Session 2012-079 with Moyock Elementary School

Application

The School

The Class

The Project

Miscellaneous

Live Session Transcript

Connected on 2013-02-04 10:00:00 from Currituck, North Carolina, United States

• 9:02am
• Bugscope Team sample is almost pumped down
• 9:10am

• 9:19am

• Bugscope Team Joyce!
• Bugscope Team Did you get my email message? I can call if you would like.
• Guest Hi everybody in Illinois! Got it!
• Bugscope Team super cool
• Guest We are just checking in early so that we can see how the system works and also so that the children can see how things work.

• Guest Do I need to log back in as the teacher once our time starts?
• Bugscope Team you may if you'd like
• Bugscope Team we can give you control as a Guest as well
• 9:24am

• 9:30am

• Bugscope Team please hold off on driving 'til we have everything set up...

• 9:35am

• 9:41am

• Bugscope Team if you want, you can drive around now

• Bugscope Team we are ready to roll!

• Bugscope Team please let us know when you have questions -- about anything
• 9:46am

• Bugscope Team this is pretty cool

• Bugscope Team you can see scales on the moth's compound eye

• Bugscope Team loose scales...
• Guest Hi Scot! I hope you have had a good time being a scientist. My name is Ashlyn.
• Bugscope Team Hi Ashlyn!
• Bugscope Team we have a lot of fun doing Bugscope, but we don't only look at bugs. We also get to look at projects that other people are researching when they come down and want to use the microscopes.
• 9:52am
• Bugscope Team Hi Ashlyn!
• Bugscope Team it is super cool getting to do what we do
• Bugscope Team we help people do their research by training them to use the microscopes down here
• Bugscope Team we don'
• Bugscope Team t get to work with entomolgists very often but it is fun too
• Bugscope Team ah sorry I could not spell 'entomologist' correctly the first time
• Guest Hi everybody! I think we are ready and the children are loaded with questions for you. I must say that I am soooo glad that I found you so many years ago. It has been nothing but a pleasure to share this wonderful techno opportunity with my students.
• Bugscope Team sweet!
• Bugscope Team we have been doing this since March 1999
• 9:58am
• Bugscope Team be sure and let us know when you have questions, and also -- let us know if you need any help with the controls

• Bugscope Team looks like you are doing quite well
• Guest This is Ashlyn driving the SEM.
• Bugscope Team this is from a lily
• Bugscope Team good job, Ashlyn!

• Bugscope Team we think it is likely that most lily pollen looks like this

• Bugscope Team stargazer lily pollen looks just the same as this, at least to us; this pollen is from an orange lily

• Guest Ryan asks, "What kind of insects do you work on the most?"

• Guest Ashlyn saysm
• Bugscope Team we get a lot of ladybugs, elm bark beetles, sometimes stinkbugs
• Bugscope Team we have looked at a lot of parasitic wasps and longhorned beetles
• Bugscope Team we like mosquitos too
• Guest Oops, sorry. Ashlyn says, "That's interesting."
• Bugscope Team parasitoid wasps lay their eggs in other insects' eggs and also in their larvae

• Guest Kayla asks, "Why do you just study bugs...and some other stuff?"
• Guest Ashlyn asks, "What IS that?"

• Bugscope Team it is so cool looking

• 10:03am
• Bugscope Team we think it has an anticaking agent in it that gives it that incised pattern. normal table salt is smooth on all six sides
• Guest Tristan asks, "What is an orange lily?"
• Bugscope Team the orange lily was from a flower arrangement one of my friends got
• Bugscope Team it's a type of flower where we got the pollen grains from

• Guest Avery asks,
• Guest Avery asks, "How long did it take you to find all those bugs?"
• Guest Sharon is our driver now!
• Bugscope Team here you can see the beetle's compound eye, with all of its tiny facets, called ommatidia, that are like lenses
• Bugscope Team Yay Sharon!

• Bugscope Team sometimes people send or give us insects and sometimes we find them already dead in or around our houses
• Bugscope Team please let us know if the preset gets 'stuck' in one place
• Guest Garrett asks, "What kinds of bugs do you study?"

