Connected on 2012-04-02 10:00:00 from York, Pennsylvania, United States
- 8:59am
- Bugscope Team sample is pumping down
- 9:26am
- Bugscope Team Hello ZB!
- Bugscope Team we are waiting for the vacuum to get just a bit better before we start making presets for today's session.
- Bugscope Team where are you from?
- Bugscope Team Oh and I should have said Welcome to Bugscope!
- Bugscope Team Hello ZB!
- Guest Hello.
- Bugscope Team so presently you have a view of the vacuum chamber, where the bugs are, until we can turn the electron beam on.
- Guest I'm from Pennsylvania.
Bugscope Team Cool!
- Bugscope Team in a few minutes we should be able to start
- Bugscope Team we'll be making adjustments to the 'scope, briefly, and then start finding interesting places on the stub for today's school
- Bugscope Team are you with the school in York?
- Bugscope Team Southwest York?
- 9:34am
- Bugscope Team good morning SWYH!
- Teacher Hello! We are the homeschool group from York Coutny PA.
- Teacher Hi Zoe! Zoe is signing on as our guest today from another location.
- Bugscope Team we are connecting with you officially at 11 your time, correct?
- Bugscope Team right now we are just starting to make the presets for your session. it took the vacuum a bit long to pump down
- Teacher Yes--11am
Bugscope Team totally cool
- 9:40am
- 9:46am
- 9:51am
- Teacher Did our bugs arrive in time to be prepared for use today?
Bugscope Team I don't have them, I'm sorry.
- Teacher Ok.
- Bugscope Team I hope you like what we have today.
- 9:57am
- Teacher I'm sure it will be great.
- Bugscope Team we are ready to roll anytime now
- 10:02am
- Teacher SO are we!
- Bugscope Team moth and butterfly scales are notoriously difficult to keep from charging up with electrons
- Bugscope Team note that you have the ability to focus, which is up or down
- Bugscope Team but since I am sitting at the SEM, I can help sometimes
- Bugscope Team you're at 100,000x, and it is not always easy to find things to look at, at super high mag like this
- Teacher Yes, a little help with focus would be good, my computer seems a little slow.
- Bugscope Team you can see the latticework in an individual wing scale
- Bugscope Team scales produce the colors we see on butterfly and moth wings
- 10:07am
- Bugscope Team the colors can be both structural and pigmented
- Bugscope Team this is really too high to see anything
- Bugscope Team when we use the scanning electron microscope for Bugscope we have the specimens at a long working distance so you can go to reasonably high mag but also see all or most of a particular specimen
- Bugscope Team the ridges we see now are about 2 micrometers apart, the length of many bacilli -- rod-shaped bacteria
- Bugscope Team the ridges interfere with the wavelengths of visible light and produce structural colors
- Bugscope Team you can select from any of the presets on the left, if you wish
- Teacher How many scales are on a butterfly wing?
Bugscope Team 10's to 100's of thousands
- Bugscope Team and we are looking at one, up close; this is the powder that falls from a butterfly's wing as you stroke it
- Bugscope Team we do not see pigment granules here; if they were here they would be in those interstices
- Teacher How big is one scale?
Bugscope Team let'
- Bugscope Team oops
- 10:12am
- Bugscope Team let's take the mag down and see how big a scale is
- Bugscope Team these are about 50 microns (micrometers) wide and perhaps 200 to 250 microns long.
- Bugscope Team see how they glow?
- Bugscope Team that is because they are loose, and that makes them hard to image. but that looseness is what helps save the life of the insect when it flies into a spiderweb
- Teacher how do they glow?
Bugscope Team they are not conductive, and even though we have coated them with gold-palladium, they charge up with electrons
- Teacher do scales grow back after they come off?
Bugscope Team no. insects with wings are adults, and they do not molt or grow anymore.
- Bugscope Team if an insect or arthropod goes through a number of molts, it can recover broken limbs, but once as insect has wings, that is it
- Teacher so as long as the butterfly doesn't leave too many scales on the spiderweb--it has enough others left to be ok?
Bugscope Team exactly!
- Bugscope Team mosquitoes have scales as well, and silverfish
- 10:17am
- Bugscope Team few insects, relatively, have scales
- Bugscope Team this is the base of the proboscis, and it is torn a bit
- Bugscope Team the female mosquitoes, like this, are the ones that bite; they require a blood meal in order to be able to successfully lay their eggs
- Bugscope Team this actually looks like it was chewed upon by mites
- Bugscope Team see the mold spores?
- Bugscope Team also, a piece of a scale
- Bugscope Team mold spores resemble pollen but are smaller and usually have smaller spines or bumps
- Teacher what do mosquitos eat when they aren't having a blood meal?
Bugscope Team nectar from flowers, or nothing
- Bugscope Team the males may or may not eat, but if they eat, it is nectar
- Teacher so mosquitos are pollinators?
Bugscope Team I am not sure if they are considered pollinators, but certainly they could be...
- Bugscope Team we don't find them covered with pollen
- Teacher do the larva eat?
Bugscope Team yes, in the water
- 10:23am
- Teacher how do you tell the difference between male and female mosquitos?
