Session 2012-097 with Piedmont High School

Application

The School

The Class

The Project

Miscellaneous

Live Session Transcript

Connected on 2013-02-26 09:00:00 from , North Carolina, United States

• 8:02am
• Bugscope Team sample is in the vacuum chamber and pumping down
• Bugscope Team as soon as vacuum is acceptable we will start making presets for today's sample
• 8:15am
• Bugscope Team one more tenth of a millibar...
• 8:21am

• 8:28am

• 8:35am

• 8:41am

• 8:49am

• 8:54am

• 8:21am

• 8:27am

• 8:32am

• 8:37am

• 8:42am

• Bugscope Team we are ready to roll!
• 8:53am
• Bugscope Team good morning!
• Bugscope Team welcome to Bugscope!

• Bugscope Team when you focus, it goes up and down -- so if you click in one direction and it gets worse, go the other way
• Bugscope Team the donut-like things you see are the pedicels -- the bases of the antennae

• Bugscope Team the much smaller spheres are the ommatidia
• Bugscope Team ommatidia are the individual facets of the compound eye
• Bugscope Team we can see that the antenna on the left had broken off; that on the right is intact, and because it is kind of sparse-looking, we know this is a female mosquito
• 8:59am
• Teacher where's the mouth?
• Bugscope Team if you click on the lefthand arrow, in the blue circle to the left, you will see the preset positions we saved for this session

• Bugscope Team the mouth is lower down, at the tip of the proboscis
• Bugscope Team the mouth is a long tube called a proboscis that has parts inside it for cutting and drinking

• Bugscope Team now you can see it; it is fairly long and curves up toward us as you reach its tip

• Bugscope Team you can see that it has a slit along its center line
• Bugscope Team the fascicle is inside -- the business parts that Cate was referring to

• Bugscope Team fascicle from the same root as fascist, which was named after sheaves of wheat, bound together
• Teacher Our students asked which way to go to see the wing
• Bugscope Team here's the end of the proboscis
• Bugscope Team the mosquito's wing?
• Teacher so the hair like structures... how are they used??
• 9:04am
• Bugscope Team they help the insect to feel what is going on around it. they are called mechanosensory.

• Bugscope Team the hairlike structures -- the setae ('see-tee') -- are mechanosensory, as Cate said; also chemosensory, thermosensory, and used for proprioception, among other things

• Bugscope Team we took the mag down so you could see the wings

• Bugscope Team in one of the presets, available from the lefthand screen, you can see scales from a Monarch butterfly wing. Scales are also modified setae.
• Teacher ok is it possible to maginify the wings any more??
• Bugscope Team now you can see there are little hairs, or setae, on the wings
• Teacher what is the purpose of the setae?
• Bugscope Team mosquitoes have scales as well -- one thing scales do is help the insect escape from spider webs
• 9:09am
• Teacher how many offspring can the misquitoes produce?
• Bugscope Team the microsetae we see now are not sensory, as many of the larger setae are; the microsetae help catch the air when the insect flies -- giving it more surface area; I think they also help keep wet wings from sticking to flat surfaces
• Bugscope Team a female can lay several hundred eggs in a batch
• Teacher can we move to the legs?
• Bugscope Team they are said to produce from 1000 to 3000 eggs in their lifetime
• Bugscope Team here is one of the mosquito's legs. we can see scales along the tarsus, and we can see its claws
• Teacher how are claw-like structures used??
• Bugscope Team please remember that you can choose from any of the presets on the lefthand screen
• Bugscope Team the claws are used much in the same way that we use our hands -- to grasp things
• Bugscope Team the claws work like hands/paws. they help to grab things

• 9:15am
• Bugscope Team because that last preset was made at a fairly high mag, it drifted a bit from when we had saved it. that shows you that this is live imaging...

• Bugscope Team the ridges on the scales help strengthen them, but they also interfere with the wavelengths of light that are reflected back from them -- making it so that we see what are called 'structural colors'

• Bugscope Team spider head
• Bugscope Team spiders usually have 8 eyes, but sometimes they have less
• Bugscope Team a spider's head and thorax are fused, so the whole thing is called a cephalothorax

• Bugscope Team often the eyes are not very powerful, but some spiders can see quite well
• Bugscope Team you can see that they have lots of setae, many of which likely help them sense vibration
• Teacher what's the purpose of the hair-like structure?
• Bugscope Team some spiders, like tarantulas, have urticating hairs as well -- they release them when, for example, a dog is sniffing them. urticating hairs cause itching
• Bugscope Team spider setae, or hairs, can sometimes be more than just sense of touch. they might help with feeling vibrations like when prey is near
• Teacher can we see the mouth
• 9:20am
• Bugscope Team the mouth is on the underside of the head, and we cannot turn the specimen over -- sorry. we had to make a choice...