• Bugscope Team having compound eyes is helpful for insects because they can see more of what is around them without turning their heads
• Guest Aiden asks, "How many eyes does beetle have?"

• Bugscope Team also, compound eyes are very sensitive to changes in the visual field, so insects with compound eyes can see things moving around them very quickly
• Bugscope Team beetles have 2 compound eyes, but there could be hundreds of facets, or ommatidia, on those compound eyes
• 10:08am
• Bugscope Team this one seems to have hundreds of individual facets in each compound eye, as Cate says
• Bugscope Team some large wasps can have as many as 17,000 ommatidia per compound eye

• Bugscope Team it looks mostly like dust or dirt
• Bugscope Team yes it is mostly dirt; sometimes we do see pollen, and mold spores, and sometimes bacteria
• Guest Alexis asks, "How long does a Monarch butterfly stay alive?"

• Bugscope Team they live for about a month or two

• Bugscope Team for the most part
• Guest Jacob asks, "Is there a plant that a Monarch caterpillar blends in with?"
• Bugscope Team although some can live much longer
• Bugscope Team they are said to live from 4 to 6 weeks to as long as 8 months depending on what generation of the season they are part of
• Bugscope Team the ones that migrate can live for longer
• Bugscope Team monarchs don't really need to blend. they are poisonous to a lot of animals
• Bugscope Team I don't believe there is a plant that hides the monarch caterpillar
• Bugscope Team the bright colors they have on their wings help warn other creatures of that.

• Bugscope Team because they eat milkweed, they are poisonous
• Bugscope Team their larvae feed on milkweed, which has toxins that the larvae store as they feed
• 10:13am
• Guest Allison asks, "How does the machine work?"
• Bugscope Team Cate put some milkweed on the stub today so you could see what it looks like

• Bugscope Team the specimens we are looking at are dry, and we coat them with a very fine layer of gold-palladium to make them conductive
• Bugscope Team we put them in the vacuum chamber of the scanning electron microscope after they have been coated
• Bugscope Team once the vacuum chamber is pumped out, we turn on the electron beam, which then scans across the specimens
• Guest Daniel asks, "What do you do with the bugs when you are done?"
• Guest Tristan is driving and asks, "How do beetles eat their food with those chompers?"

• Bugscope Team Daniel we throw the bugs out when we are done -- they are dry and brittle and do not last long
• Bugscope Team Daniel-- we usually throw them away. Sometimes if they are very interesting we might save them in a dry place, so we can look at them again later
• Bugscope Team some beetles chew their food, like this one; we can see one of the mandibles in this view, and we can see some of the palps, as well
• Bugscope Team beetles use those chompers to chew their food into smaller bits and take those bits in
• Guest We noticed a broken antenna and the children think: that's how it died, a bird attacked it, it broke off, maybe a predator bit it off??
• 10:19am

• Bugscope Team palps are like accessory arms that help the insect move its food into its mouth, and they have chemosensory tips, like taste buds on your tongue, that help them taste their food before they eat it
• Bugscope Team possibly, more likely it was in a fight with another insect/arthropod, and lost the antenna
• Guest Ashlyn again, "Can we see the inside of the bug?"

• Guest Cailey asks, "Have you ever studied spiders?"
• Bugscope Team an insect can survive the loss of an appendage, like us

• Guest Tristan thinks that the curved shape is part of a tooth.
• Bugscope Team if the insect was broken open we could see the inside, but we cannot see through the exoskeleton (the shell of the insect) with this microscope
• Bugscope Team no, unfortunately we can't see the inside of the insect
• Bugscope Team we have looked at quite a few spiders, but we don't study them too much
• Bugscope Team yes, i have studied spiders

• Bugscope Team I was looking at the movement of different species up and down tree trunks
• Bugscope Team we look at spiders sometimes. they are softbodied, except for the cephalothorax (head/thorax), so they often shrivel up when they die
• Bugscope Team the insects are all dried out right now and would just look like a bunch of mush right now if we did have one open
• Guest Callie asks, "How many bugs have you studied?"

