palps
Bugscope Team they're accessory mouthparts that help the earwig manipulate its food, and also taste it
- Guest can I focus better on the eye It looks like snake skin
Bugscope Team yes first you can click on it, on the screen, and let the microscope center on that place
- Bugscope Team just one click on the eye
- Bugscope Team sweet
- Bugscope Team and maybe recenter
- Guest Kim is digging this - she is on the phone and going "WOW!!" alot :)
- Bugscope Team heh
- Bugscope Team now you can see that it's not in focus
- Bugscope Team so you can click either the plus sign or the minus sign and see if the image gets worse or better
- 5:43pm
- Guest You have a new Bugscope convert :)
- Bugscope Team cool
- Guest what are the little circles
Bugscope Team those are the individual facets of the compound eye, called ommatidia
- Bugscope Team they're individual lenses of the eye
- Bugscope Team some large insects can have 17,000 ommatidia in one eye
- Bugscope Team that would be large flying insects, generally
- Bugscope Team you can see it has lamellated antennae
- Guest He needs a shave.
- Guest is this guy facing us?
Bugscope Team this is the underside of his head
- Bugscope Team the eyes are on the sides of the head
- Bugscope Team we cannot see the ommatidia at this low mag
- Guest what are the hairs?
Bugscope Team the hairs are mostly sensory -- like cat or rat whiskers
- Bugscope Team we are supposed to call the hairs 'setae' because insects don't have hair, which is a character of mammals
- Guest can we focus on the eye?
Bugscope Team you can do the same thing you did with the earwig eye
- 5:48pm
- Guest thanks for the help
Bugscope Team ha sure!
- Bugscope Team It's easier if I'm sitting at the 'scope but I am in my office.
- Bugscope Team mosquitoes, butterflies, and moths have another layer of complexity to their eyes
- Guest What do you mean? That is interesting!
Bugscope Team they have very fine features on the ommatidia that give them more surface area and thus presumably a better ability to capture light
- Bugscope Team not so much butterflies but for moths and mosquitoes it is helpful to be able to see in low light conditions
- 5:53pm
- Guest So the beetle has an unsophisticated eye?
Bugscope Team most terrestrial insects do not have what appear to be more complex eyes
- Bugscope Team of course an adult beetle may be able to fly, but not well and not for long
- Guest That makes sense.
- Bugscope Team moths and butterflies and some other insects can see light in ultraviolet wavelengths, which we cannot
- Guest Kim just told me that grape growers in napa will plant rose bushes to get aphids to attack those instead of the grapes.
- Bugscope Team some flowers produce UV colors to attract the insects they want to pollinate them
- Bugscope Team this is a piece of a wing I cut up and put on the stub flat, with silver paint to help hold it down and make it that much more conductive
- Guest Nature rocks! Kim said it is eerie but awesome. I am translating for her since she is having a Bugscope AWE moment.
- Guest We couldn't fly with aphids to load up....so on to the wing.
Bugscope Team sometimes presets do not respond
- Bugscope Team these are wing scales, which can produce color from pigments but also from the spacing of the ridges we see
- Guest The scales are rounded perfectly - so cool!
- Bugscope Team when those ridges produce color, it's called structural color
- Guest I am learning alot today!!
- Bugscope Team scales are analogous to feathers on a bird's wing, in some ways
- Guest Italian roof
- 5:58pm
- Bugscope Team but one primary use of scales is to help save the insect's life if it flies into a spiderweb
- Guest Kim says she wants to go to Italy now :)
Bugscope Team yeah me too
- Guest I think the moth escape plan sounds good.
- Bugscope Team so silverfish have those silver scales that likely help them get away from spiders, once in a while
- Guest Good to know - I wondered if silverfish had scales. They are powdery.
- Bugscope Team many or maybe all insects have a variety of means of protecting themselves from predators.
- Bugscope Team often they have chemical protection against ants
- Bugscope Team last week someone noted that some spiders produce ant repellent as a component of their webs
- Guest Well I would want to protect myself from a spider. I have some huge garden spiders in front of my place.
Bugscope Team spiders are pretty wicked
- Guest can you show us your favorite feature
Bugscope Team here you go
- Guest Have you seen the spiders in space on the NASA website. They can also make webs in space.
Bugscope Team no. I remember when they used to give them LSD.
- Bugscope Team this is one (in front) of a colony of mites on the earwig
- 6:03pm
- Guest Poor spider...