• Bugscope Team from just below the eyes, two wide thick chelicers, or chelicerae, reach downward, and at their tips are two incurved fangs

• Bugscope Team this is a moth..
• Bugscope Team the coiled thing in the center is its proboscis

• Teacher approx how many omatidia?
• Bugscope Team when the moth (or butterfly, since they have these as well) wants to extend its proboscis, it forces hemolymph in it and blows it out straight like a party favor on New Years' Eve.
• Bugscope Team around a thousand, maybe more

• Bugscope Team some large wasps can have as many as 17,000 per compound eye

• Bugscope Team these do not look very good, here -- they are covered with a film of some sort
• Bugscope Team but this is awesome...
• Teacher explain the awesome
• Teacher pla
• Teacher pls
• 9:25am

• Bugscope Team there are little hairs here that help the fly stick to vertical surfaces like walls
• Bugscope Team you see one of the fly's claws on the left, curved, and you see a patch of tenent setae -- the little hairs Cate is talking about
• Teacher like velcro?
• Bugscope Team yes very much like Velcro
• Bugscope Team yes exactly

• Bugscope Team the samples are in a vacuum chamber, and we are beaming high-energy electrons at them

• Bugscope Team when we go to a higher magnification, we put a lot of electrons in one small place
• Bugscope Team antennae have lots of sensory setae on them
• Bugscope Team insects are very sensitive to chemicals in the air, and on the surfaces of things
• Bugscope Team there was a story in the news this week about how they are also sensitive to electrical energy
• Teacher also pheromones?
• Bugscope Team the wing scales are dielectric and thus can pick up and convey electricity
• Bugscope Team yes. some for beetles.
• Bugscope Team yes absolutely

• 9:30am

• Bugscope Team more often for ants, wasps, and bees. They rely heavily on their antenna for chemical information

• Bugscope Team looks like you found some mold spores here
• Bugscope Team the one on the right has larger spikes on it; they're much like small pollen grains
• Bugscope Team we can see bacteria with this 'scope as well
• Teacher ever found any other organisms dwelling on others?
• Bugscope Team yes we have!
• Bugscope Team bacilli -- the rod-shaped bacteria, like E. coli, are usually about 2 micrometers (microns) long
• Teacher we'd like to see some bacteria!!
• Bugscope Team we have seen mites on earwigs and sometimes sitting on other bugs like a giant millipede
• Bugscope Team we have also seen a tiny ant sitting on a large beetle
• Bugscope Team not sure where to look; we didn't see any earlier
• Bugscope Team but we can show you some cool nanoparticles (less than a micron, thus on the nano scale)

• 9:36am

• Bugscope Team once insects die their bodies are taken over by fungus (from the mold spores) and bacteria, but bacteria are not as prevalent as we would think.
• Bugscope Team a few thousand ommatidia here on one compound eye

• Teacher ok would love to see the nanoparticles
• Bugscope Team here they are!
• Teacher what are the soccer ball structures??

• Bugscope Team flies, wasps, and many other flying insects also have simple eyes, called ocelli, on the tops of their heads; but I don't believe there are any in view on this sample
• Bugscope Team these are brochosomes
• Bugscope Team they are particles made only by leafhoppers

• Bugscope Team but we find them on other insects as well; often we assume they have been fraternizing with leafhoppers in some way

• Bugscope Team they are usually 250 to 400 nanometers in diameter
• Bugscope Team in other words, they are the same diameter as the wavelengths of UV light
• 9:41am
• Bugscope Team they are smaller than visible light...
• Bugscope Team really cool to find
• Teacher reproductive adaptation?

• Bugscope Team yes they are -- that is what has been hypothesized, exactly

• Bugscope Team they are used to coat eggs to keep them from drying out, and leafhoppers have what is called an 'anointing' behavior in which they cover their own cuticle with them

• Bugscope Team here we see a pedicel with a scale leaning against it
• Bugscope Team actually two scales...