• Bugscope Team the curved shape that looked like a tooth was probably one of the palps, or the mandible (the jaw). insects do not have teeth, but some of their mandibles are hardened with minerals so they do not wear out too fast
• Guest Sharon asks, "How do Monarch butterflies survive?"
• Bugscope Team I have done research with six different orders.

• Bugscope Team one thing that helps Monarchs survive is that they are poisonous, and their coloration warns birds and other animals/insects that they are not good to eat
• Guest Could you take a photo of this for our transcript. Tristan is loving this!
• 10:24am
• Guest Ashlyn asks, "Why do you like being a scientist?"
• Bugscope Team also, butterflies (like Monarchs), moths, silverfish, and mosquitos have scales on their bodies that help them escape from spiderwebs if they fly or run into them

• Bugscope Team http://bugscope.beckman.illinois.edu/members/2012-079
• Guest Jacob asks, "Can you show us a scorpion?"

• Bugscope Team below is your member page, which holds a transcript of this session, plus many of the images
• Guest Picture of this too...you should hear the groans!

• Bugscope Team we looked at a scorpion last week but we do not have any in the 'scope today
• Guest Ryan asks, "What do beetles eat the most?"
• Bugscope Team you can see that the proboscis is covered with tiny scales

• Bugscope Team plant materials maybe?

• Bugscope Team the biting part of the proboscis is inside; it has four stylets in it that cut into your skin

• Guest Emma asks, "Why did you think about catching bugs?"

• Guest More ewwws...love it!
• Bugscope Team when people want to look at bugs, we think about catching them; we are predators

• Bugscope Team Being a scientist has its ups and downs, but for the most part you get to work with something you like, and for me i like to be outdoors, and studying ecology allowed me to do so
• Guest Alexis asks, "Do you guys also study flowers?"
• Bugscope Team I don't study flowers, but i do study trees
• Guest Garrett asks, "What are these lines?"

• Bugscope Team the proboscis is like a sleeve that opens to expose the fascicle, which has those four stylets, plus a siphon tube for blood one way and saliva the other, and another part I am not sure about

• Guest Ashley asks, "How many spots on the wings does a Monarch have?"
• 10:30am
• Bugscope Team the lines are creases in the scale, like those on potato chips, depending on how wide apart they are, they change the way that light reflects off it, which gives off the different colours you see
• Bugscope Team sometimes we help people who are studying pollen, and leaves, and other plant parts

• Guest Danielle asks, "What do you do when you are a scientist?"

• Bugscope Team beetles eat a variety of foods. the black ground beetles you see a lot of times are predatory and eat other insects. ladybird beetles (ladybugs) eat other insects as well, and many other beetles feed on plants
• Bugscope Team scientists are interested in finding out how things work, and they are also interested in making things, once they understand how they work; there are lots of different things scientists can do
• Guest Avery asks, "Did you answer my question yet?"

• Bugscope Team Cate and I help people use microscopes to do their research.
• Guest Garret also wants to know about those bumps.
• Guest Allison asks, "Do you study all bugs?"

• Bugscope Team Avery we do not see that your question was complete.
• Guest Cailey asks, "How long were you at school to be a scientist?"
• Bugscope Team It probably didn't take too long to find all these bugs. In the summer if you took a butterfly net and gently brushed it against the grass a couple of times, you can get a large number of different bugs very easily
• Bugscope Team the bumps are 'tastebuds' that help the insect smell its food

• Bugscope Team I was in college for 4 and a half years getting my bachelor's degree in Physics
• Guest Max asks, "How is it like working at Bugscope?"
• 10:35am
• Guest Avery re-asks, "How long did it take you to find all of those bugs?"

• Bugscope Team really anyone can be a scientist. You just have to ask questions about the way the world works.
• Guest Dean asks, "What is your favorite kind of beetle?"

• Bugscope Team It probably didn't take too long to find all these bugs. In the summer if you took a butterfly net and gently brushed it against the grass a couple of times, you can get a large number of different bugs very easily
• Guest Jacob asks, "Can you show us a wasp?"

