Connected on 2012-12-03 10:30:00 from York, South Carolina, United States
- 9:23am
- Bugscope Team we are just about to put the sample in
- 9:28am
- Bugscope Team sample is now in and pumping down
- Bugscope Team as soon as we reach vacuum we will make some adjustments to the 'scope, then start making presets for today's session
- 9:46am
- 9:51am
- 9:57am
- 10:03am
- 10:08am
- 10:20am
- Bugscope Team we are ready to roll!
- 10:31am
- Bugscope Team Hello Ms G!
- Bugscope Team Welcome back!
- Teacher take your time, studnets will be a few monutes gettng here.
- Teacher thanks! It's been a while since I've had a class, been watchingothers at times. We have so many classes, it's hard to get my own time.
- Bugscope Team let us know when you need anything. we are here of course to help and to answer questions
- Teacher fyi I am the technology teacher, so I show students ways tech can help them learn other subjects.
- 10:37am
- Bugscope Team super cool
- Bugscope Team there are many other uses for scanning electron microscopes. besides allowing us to image small 3D things, we can also collect the xrays from those things and perform elemental analysis
- 10:43am
- Bugscope Team this SEM is also capable of imaging samples that are not coated to make them conductive. We can work at 100% relative humidity and image fully hydrated samples as well, although there are a lot of constraints to that.
- 10:49am
- Bugscope Team ha yeah in a way
- Teacher So you can work rain or shine?
Bugscope Team haha Yeah, as long as we have electricity down here, and chilled water, we can work during a tornado even
- Bugscope Team we're 23 feet underground in the Serious Middle of Nowhere, Illinois
- 11:00am
- Teacher Class is here. I am going to do a little intro. I have seen this group in over a week, so they need some info.
Bugscope Team ok
- Teacher ok- can you give them a shout?
- Bugscope Team hi everyone!
- Bugscope Team Hello! Welcome to Bugscope!
- Teacher i wll drive around a bit to generate ?'s
- Bugscope Team this is a grasshopper; maybe that is obvious
- Bugscope Team Hi!
- Bugscope Team you can see its antennae and actually both of its compound eyes
- Bugscope Team now you can just begin to see that the eye is composed of hundreds of tiny facets
- Bugscope Team the facets are called ommatidia, and they function like individual lenses
- Bugscope Team insects are invertebrates, which means that they do not have backbones. but they do not have any bones at all. instead they have what is called an exoskeleton.
- Teacher do grass hoppers have wings?
- Bugscope Team yes they do, when they become adults
- 11:06am
- Bugscope Team one of today's presets is a closeup of this grasshopper's wing
- Teacher ok - we will get to look at the wings later - thanks
- Bugscope Team there are certain grasshoppers known as locusts. normally they are solitary, but as they get more crowded, they turn into this swarm and are super destructive to crops.
- Teacher what are we seeing now? It is part of the swirl
- Bugscope Team you can see the scale bar is about as big as a human hair right now at 50 microns
- Bugscope Team so this puts us right there. one thing we can see is that this seems to be a softer, flexible portion of the cuticle, which is what the exoskeleton is called
- Bugscope Team I'm going to the 'scope to tweak this a bit
- 11:12am
- Bugscope Team it looks like a spine from some other insect stuck to a flexible portion of the grasshopper's antenna
- Bugscope Team we have a mystery right off the bat, not sure what we're seeing exactly
- Teacher awesome! they love it.
- Bugscope Team I don't think we have a good answer for exactly how this got that way
- Teacher we are going to get a close up of the eye now.
- Bugscope Team yea, that's weird and neat.
- Bugscope Team at the lower left margin of the screen you can see the scalebar, which lets us get a good idea of the size of the things we're checking out
- Bugscope Team 200 microns is the same as 200 micrometers; there are a thousand micrometers in a millimeter, so 200 microns is one fifth of a millimeter
- Bugscope Team now we see the ommatidia -- the facets of the compound eye
- Bugscope Team there's lots of them on this grasshopper
- Bugscope Team a large wasp, and also some moths, can have 17,000 ommatidia per compound eye
- 11:18am
- Bugscope Team there are different types of ommatidia, one type allows insects to see better in the dark
- Bugscope Team we can see that the compound eye is covered with a kind of oily film, and we also see this little flattened sheet of something stuck to the surface of the eye
Bugscope Team some kind of scale from another insect?
