Connected on 2013-01-22 10:00:00 from Cook, Illinois, United States
- 8:59am
- Bugscope Team we are making the presets for today's Bugscope session, which starts at 10 central time.
- 9:07am
- 9:13am
- 9:19am
- 9:25am
- Bugscope Team hello John!
- Guest Hello, just taking a quick look around. We make a video for our teachers each week with interesting curricular websites
- Bugscope Team super cool. let me know when you have questions, or email me if you would like: sjrobin@illinois.edu
- Guest thanks
- Guest I may pop back in to capture some video for the feature.
- 9:30am
- Bugscope Team here you can see brochosomes from a leafhopper on the mosquito's proboscis
- Bugscope Team they're nanoparticles, 250 to 400 nm in diameter
- 9:37am
- Bugscope Team Hello Mrs Pappas!
- Bugscope Team Welcome to Bugscope!
- Teacher Hello! I'm here with Dr. Clishem (Tony). He's going to help with this session since I've never done this before.
- 9:42am
- Bugscope Team super cool
- Bugscope Team Hello Tony!
- Guest Hello!
- Guest Upgrades!
Bugscope Team haha
- Teacher Hi guys. We are going to have 45 students sharing 23 laptops.
- Bugscope Team sounds good!
- Bugscope Team Cate and I are about ready, on this end. She's recording the presets and will be up in the her office for the session.
- Guest It's been awhile since I've joined in a session. On your end, is there new staff?
- 9:47am
- Bugscope Team right now it's just me (Scot, sj, SEM) and Cate. It is possible Joe will log in from Entomology.
- Teacher Just curious... Have you ever had a Skype session with students?
Bugscope Team no way dude
- Bugscope Team I don't know how that would work.
- Bugscope Team we would rather have the students see what is in the 'scope
- 9:53am
- Bugscope Team we are ready to roll if you would like to try out the controls
- Bugscope Team Mrs Pappas is the Supreme Ruler
- Bugscope Team please let us know if you have any problems, and when you have questions
- Bugscope Team hello Rebecca!
- Teacher we are trying to log in to the session from all of the laptops
- Bugscope Team you should be able to log in as Student, and a password will not be required
- Bugscope Team sometimes the Student designation is not available, for some reason, and it is necessary to log students in as guests
- 9:59am
- Bugscope Team let us know if you need help with that as well
- 10:05am
- Teacher We're starting now
Bugscope Team awesome!
- Bugscope Team these are the antennae of this interesting looking armored wasp
- Bugscope Team hello Dylan and Jacob!
- Bugscope Team Welcome to Bugscope!
- Bugscope Team hello!
- Bugscope Team whoa Hello Dennis, Ali, Eric, Emily, Sonia, Dylan...
- Bugscope Team Nick, Mikala, Bobby, Isabela, Adrian, Sean...
- 10:10am
- Bugscope Team Philip and Nayeli
- Bugscope Team please let us know when you have questions about what you're seeing, or anything else
- Bugscope Team Weston, Isabella...
- Student are the eyeballs on the side?
Bugscope Team yes they are! those are compound eyes, with many ommatidia -- the individual facets
- Bugscope Team fruit flies like this have setae in between the eye facets
- Bugscope Team those setae are supposed to convey information about wind speed and direction
- Teacher What are those little hairs we see?
Bugscope Team they are setae, which are insect hairs. These particular kinds of setae are helpful in telling the fly the direction of the air currents
- 10:15am
- Bugscope Team flying insects almost always have more complex-appearing eyes than insects that do not fly. some large wasps can have as many as 17,000 ommatidia per eye
- Teacher What are the setae made of?
Bugscope Team they are made of chitin, like the exoskeleton
- Bugscope Team chitin is similar to what our fingernails are made of
- Bugscope Team compound eyes allow insects to see more of what is around them at one time -- that is, they have very good peripheral vision
- Student Why are there so many sections
Bugscope Team those are all individual facets of the compound eye. We call the facets ommatidia.
- Bugscope Team also, with so many facets (the ommatidia), they update quickly and thus help the insects register motion much more quickly that they could with eyes like ours
- Teacher How many facets are on the fruitfly eye?