• Bugscope Team I like weevils

• Bugscope Team Sorry Jacob. We don't have any wasps in the microscope today
• Bugscope Team I like longhorned beetles
• Bugscope Team weevils are sometimes called snout beetles
• Guest Ashlyn asks, "How many parts are in a bug when they are alive and dead?"

• Guest Cailey asks, "How do you prepare the bugs?"
• Guest Kayla is driving.

• Guest Dean asks, "How big the Bugscope?"
• Bugscope Team insects have a head, a thorax (what the legs are attached to, and the head and the abdomen), six legs, an abdomen, and two antennae

• Guest Max asks, "Is that a honeycomb?"
• Bugscope Team the microscope is about the size of a large desk, and on one end it has a taller portion
• Bugscope Team the main part of the microscope is as large as a refridgerator box. Then the computer part of it takes up a large desk

• Guest Ryan asks, "What is your best thing about bugs?"
• Bugscope Team Max that was a few filaments of milkweed, from the milkweed plant

• 10:40am
• Guest Kayla is wanting to know what brochosomes are...

• Bugscope Team Kayla: Brochosomes are nanoparticles that only leafhoppers make

• Bugscope Team I am sitting at the microscope so I can fix the focus, sometimes, at high magnifications like this.
• Guest Alexis asks, "Can the Monarch butterfly travel far?"
• Bugscope Team it is cool that we are able to see nanoparticles, as Cate said
• Bugscope Team Monarchs can travel thousands of miles...
• Guest Kayla is holding her hands up and saying, "Please put this in English. I do not understand it very well."

• Bugscope Team this is magnified over 150,000 times
• Bugscope Team a nanoparticle is something that can be measured in nanometers, which are billionths of a meter
• Guest Cailey asks, "What do you do on your job?"
• Bugscope Team a millimeter is a thousandth of a meter, and a micrometer is a millionth of a meter, or a thousandth of a millimeter
• Bugscope Team nanometer is smaller than micrometer which is smaller than millimeter. these particles are as small as the wavelength of visible light

• Guest Tristan asks, "What is your favorite kind of bug?"

• 10:45am

• Bugscope Team so when we see something as small as a brochosome, we are at a very high magnification

• Bugscope Team Tristan I like weevils, mites, and leafhoppers
• Guest Ryan says that these look like grapes.
• Bugscope Team Brochosomes are very tiny objects that a leafhopper (a small insect you can find on many plants) covers itself with for protection.

• Bugscope Team please let us know if Kayla has more questions
• Bugscope Team Ryan they do look like grapes, don't they?
• Bugscope Team The best thing about insects is their diversity. You can hardly go anywhere in the world without running into them. Somethimes they run into you! My friend had a drgonfly fly into his face once when we were in an open top jeep.
• Guest Emma asks, "How do you catch the bugs?"
• Bugscope Team With hands, or a butterfly net.
• Guest Ashlyn asks, "How small are bugs' hearts?"

• Bugscope Team bugs can be caught in traps, with nets, and also when we are home we sometimes catch them by putting jars over them and slipping paper over the top -- then we freeze them

• Guest Daniel asks, "What is that thing?"
• Bugscope Team There is also a device called an aspirator, that we use for really small insects. You're essentially sucking the bugs up through a straw into a jar.
• Bugscope Team there are traps you can use as well. Some device where bugs can get in but can't get out so easily
• Guest Callie asks,'
• 10:50am
• Bugscope Team Bug hearts are almost too small to see with your eye; sometimes they look like tubes with swollen blobs in them
• Bugscope Team insects don't really have a heart
• Guest Callie asks, "Can you give us the names of bugs that would be fun to say out loud?"
• Bugscope Team this is a closeup of a leafhopper's claw
• Bugscope Team they have an open circulatory system (unlike us, we have a closed system)
• Bugscope Team Earwig...
• Bugscope Team Edward Leafhopper
• Bugscope Team Weevil
• Bugscope Team snout beetle

• Guest Danielle asks, "Where do you find the bugs?"
• Bugscope Team Goliath Beetle
• Bugscope Team fruit fly
• Bugscope Team Collembola (springtails)