- Bugscope Team I moved us to the closer compound eye, thinking that it might be cleaner, but it is not. it has scales on it, as Joe says
- Bugscope Team you can see the predominant shape of each ommatidium
- Teacher ....after we talk about what you are writing now. :)
- 11:23am
- Teacher cool!! most here would not like to have these eyes even if they have super powers. okay we are ready to look at a wing.
Bugscope Team you can click on the wing preset if you would like
Bugscope Team hahaha, that's true! if they did have these eyes, their heads would just be eyes in order to get a good resolution.
- Bugscope Team this is a scale from some other critter sitting on the grasshopper wing
- Bugscope Team the ridges can produce what are called 'structural colors,' which change depending on the angle at which you view them
- Bugscope Team insect scales can have pigment granules in them that produce colors, from the pigment; the same scales can also produce colors just because of the ridges we see now, which interfere with light
Bugscope Team these scales are the structures that are responsible for the colours you see on moths' and butterflies' wings
- Bugscope Team yes we should be sure to tell you that scales do not normally appear on grasshopper wings
- 11:28am
- Bugscope Team now we can also see tiny scales on this millipede, and they came from an insect as well, not the millipede
- Teacher can you tell us about the hairs we are seeing?
Bugscope Team the hairs here are actually called setae. They help the insect sense what is going on around it like sense of touch
- Bugscope Team well in this case the millipede
- Bugscope Team these same setae are also present on grasshoppers, and in certain species, are what senses their crowding conditions, which can lead to them forming into a swarm of locust.
- Bugscope Team this is a fly's head
- Bugscope Team that part there is its mouth parts
- 11:34am
- Bugscope Team because insects and similar arthropods have exoskeletons, which are like shells (like a shrimp shell) or like a suit of armor, the setae help (as Cate said) collect information about the environment
- Bugscope Team the ridge we see, to the lower left now, is the mouth of the fly -- the sponging mouthparts
- Teacher we have to make a change and will be back in a few moments.
- Bugscope Team a house fly has a lapping mouth part, they sort of use this to sponge juices up
- Bugscope Team that's what I was thinking of Scot
- 11:39am
- Teacher while we make a change, one studnets wants to know....what is the most rare bug you have viewed with this microscope?
Bugscope Team we have looked at a number of parasitoid wasps that had never been even named before
Bugscope Team a few years ago we looked at a fly from Israel that was one of only six known examples
- Bugscope Team the guy who found the fly in Israel was a giant bodybuilder guy from Germany, super nice guy, who studied super tiny flies
- Bugscope Team he was very protective of the fly -- did not want us to accidentally smash it
- Bugscope Team Cate took images of about 350 of those parasitoid wasps.
- 11:44am
- Teacher the wasp with no name.....I'll see what my group would say about that. Here they come. Let me know when we have to stop.
Bugscope Team the guy who collected the wasps gave them all names -- the first time they had ever been named. That was Dr Marsh, speaking of names.
- Bugscope Team what Dr Marsh told us is that there is apparently a parasitoid wasp not only for every insect that exists, but also for every life stage of an insect
- Bugscope Team the parasitoids inject their eggs into target insects, and the eggs grow into larvae that eat their way out
- Teacher We now have an all-girl class. 3rd grade. lots of comments here1
- Bugscope Team this fly is missing the branched (aristate) part of its antennae, and we can see that it has also lost its front legs
- Bugscope Team this is almost certainly a female fly
- 11:50am
- Bugscope Team the eyes
- Bugscope Team with many flies, you can differentiate males from females because the eyes of the males are close together, almost touching, whereas the eyes of the females are far apart. It's like Mikhail Baryshnikov and Uma Thurman.
- Teacher how do you know it is female?
Bugscope Team female flies have eyes that are farther apart.
- Teacher We never heard that before.
- Bugscope Team with moths you can often tell by the antennae, which are more frilly on males, and the same goes for mosquitoes
- Bugscope Team with most insects we cannot tell if they are males or females from the outside
- Teacher what are the lumps on the top of the head?
- Bugscope Team this is the head of a spider, here you can barely make out that it has 8 eyes
- Bugscope Team with spiders we can often tell males from females because in males the pedipalps are bulbous, whereas in females they are more slender, as here
- 11:56am
- Bugscope Team the females can also be much larger in some spider species
- Bugscope Team again, we see these hairs or setae on its body, these are used for sensing its environment
- Bugscope Team spiders have what is called a 'cephalothorax,' meaning that its head and chest or trunk area are one single piece
- Bugscope Team insects have a head, a thorax, an abdomen (which a spider has as well), six legs, and two antennae
- Teacher what does... males the pedipalps are bulbous....mean?