- Guest Why is this your favorite? I think it would make a nice Christmas card cover.
Bugscope Team it is a really good view of a mite
- Bugscope Team we don't know for sure what these guys eat
- Guest Could you center - we are trying to.
- Bugscope Team they are (this species is, apparently) blind
- Bugscope Team sometimes we see eyespots on other kinds of mites
- Bugscope Team gnarly
- Guest Thanks!
- Guest Looks like a crab.
Bugscope Team they are arachnids, more closely related to spiders
- Bugscope Team rolypolies are crustaceans
- Guest I had no idea. I have learned more in this 30 minutes than all week.
- Bugscope Team rolypolies have gills, but I am not sure what they look like
- Guest the surface of the earwig looks scaley
Bugscope Team yes! that is how the cuticle grows/forms, apparently
- Guest that's interesting!
- 6:08pm
- Bugscope Team the reason insects and other comparable arthropods have setae (hair) is because the cuticle, which is like our fingernails, forms a shell, like a coat of armor
- Guest Kim is making Christmas cards from this image, just saying.
Bugscope Team I took a high-res. image earlier.
- Bugscope Team the head is in the very center but you cannot really tell it's a head
- Guest I think there is a market for Bugscope coffee table books.
- Bugscope Team so anyway, the setae stick through the cuticle, through the armor, and allow the insect to sense its environment
- Bugscope Team setae can be mechanosensory, chemosensory, and thermosensory
- Guest Scott - I think you have to be in charge of the focus for now. We are too excited.
Bugscope Team I don't think I can do much better than this
- Bugscope Team that was a tiny bit better
- Guest Ok.
- Bugscope Team 20 microns is 10 bacteria long, if the bacteria are end to end
- Bugscope Team (lower left, just below the viewing screen)
- Guest Kim - my phone just dropped your call. And I have to go teach now.
- Bugscope Team you can see the head now
- Guest I am going to sign off now. Kim - feel free to ask Scott a few more questions and sign off in a few minutes. I will send you the link to where you can see the images and chat from today!
- Bugscope Team Thanks, Michele.
- Guest Scott - thanks!! Keep a lookout for my package to you this week.
Bugscope Team totally cool
- 6:14pm
- Guest Kim is having a BLAST!!!
Bugscope Team sweet
- Guest is that his head in btw the legs and are those hairs or satea
Bugscope Team they're setae, and the head has a kind of cleft in it there
- Bugscope Team actually the entomologists will call them hairs as well, or bristles, spines, trichae...
- Guest that is so cool!
Bugscope Team it makes you want to know more and more
- Guest I think this image is my favorite
Bugscope Team remind me to link the high-res image to you.
- Guest ok
- Guest then I can print?
- Bugscope Team I'm setting it up now.
- Bugscope Team http://itg.beckman.illinois.edu/~sjrobin/Kim/MITE.TIF
- Bugscope Team it looks kind of gray
- 6:19pm
- Guest thank you Scott
- Bugscope Team but you can modify the contrast a bit
- Guest ok
- Bugscope Team just now was the first time I'd seen it since I took it.
- Bugscope Team http://itg.beckman.illinois.edu/~sjrobin/Bugscope Images/
- Bugscope Team http://itg.beckman.illinois.edu/~sjrobin/MaggiesFarm/
- Bugscope Team those are some other images I have online
- Guest like I was telling Dr. Korb, it is beautiful
Bugscope Team I had saved this sample because of that tiny mite, maybe 200 microns long.
- Bugscope Team http://bugscope.beckman.illinois.edu/members/2011-194
- Guest so before I leave, should I write these urls down or can you email them to me?
- Bugscope Team that last url is the link to the transcript of this session
- Guest ok
- Bugscope Team open a new browser window and copy that, if you'd like
- 6:24pm
- Bugscope Team since you have my email please feel free to ask me later if you have problems
- Bugscope Team is that good for you, today?
- Bugscope Team kind of a good deal the Australians bailed on us
- Guest yes, thank you Scott
- Bugscope Team Thank you, Kim
- Bugscope Team See you on Bugscope in the future. But be sure to let me know if you need help in the meantime.
- Guest I will talk to you again
- Bugscope Team Totally Cool.
- Guest I certainly will, it was awesome spending time with you and Dr. Korb
- Bugscope Team Sweet. Thank you!
- Bugscope Team Over and out!