Bugscope Team probably several hundred per eye; we are not sure
- Bugscope Team you can see that this ant has a compound eye as well, and she also has ocelli on the top of her head
- Bugscope Team three tiny bumps on top of her head
- Bugscope Team ants are related to bees and wasps
- Bugscope Team many ants do not have nearly as many ommatidia in their eyes
- Student is the eyeball in the center of the ant
Bugscope Team yes! You can see they are a bit smaller than the fruitfly's
- 10:20am
- Bugscope Team sometimes you can easily count them -- for example there could be 12 to 20
- Bugscope Team some ants do not have eyes at all.
- Student Are there setae on the top of the ant?
Bugscope Team yes there are!
- Bugscope Team insects and similar arthropods have setae sticking through the cuticle -- the exoskeleton -- to help them sense their environment
- Teacher Why is there a split in the middle of the face with antennae coming out?
Bugscope Team that is a groove that holds the antenna, where the ball and socket joint is
- Student what do the antennae do?
Bugscope Team they read chemical signals from other ants
- Student Why do you cover the insects with gold.
Bugscope Team we want them to be conductive, so we coat them with an alloy of gold and palladium using a sputter coater; they have about 20 nm of Au/Pd on them
- Student Can some ants fly?
Bugscope Team the male ants fly, and the queens can fly for a while; most ants are female and do not fly
- 10:25am
- Student how long do you think an ant could live up too?
Bugscope Team some could likely live for a year or so in the right environment
- Student Why are there antenae
Bugscope Team when they spend so much time underground, they rely more on their antenna instead of their eyes on getting around and communicating
- Student what are the layers on the antennae?
Bugscope Team the antenna is segmented so it can fold and also so it can be pointed in any direction the ant wants
- Teacher Do you use gold powder to prepare the specimen? What is that like?
Bugscope Team we use a machine that makes a plasma of the gold-palladium, which is basically a nano-sized rain onto the sample. It is kind of cool
- Teacher Could you please give Adrian the control of the microscope?
Bugscope Team adrian has control!
- Student thank you scotj
Bugscope Team sure!
- Student Thanks scot
- Bugscope Team here we see the ball and socket joint, but there is dried fluid covering some of it
- Student it is not taking my commands
Bugscope Team Adrian has control now.
- Bugscope Team if you look at the righthand screen, the person with a star in front of his or her name has control
- Student Why do ants have six legs?
- Student what are the lines on ants head
- Student does an ant have ears?
Bugscope Team no. they can sense sound using their mechanosensory setae
- Student what are the long hairs on the right
- 10:30am
- Student Can they hear?
Bugscope Team yes they can -- sound is vibration in the air
- Student what are those things that look like little scales or hairs?
- Student do ants tast with there feet like butterflys
Bugscope Team I don't think they have chemosensory setae on their feet, but there are many species, and some could
- Student how many legs do ants have
Bugscope Team insects all have six legs, a head, a thorax, an abdomen, and two antennae; so ants have six legs
- Teacher PLEASE RETURN CONTROLS TO MS. PAPPAS .
- Student how strong are ants
- Student thank you scot
- Student j
- Student Why does an ants body look like it is in 3 different parts?
Bugscope Team there is the head, the thorax, and the abdomen, with other smaller parts we don't see as clearly
- Student how do they taste
Bugscope Team Ants use the antennae, and also palps around their mouth to taste. A lot of times you'll see them touching/wiping their antennae with their front legs, that's their way of grooming themselves, cleaning their antennae.
- Student how strong are ants
Bugscope Team ants can lift 20 times their weight
- Student do they have teeth
Bugscope Team they do have teeth the way we do, but their mandibles -- their jaws -- may have minerals in them that harden them
- 10:35am
- Teacher Is this what the mosquito uses to sting you with?
Bugscope Team the sharp part -- the fascicle -- is inside that shaft
- Student Do ants have 5 senses like humans?
Bugscope Team they do have the senses we do. They can hear, smell/taste, feel, and see. There are some ants that don't have eyes so they can't see. None of their senses work quite the same way as our senses do
- Bugscope Team the fascicle has four cutting parts -- the stylets, or lancets, and it has a siphon tube that the blood goes into and saliva comes out of, and it has another part of unknown (to me) purpose.
- Student how many bones do mosquitos have?