- Bugscope Team bulbous means round kind of like a balloon
- Teacher pedipalps?
- Bugscope Team the pedipalps, which are extra limbs, or feelers, come out of the front of the head, and in males they are swollen, like a balloon as Cate says, or like large boxing gloves
- Bugscope Team insects have two sets of small palps, usually, that help them both taste and maneuver prospective food into their mouths
- 12:01pm
- Bugscope Team so the 'pedi-' means that they are kind of like feet, and 'palp' is like the word 'palpate,' meaning 'to feel'
- Bugscope Team this is a male ant -- now that we have told you it is hard to tell genders in insects, we know how to tell in a few
- Bugscope Team it is easy to tell the difference with earwigs
- Bugscope Team now we can see the fly's compound eye very well -- good job driving!
- Bugscope Team lots of facets to this compound eye
- Bugscope Team ooh nice focus
- 12:06pm
- Teacher the girls are taking turns now- thanks!
- Bugscope Team compound eyes have so many lenses -- the ommatidia. one thing that makes them helpful to insects that have them is they update very quickly in the brain -- they are very sensitive to motion
- Bugscope Team also, compound eyes give insects far better peripheral vision
- Teacher we are going into the mouth now....why does he have spikes in there?
- Bugscope Team those spikes are likely mechanosensory, like cat or rat whiskers; some of them are chemosensory, to allow the fly to taste its food; and some are thermosensory, to let the fly know what is hot and what is cold
- Bugscope Team some of the spikes likely also help the fly by sticking to the food it wants to suck up
- 12:12pm
- Bugscope Team this is cool
- Bugscope Team you can see that the honeybee has lots of setae, even on its compound eyes
- Teacher we like the new big words. thanks
- Bugscope Team bee setae are branched, unlike those on almost all other insect
- Bugscope Team insects...
- Bugscope Team setae are what we call the things that look like hairs
- Bugscope Team see-tee
- Bugscope Team singular is seta
- Bugscope Team seta is latin for bristle
- Bugscope Team the branched setae help the bee collect pollen on other parts of its body
- Bugscope Team like Seta Palin
- Teacher Ha1 I'll tell that one to the older group:).
- Bugscope Team sorry that is not nice, I know
- Bugscope Team so the big question is what is this? I am not sure
- Teacher she is looking for the honeybee eye
Bugscope Team that is to the right; likely easier to take the magnification down first
- 12:17pm
- Bugscope Team there you can see it now in the lower right corner
- Bugscope Team good job driving!
- Bugscope Team you can see the ommatidia now
- Bugscope Team the individual facets of the compound eye -- the lenses\
- Bugscope Team we see setae coming out of fruitfly eyes as well, and there they are said to help the fly sense wind speed and direction
- Bugscope Team I can fix this on the microscope itself...
- Bugscope Team that was easier...
- Bugscope Team you can see one of the branched setae
- 12:22pm
- Bugscope Team and you can see the general shape of each ommatidium
- Teacher they look like pine trees and rocks
Bugscope Team yes they do!
- Bugscope Team basalt rocks
- Teacher going to the millipede now
- Bugscope Team the main difference at first glance between millipedes and centipedes is millipedes are rounder like worms. Centipedes are flat.
- Bugscope Team also, millipedes have two sets of legs per segment and centipedes have one
- Bugscope Team this is the head of a female earwig
- Bugscope Team it is pretty gunked up, pretty dirty
- Bugscope Team its face is covered with some kind of juju
- 12:28pm
- Bugscope Team Ms G we are going to have to let someone else use the microscope at 12:30 here
- Bugscope Team let's go to the mite, quickly, and then we have to quit
- Teacher okay... thanks so much we all enjoyed getting up close and personal with the insects. we like out new words too1
- Bugscope Team glad you all enjoyed it!
- Bugscope Team that is a mite on the body of the earwig, with a scale from an insect on its back
- Bugscope Team Thank You!
- Bugscope Team we had a really good time with you all today
- Bugscope Team Thank You, and we look forward to seeing you next year!
- Bugscope Team https://bugscope.beckman.illinois.edu/members/2012-074
- Bugscope Team below is a link to this session
- Bugscope Team Bye!!!...