Bugscope Team male mosquitos have big frilly antennae, while the female antennae are much more simple
- Teacher why do mosquito bites itch?
Bugscope Team we have a reaction to the saliva that is injected to help thin our blood so it doesn't clot
- Bugscope Team these are ommatidia -- the eye facets
- Bugscope Team they shrivel after the mosquitoes die
- Bugscope Team normally they are pumped up, round, like basketballs
- Bugscope Team see the antennae?
- Teacher How many eye facets are on one eye?
Bugscope Team I think only several hundred. Some wasps can have 17,000 ommatidia per compound eye.
- Teacher ZB are you still with us?
- Bugscope Team we can tell this is a female because she has simple antennae
- Guest Yeah. This is really interesting.
- 10:29am
- Teacher do wasps see 17,000 images or does it all combine into one image in their brain?
Bugscope Team it seems to be a combination, like watching a mosaic of images that constantly moves
- Teacher do they have brains?
Bugscope Team they have brains that are proportional to their size
- Bugscope Team having compound eyes give insects much better peripheral vision, of course, and it also allows them to perceive motion much more quickly than we do
- Bugscope Team this is the proboscis, which is slit, like a sheath, for the fascicle, which is what the bundle of biting parts is called
- Bugscope Team It may also have to do with breathing, because mosquitoes can detect CO2.
- Teacher how do mosquitos choose who to bite? Some people get more bites than others
Bugscope Team some people taste better, or actually smell better
Bugscope Team genetics accounts for most of it. Scientists are trying to study what compounds attract mosquitos
- Bugscope Team people that produce excess uric acid tend to lure more mosquitos
- 10:34am
- Teacher lady bugs like these, right?
Bugscope Team yes, they can eat up to 50 a day!
- Teacher how do mosquitos mates?
Bugscope Team they are said to mate in midair, and it takes perhaps 15 seconds. but there are a lot of species, and I'm sure there are exceptions. Some likely mate while they are not flying
- Bugscope Team good job driving!
- Bugscope Team you zeroed in on one of the compound eyes, of course. you can see that it has few ommatidia
- Bugscope Team looks like 75 to 100; I'm sure some graduate student has counted them
- Teacher Are compound eyes a trait of all insects?
Bugscope Team no. some insects have simple eyes, or both compound and simple eyes (ocelli); some insects do not bother to have eyes, like termites and some ants
- Teacher We are getting wiggly here. I'd like to turn control of the microscope over to ZB for the time being. Ok ZB?
- Bugscope Team some ants can see very well, and some just barely; ants, like many insects, communicate best using chemical signals
- Teacher Yay for Anna, our driver! How many eye facets for aphids?
Bugscope Team there could be around 100 or so on each eye
- Teacher Do you have a tick we can see?
Bugscope Team no ticks today
- 10:39am
- Teacher Would spiders have both types of eyes?
Bugscope Team spiders have what look like simple eyes to us, but one of our entomologist friends told me this weekend that those eight eyes can vary greatly in their capabilities
- Bugscope Team some spiders can see very well, but many cannot and rely more on their ability to sense vibration
- Bugscope Team ZB you have control of the microscope
- Bugscope Team this is a silverfish
- Teacher So if spiders can see very well, what is the need for 8 or more eyes?
Bugscope Team since they don't have big bulbous compound eyes that can see almost 360 degrees around them, the 8 eyes probably help to do the same function. I find they are usually placed on the head in a circular way
- Bugscope Team the spiders with weaker eyesight probably get a lot of directional information from the shadows they see
- 10:45am
- Bugscope Team bacteria!
- Bugscope Team this is pretty cool
- Bugscope Team they're on scales on the silverfish's head
- Bugscope Team rare that they look so good
- Teacher Do the scales on the silverfish act the same way that they do on a butterfly wing?
Bugscope Team in many ways they do; note of course that they reflect silver light
- Bugscope Team and yes, they protect the silverfish from spider webs
- Bugscope Team as far as we've seen they don't have pigment granules like butterfly scales tend to have
- Bugscope Team it has been said that scales without holes through them represent a more primitive state
- Bugscope Team scales are modified setae
- Bugscope Team setae are what the hairs are that we've been seeing
- Teacher So the silver colour we see on silverfish is just based on the light that reflects off of their scales?
Bugscope Team I believe that is true. The silver comes from the spacing of the ridges we are seeing now.
- 10:50am
- Bugscope Team like the way a record, which is black, usually, reflects colored light from its grooves
- Bugscope Team setae are what insects and similar arthropods use to sense touch, wind, smell, hot/cold...
- Teacher What are we looking at now?
Bugscope Team this is the head of the silverfish
- Bugscope Team the setae on here are really pretty
- Bugscope Team and now we see on the left, the base of one of the antennae
- Bugscope Team scales and setae, and microsetae can also help an insect with thermoregulation
- Teacher What sort of eyes do silverfish have?
Bugscope Team they have very few facets on the side of the head
- Bugscope Team they have compound eyes but they are likely not super good
- Bugscope Team ZB is doing a very good job driving as well
- Teacher Yay ZB!