Bugscope Team they have an exoskeleton -- their skeleton is on the outside -- so they do not have bones
- Student how big could ants get
Bugscope Team ants can be very large. army ants can be up to 4cm long.
- Student thnk you
- Bugscope Team insects and similar arthropods are invertebrates, which means they do not have a backbone. but really they do not have bones at all
- Student What are those potato chip looking things
Bugscope Team those are scales
- Teacher How does the claw help the fly?
Bugscope Team the claws function kind of like tiny hands
Bugscope Team claws help the insects hold onto things
- Bugscope Team scales are modified setae as well, and they are found on butterflies, moths, mosquitoes, and silverfish, plus few other odd insects
- Teacher How do flies reproduce?
Bugscope Team they breed and then lay fertilized eggs, sometimes in dung
- 10:42am
- Student which is bigger the cricket claw or the fly claw
- Teacher How are flies able to stick to and climb up the side of a wall?
Bugscope Team they have tenent setae, which are featured in some of the presets; the tenent setae are attached to the pulvillus, and there is at least one (it is like a pad full of Velcro) on each arm or attached to each claw
- Student is it true that the bigger the cricket is the more noise makes?
- Student Why does the cricket claw only have two sections?
Bugscope Team one thing we see right away it that it does not have a pulvillus, like a fly, and it cannot stick to ceilings or walls nearly as easily
- Student whats your favorite color
Bugscope Team dark blue
- Student How many claws does a fly have?
Bugscope Team 6 pairs. one pair for each leg.
- Student How long are the hairs on the claws?
Bugscope Team it really depends; if we go close again let's look at the scalebar on the lower left and compare
- Student thank you joe
- Student how long are the claws
Bugscope Team usually depends on the specimen. not too long
- Student why does the head look like a thumb
Bugscope Team I think it is just a coincidence here
- Student How smart are they
Bugscope Team they do not seem to be smart as much as following a kind of program; the program is affected by chemical odors in many cases
Bugscope Team as smart as they are hungry?
Bugscope Team haha Like me.
- Student how big is a wasps brain
Bugscope Team it is very small; with flying insects much of the brain seems to be devoted to visual processing
- Student What are those long things coming out of its head?
Bugscope Team those were the antennae, I believe
- Student is this the wing of a wasp
Bugscope Team yes it is just out of focus
- Student what is the wing made out of?
Bugscope Team it is made of chitin like the exoskeleton
- 10:47am
- Student ok thank you sem
- Student how many eyes do they have
Bugscope Team number of eyes depends on the insect species. most have 2 compound eyes, which give them low resolution vision, and also anywhere from 0-3 simple eyes, which detect light and dark, and so act more as quick motion sensors.
- Student is that blood
- Bugscope Team this stinger is also spiral and unfortunately we see that it has some dried fluid on it
- Student is that the stinger
Bugscope Team yes that's the stinger
- Bugscope Team now we can see that it is more than a millimeter long
- Bugscope Team this is a long stinger -- you can tell somewhat when you compare it to the scalebar on the left
Bugscope Team The wasp's stingers are modified ovipositors (a tube for depositing eggs). Since only the queen has to lay eggs, the female workers have evolved to associate the ovipositor with poison glands instead.
- Student thx...
- Student how long is the stinger
Bugscope Team looks like it is about a millimeter
- Student THANK YOU
- Student thank you
- Student Thanks brah
- Student thank you!!!
- Student t
- Student Thank you!
- Student Thank you!!!
- Student THANK YOU!!!!!!!
- Student :)
- Student THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
- Student thank you
- Bugscope Team 500 microns is the same as 500 micrometers, which is a half a millimeter
- Student thank you!!!!!!!!!!!!
- Student THANK YOU!
- Student Thank you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
- Student thanks so much
- Bugscope Team Thank you, Everyone!
- Student thank you @(-_-)@ monkey
- Bugscope Team thank you. I hope you all had fun!
- Bugscope Team Thanks!
- Student Thanks Brah
Bugscope Team haha Thank you, Nayeli!
- Student thank you bro
Bugscope Team Thank you, Nick!
- Student Thank you for leting us use the microscope hope you have a good day bye
- Student THANKS i love you
Bugscope Team sweet
- Student bye
Bugscope Team Bye!
- 10:54am
- Guest Thanks everyone . . . It was good to be able to do this again with you.