• Bugscope Team no bacteria, yet...

• Bugscope Team centipedes have these interesting 'portholes' on their last several body segments

• 9:46am

• Bugscope Team we are not sure if they are 'gills' or if they might exude chemicals to dissuade predators, such as ants, from bothering them
• Bugscope Team it seems most insects/arthropods have some means of protecting themselves from ants.

• Bugscope Team Yellow Submarine

• Bugscope Team this is a very small fly

• Bugscope Team flies often have sponging/sucking mouthparts

• Bugscope Team although not horseflies or deerflies -- they have slashing/cutting mouthparts
• 9:52am

• Bugscope Team you can see the ommatidia now, on one of its compound eyes

• Bugscope Team we almost always mount our specimens on their backs so you can see their legs and mouthparts

• Bugscope Team when we make a sample we cannot tell at the macro level how good a particular specimen might be

• Bugscope Team here we see that, like the eye of the beetle, the moth's eye is mottled, meaning that it is rotting
• Teacher looks like feathers
• Bugscope Team moths are also covered with scales like this
• Bugscope Team they look like feathers and also function, in part, like feathers
• 9:57am

• Bugscope Team scales are what feel like powder to us when we rub a butterfly or a moth's wings

• Bugscope Team because they come off so easily, they help protect butterflies, moths, silverfish, and mosquitoes from spider webs
• Bugscope Team scales, depending on the insect and the species, may produce both structural and pigment-based colors

• Bugscope Team some butterflies in which the males and females look alike to us look quite different to the butterflies themselves because they have colors and patterns we cannot see

• Bugscope Team the 5-micron scalebar shows us that we could see bacteria if they were present here
• 10:02am
• Teacher we like the spores

• Bugscope Team totally cool -- you found them!

• Bugscope Team now they are distorting because there is so much beam energy in one small place

• Bugscope Team they are being hit with 5000 V

• Bugscope Team this is pretty cool as well

• Bugscope Team electrons are smaller than photons, and lighter too. That is why electron microscopes are so much more powerful. This microscope can see things as small as 2 nanometers.
• Bugscope Team pollen from lilies often looks like this

• Bugscope Team It is also why we don't see any color right now. When you see those pictures of insects, bacteria, cells, or viruses and they are in color, they have been colored after the fact using computers

• Bugscope Team focussed on a single grain of pollen
• Teacher what the advantage of the shape we see in the pollen grains?
• 10:07am

• Bugscope Team there is probably an advantage in the shape that allows it to be carried in the wind, stick to insect setae, and also protect itself from desiccation and damage
• Bugscope Team some pollen grains are sticky, which is what this one might be like. Some, like ragweed, are spiky so they can easily get stuck onto things
• Teacher thus the sneezing!!
• Bugscope Team haha Yeah!

• Bugscope Team you can see a few scales left

• Bugscope Team females have kind of boring antennae, whereas those of males are fancy

• Bugscope Team if you see a mosquito hanging out on a wall, and it has super frilly antennae, it is a male; and males do not bite

• Bugscope Team good job driving!
• 10:12am
• Teacher what this?
• Teacher what's is this LoL
• Bugscope Team that looks like a piece of dust or dirt

• Bugscope Team moths are similar - often the males have the coolest looking antennae. but in both moths and mosquitoes, that extra 'ornamentation' has a useful purpose.
• Teacher to receive signals from females??
• Bugscope Team male mosquitoes have special organs in their antennae that allow them to tune in on the noise females make when they fly.
• Bugscope Team male moths have more chemoreceptors in their antennae that help them pick up pheromones in the air, from females, as you said.
• Teacher we have a couple of moths to send to you
• Bugscope Team super cool
• Teacher large moths
• Teacher perhaps another session in april or may??

• Bugscope Team haha The stub we are using for Busgcope is 1.75 inches in diameter, so we will have to look at pieces of large insects.

• Bugscope Team sure go ahead and apply when we are done today for the next session

• Bugscope Team if you apply now there may be slots -- I know there is one available in April

• 10:18am
• Teacher great thanks for your time today... wonderful session!!

• Bugscope Team Thank You!
• Bugscope Team We had a good time. See you next time!
• Bugscope Team (this is salt from a Wendy's restaurant; we cannot get this kind anymore, as far as we know)
• Bugscope Team Good Bye!