- Guest Thanks. :) Sorry I took so long to notice that I could control it.
- Bugscope Team I will take you to the eyes if you would like
- Teacher I'd like that :)
- Guest Sure.
- Bugscope Team some of the setae, or spines, or bristles, are for proprioception
- 10:56am
- Teacher Proprioception?
Bugscope Team self sensing -- so that you know if your limb is extended, or overextended, for example
- Bugscope Team whoa there are bacteria on the eye
- Teacher So how many facets do silverfish have?
- Bugscope Team bacteria can form biofilms, which is what makes them dangerous because they can be bad bacteria and also hard to wash off of food
- Teacher On their eyes that is...
Bugscope Team looks like around 9-10
- Bugscope Team wasps and many other flying insects, bees etc., have what are called ocelli on the tops of their heads. ocelli are simple eyes that usually come in threes, and they (moths have them too) help the insect keep its orientation with respect to the sun, or the moon
- Bugscope Team these bacteria do not have a biofilm protecting them
- Bugscope Team biofilms are self produced environments that the bacteria can swim around in
- 11:01am
- Bugscope Team I had to help someone with the transmisssion electron microscope (TEM) for a sec.
- Bugscope Team silverfish are usually on my list of bugs to squish instantly without thinking when i see them in my house, along with centipedes
- Bugscope Team let's look at the wasp, when you are ready
- Bugscope Team when you drive, you can click on any of the presets on the lefthand screen
- 11:06am
- Teacher Have you seen Microcosmos?
Bugscope Team I haven't.
- Bugscope Team i think I might have in high school
- Bugscope Team I just put the trailer up.
- Bugscope Team cool!
- Teacher Someof us watched it yesterday to get in the mood for Bugscope. It is a fabulous documentary available on Netflix. It isn't narrated, you are just watching bugs close-up. Very, very good.
- Bugscope Team wasps are related to ants and to bees
- Bugscope Team the trailer I have on is in French
- Bugscope Team see how the wasp has two wings on each side?
- Teacher Yes, it's a French film
- Bugscope Team wasps and bees, among some other flying insects, have four wings
- Bugscope Team one thing that does is help them fold their wings when they go into the hive
- Bugscope Team except for the queen ant, who can fly until she lands back in the nest, having been fertilized, and her attendants pull her wings off
- Bugscope Team you can see that the wing has a hole I must have poked into it
- Bugscope Team and it has tiny setae called microsetae
- 11:11am
- Bugscope Team anyway, when wasps and bees fly, they connect their fore- and hindwings
- Bugscope Team so even where we are now we can see the hamuli that use to connect their wings
- Bugscope Team you can see spiracles now as well
- Bugscope Team this is the thorax, mostly
- Bugscope Team limbs are attached to the thorax
- Bugscope Team the wasp is making gang signs, but we don
- Bugscope Team don't know what they mean
- Teacher such amazing detail
- Bugscope Team this is the abdomen
- Bugscope Team it has lots of microsetae on it that help it reflect light as well as help with thermoregulation -- sometimes the same thing
- Bugscope Team these setae do not extend through the cuticle -- through the chitin -- like the large setae we see that are connected to nerves on the inside of the body
- 11:16am
- Bugscope Team the spiracles are breathing pores
- Bugscope Team here we can see a number of claws
- Bugscope Team between the claws are pads, called pulvilli, that have lots of setae on them, called tenent setae, that help the wasp walk on vertical surfaces
- Bugscope Team this is beautiful
- Bugscope Team those central spines help the wasp sense when it is grasping something
- Bugscope Team the pulvillus is in the middle. it is kind of heart shaped right now
- Bugscope Team the pulvillus is a little sticky pad full of little hairs
- 11:21am
- Bugscope Team this wasp likely has 5000 to 7000 ommatidia
- Bugscope Team it also has ocelli, but we do not see them
- Bugscope Team the ommatidia are a bit shriveled since the wasp died
- Bugscope Team this is one of the spiracles through which the wasp breathes
- 11:27am
- Bugscope Team all of the images you see are collected onto your member page
- Bugscope Team as well as the chat text
- Bugscope Team so you can see it all later
- Bugscope Team http://bugscope.beckman.illinois.edu/members/2011-197
- Teacher Thank you!
- Teacher We've lost our young kids here. Do you have anything else ZB?
- Guest Nope. Thanks for inviting me!
- Bugscope Team hey that happens with young kids.
- Bugscope Team we can let you go anytime you wish
- Bugscope Team of course
- Teacher This was great. We are making a day of it. We started with go-fish played with insect flashcards. Next we will make scoops of ice cream look like bugs by decorating with candy. :)
Bugscope Team haha and then eat them?
- Teacher Hope you get to see Microcosmos. IT's the perfect compliment to the bugscope program!
- Bugscope Team we'll check it out
- Bugscope Team Thank you!
- Teacher Thanks for all the great info. THis was a fabulous experience for everydbody!
- Bugscope Team Thank you, Everyone!
- Teacher Bye!
- Guest This was great. Bye!
- Bugscope Team Bye!
- Bugscope Team Bye ZB!
