Connected on 2012-03-20 11:45:00 from Orange, California, United States
- 11:16am
- Bugscope Team sample is pumping down and we are about ready to start on presets
- 11:21am
- 11:27am
- 11:34am
- 11:39am
- 11:46am
- 11:53am
- Bugscope Team hi!
- Teacher Hi my name is Sara
- Bugscope Team Welcome to Bugscope!
- Teacher Thank you
- Bugscope Team Sara you have control of the microscope now.
- 11:58am
- Bugscope Team so you can, for example, use the controls above the image to change the mag, etc.
- Bugscope Team you can also click on the blue/white lefthand arrow to bring the lefthand screen to the center.
- Bugscope Team ha of course you already have it working...
- Bugscope Team this is an ant's claw, reaching out toward us
- Teacher What our we looking at
Bugscope Team the 2 bigger curved spikes are the claws
- Bugscope Team the ant has six legs, and each leg has a claw at the tip
- Bugscope Team you can see there are a lot of little spikes and those are all setae (pronounced see-tee), which are basically bug hairs
- Bugscope Team insects have a head; a thorax, which all of the legs are attached to; six legs; an abdomen; and two antennae.
- Teacher what do they use their claws for
Bugscope Team kind of the same things we use our hands for -- to grasp things
- Bugscope Team between the claws are fine setae, some of which are sticky and help the ant cling to smooth surfaces
- 12:04pm
- Teacher Is there a purpose for the hair
Bugscope Team insect exoskeletons aren't sensitive like our skins are, so they need those hairs for feedback about their surroundings. Like when they are touching something. They are similar to cat whiskers
- Bugscope Team the hairs (setae) can be mechano (touch) sensory, chemo (smell or scent) sensory, and/or thermo (temperature) sensory, among other properties.
- Teacher do they use there claws for protection or war
Bugscope Team some insects use them to help wrestle other insects
- Teacher Is the flies claw sticky
Bugscope Team the individual setae, which we can see now, on those two split pads toward the bottom of the screen, are sticky
- 12:10pm
- Bugscope Team a pad with sticky 'tenent' setae on it is called the 'pulvillus'
- Teacher What do you think it looks simaler to
Bugscope Team in this case the pads we see look like tropical flowers, like ginger
- Teacher What parts of the flie helps them move away from a flie swater
Bugscope Team their eyes see movement really fast. So fast that when a human moves looks like slow motion. They also have special hairs that can sense changes in wind direction, so they probably take a cue from that to move
- Teacher Do the flies claws help in the same way as ant claws
Bugscope Team yes they do!
- Bugscope Team this is the hatch where the larva of the jumping bean moth comes in and eventually leaves
- 12:17pm
- Teacher What inside of the hatch
Bugscope Team if you take the magnification down you will see that this is a trapdoor built into the jumping bean
- Bugscope Team there, we did it
- Bugscope Team there's nothing behind it right now, because the moth already emerged
- Bugscope Team that is where we were looking
- Bugscope Team this was an exceptionally neat moth, and it closed the door behind it when it left
- Teacher Why is the insect called Mexican Jumping Bean
- Bugscope Team one reason there are scales all over is because the moth struggled a bit to get out
- 12:22pm
- Bugscope Team scales also function like feathers do on a bird's wing, giving it lift in the air; they also form the colors we see on the wings
- Teacher Why do the moths have scales
Bugscope Team moths, butterflies, mosquitoes, and silverfish have scales, and one thing that scales do for them is protect them when they fly or run into spider webs. the scales get stuck to the web and come off easily, allowing the insect to escape
Bugscope Team another thing scales do is give the butterflies/moths coloring. In a lot of cases that coloring is a defensive mechanism. It could give the wings an appearance of eyes or could give them a bright coloring to warn off other creatures
- Teacher What is the crack in the hatch
Bugscope Team we might have broken it ourselves when we put the bean down on the stub
- Teacher What is this
Bugscope Team this is the head of a moth. The curly thing is the proboscis, which it uses to drink from like a straw. The 2 big round parts are the compound eyes.
- 12:28pm
- Bugscope Team most moths drink from plants, but there is a moth that drinks blood!