• Bugscope Team sometimes we find them in our houses, and sometimes outdoors
• Bugscope Team sometimes on the porch, when they get through the screens
• Bugscope Team their hemolymph (blood) flows all throughout their body, and they have one blood vessel that acts as the 'heart'. The part of the vessel in the abdomen is more muscular and does the pumping, circulating blood back towards the head.
• Guest Tristan asks, "Are all butterflies insects?"
• Bugscope Team all butterflies are insects

• Guest Sharon asks, "How do you know all about Monarch butterflies?"
• Bugscope Team there's a wasp with the scientific name Aha ha

• 10:55am
• Guest Callie asks, "What kind of bugs do you like to study?
• Guest Alexis asks, "Do you catch Monarch butterflies?"
• Bugscope Team these are called 'tenent setae,' and they are what allow flies and beetles and other insects to stick to srufaces so easily, even climbing on the ceiling

• Bugscope Team once in a while someone sends us Monarchs; it is rare that we would catch them ourselves.
• Bugscope Team not too often Alexis
• Guest Aiden is driving and wants to know what those spiky things are.

• Bugscope Team An entomologist is someone who studies insects
• Bugscope Team I like mites, so I like to see if they are on ants or beetles or other insects, or plants, that we are looking at
• Guest Ashlyn asks, "How many bugs do you have (on the presets)?"
• Bugscope Team the spikey things are tiny hairs called tenent setae that help the insect hold onto surfaces

• Bugscope Team they kind of work like velcro

• Bugscope Team look! you found a brochosome!
• Guest Cailey asks, "How long have you worked there?"
• Bugscope Team I have been here since the end of 1998.

• Guest Logan is driving.
• Bugscope Team this is actually a small grasshopper.

• Bugscope Team and now a beetle, on its back

• 11:01am
• Bugscope Team the back is called the dorsum; the front -- what are looking at now -- is the ventrum

• Guest Sharon asks, "How do you feel when you are studying bugs?"
• Bugscope Team when an insect dies its arms and legs fold up like this -- the tiny muscles and tendons shrink back

• Bugscope Team When we look at bugs it is very exciting to see things we have never seen before. Last week we found an ant about a millimeter long on a beetle. It was so tiny.
• Guest Tristan asks, "Do you read bug information?"

• Bugscope Team I've been with Bugscope since 2005.
• Guest Ryan asks,
• Bugscope Team Tristan it is fun for us to read about bugs; it helps us understand what we are looking at.
• Guest Ryan asks, "How many insects do you catch?"
• Guest We will wrap up our session with my students' thanks.
• Guest Thank you for letting us chat with you and seeing those pictures.
• Bugscope Team i find that field guides are the best books to use for identifying insects
• Bugscope Team one of the guys who works down here set up a net in front of his car headlights and caught lots of insects, and also seeds in the air; some insects don't really fly but get caught in the wind.
• Guest Thank you for letting us enjoy this experience.
• Bugscope Team Thank you, Everyone!
• Guest Thank you for letting us see everything that you have let us see. I am sorry that we don't see each other in real person.
• 11:06am
• Guest Thank you for letting us chat with you and we hope we see you again.
• Bugscope Team thank you for all your great questions! You were all great scientists today
• Bugscope Team there are photos of us on the website, except for Joe -- we need to get a good photo of him
• Guest I am happy that I could chat with you.
• Bugscope Team Thanks!
• Bugscope Team Yay!
• Guest Thank you for letting us see the pictures of bugs.
• Bugscope Team We are shutting down so someone else can use the microscope.
• Bugscope Team Those were actually live images of dead bugs...
• Guest Thank you for letting us see all the bug pictures and parts. Have a nice day and Happy February!
• Guest Thank you for letting us learn about bugs.
• Guest Thank you for everything.
• Bugscope Team we are logging out! see you next year!
• Guest Joyce says, "You are all 'the bomb'!!!!!" Til next year.....and Iwill for sure complete the eval form! LOL
• Bugscope Team haha Thank You!
• Bugscope Team Bye!