- Bugscope Team scales are actually modified setae (hairs) as well; the moth is covered with them
- Bugscope Team it also has a bit of a mohawk
Bugscope Team they are surprisingly stylish
- Teacher What are compound eyes
Bugscope Team it means they are made up of many facets that each is like a lens that acquires an image
- Bugscope Team when the moth wants to drink nectar from deep within a flower, it forces hemolymph (insect 'blood') into the proboscis, which makes it extend like a party favor on New Year's Eve
- Bugscope Team when the moth was alive it did not have all of this fungus on its compound eye, nor all of those loose scales
- 12:33pm
- Bugscope Team to make the samples I put the insects on an aluminum disk that is covered in carbon tape. The tape helps ground any charge and also help the insects stick on. The holes around the insect are from the tape
- Teacher what is the hole in the back
Bugscope Team that is at the tip of the abdomen, where it excretes waste, called 'frass'
- Teacher why is it so ugly
Bugscope Team it is naturally ugly, in part; also it is dry and a bit shriveled; also its proboscis is broken
- 12:38pm
- Bugscope Team hello CNote!
- Teacher How big is it i9n real life
- Bugscope Team see where the scale bar says 500 microns? that is half a millimeter
- Bugscope Team it's super tiny
- Bugscope Team it is only about 2 millimeters long
- Teacher How long can a bed bug last
Bugscope Team they can live for about a year and can lay up to 12 eggs per day
- Bugscope Team bedbugs can go without eating for months
- 12:43pm
- Teacher How come it looks like a square when it is under the microscope\
- Bugscope Team this is salt from wendy's restaurant
- Bugscope Team i was telling Scot earlier that it looked like the cube from the Portal video game
- Teacher what is the black lines
Bugscope Team behind the cube? That is another feature of the carbon tape
- Teacher Why are there tiny cubes on the salt
Bugscope Team crystals of sodium chloride (table salt) form cubes. with this kind of salt, the cube forming has been disrupted by (we think) another chemical that is added to keep the salt from clumping. but the sodium chloride still forms tiny cubes. it's really kind of cool.
- Bugscope Team the moth eye has fungus on it
- 12:48pm
- Bugscope Team when things die, fungus and bacteria come from the air, from spores in the air, and settle on the dead things, feeding off of them and making them decay quickly
- Teacher Why does it have so many eyes on its eye
Bugscope Team The better to see you with! Flying insects tend to have more facets so they can get a more detailed view around them. They also allow them to see almost 360 degrees around
- Teacher How do the eyes get fungus on them
Bugscope Team once the insect dies, fungal spores land on it and fungus starts growing
- Teacher How many sets of eyes does it have
Bugscope Team it has 2 big compound eyes but probably thousands of ommatidia (facets)
- Bugscope Team moths also have three 'simple' eyes called ocelli on the tops of their heads
- 12:55pm
- Bugscope Team because they are formed from many facets, and the facets are oriented to many directions, compound eyes are very sensitive to movement -- as the visual field changes they can pick up on that very quickly. so it is good to have lots of lenses like that.
- Teacher If they only have one set ofeyes would they survive better
Bugscope Team the very big compound eyes help them. So the more facets they have the better they can survive, especially for flying insects. Regular ants that live in the ground have much smaller eyes, but they depend on their antennae for their information
- Teacher Hoow much does the electron microscope cost
Bugscope Team The scanning electron microscope you are using right now cost $600,000 in 1999.
- Teacher What would you need to become a sciencetest to study bugs
Bugscope Team if you started out with a degree in biology, you could easily begin to specialize in college; later, in graduate school, you could study insects almost exclusively.
- Teacher Can youy zoom in all the way
- Teacher How many years of schooling did it take to do mthis
Bugscope Team you can do it with a college degree, and really it is not hard; we've done it for more than a few years now
- Bugscope Team the main part of the microscope is about as big as a fridge
- Teacher What does the electron microscope look l;ike\
Bugscope Team it looks kind of like a desk with a computer on it, with electronics boxes and also a separate square table with the column on it that is about 6 feet high
- 1:00pm
- Bugscope Team http://itg.beckman.illinois.edu/microscopy_suite/equipment/images/esem1.gif is a picture
- Bugscope Team you can also access all the chat and images from today by going to your member page
- Bugscope Team you can see that those fine features of one ommatidium are less than 500 nanometers in diameter
- Bugscope Team http://bugscope.beckman.uiuc.edu/members/2012-012
- Teacher Thank you this was a great expirence., Thanks for your time we really appricate it. I wish we could do this more often From Mrs. Hawkins class
Bugscope Team see you next year! please apply soon for next year, because we want to see you again and we have been busy lately.
- Bugscope Team Thank You!
- Bugscope Team CNote please let us know if you have any questions. We have a few minutes before we need to shut the 'scope down.
- 1:06pm
- Bugscope Team alright we are shutting down...
- Bugscope Team Thank you for connecting with us today!
