Connected on 2013-06-06 07:00:00 from Sedibeng, Gauteng, South Africa
- 8:49am
- Bugscope Team Presently it is Tuesday morning here, 8:45 a.m., thus 3:45 p.m. in South Africa
- Bugscope Team no insects in the 'scope, just the stage
- Bugscope Team be right back; if you log on while I'm out please type a message in this chat box
- Bugscope Team We will be back and forth but keep this connection open...
- 8:54am
- Bugscope Team in the meantime we have checked other schools' compatibility results, and even when they indicated that they had failed, the connection worked
- Bugscope Team last week we connected with a school in Connecticut, USA and a school in Thailand at the same time. No problems noted although the school in Connecticut had three failed compatibility tests.
- 9:02am
- Bugscope Team hello!
- Bugscope Team We can see you!
- Bugscope Team Mpho you have control of the microscope.
- Bugscope Team You may, for example, click somewhere on the screen, and the microscope will center on that position.
- Teacher Hi
Bugscope Team super cool! Hello!
- Bugscope Team I can see that you made the 'scope change positions.
- Bugscope Team you can also click on one of the presets, on the lefthand screen, and that will command the 'scope to drive to that stored position
- Teacher ok i clicked, but it's still not centered
Bugscope Team try clicking on one of the presets, please, and see if that gives you any results
- Bugscope Team I see that a second command made it through, and you successfully moved the stage just now.
- Bugscope Team it seems it is taking a while for the results of a command to be forwarded to you
- 9:08am
- Teacher yes i can see that i moved something, yes it takes few seconds to move on my screen
Bugscope Team cool! please try clicking on one of the two thumbnail presets on the lefthand screen you can reach by clicking on the white arrow in the blue circle to the left
- Bugscope Team Hi Alex!
- Bugscope Team Mpho I believe this will work; it may just take a bit longer for you to receive full images
- Guest hi there! there is always a little delay, and maybe there'll be more with the slower connection. but it looks like it is working, that is great!
- Bugscope Team it seems there is little to no latency in your ability to type, send, and receive messages
- Bugscope Team that just came across here -- the preset of the ridges
- Bugscope Team has it come across for you yet?
- Guest Mpho, you'll just need to inform the teacher, or whoever is controlling the scope, to be patient with the interface. click slowly and wait for images to load before trying to click again.
- Guest Mpho, are you still here?
- Bugscope Team yes as Alex, of ITS, says, the connection, even with Capetown, was a bit slow.
- Teacher i clicked on one of the thumbnails, most on them are blank and i got only two visible images
- Teacher yes im still here
- Guest cool!
- Bugscope Team yes there are only two visible images because I just started the 'scope -- I did not put a sample in that we could use to mimic a full session
- Guest there are only two presets for this test session
- 9:13am
- Bugscope Team on Thursday I plan to make 20 or so presets, and they will be much more interesting than looking at the stage, which is what we are doing now
- Teacher ok i believe this will work, it only takes few seconds to load, but it will be fine
- Bugscope Team Awesome!
- Guest Mpho, that is great to hear, thanks for working with us on this!
- Bugscope Team We look forward to seeing you online on Thursday!
- Bugscope Team Thank you for taking the time to try this out directly.
- Guest i'm outta here, if you need anything else from me, just hollar Scott
- Bugscope Team Do you have any questions before we log out?
- Bugscope Team Thanks, Alex!
- Teacher Thanks i learnt something new today, i will be there when you facilitate this
Bugscope Team Super cool! See you soon! Thank you so much for helping -- you know we are a bit nervous about this as well. And we've been doing this for more than 14 years.
- Bugscope Team see you in a couple of days!
- Bugscope Team I'm going to log us all out and shut down...
- Teacher great thanks
- Bugscope Team Bye!
- 5:47am
- Bugscope Team it's Thursday morning here!
- Bugscope Team in a minute we'll be putting the sample in the 'scope
- Bugscope Team sample is in the 'scope and pumping down
- 5:56am
- Bugscope Team as soon as the vacuum is acceptable, we'll turn on the electron beam, make some adjustments, and start finding presets for today's session
- 6:03am
- 6:09am
- 6:15am
- Bugscope Team good afternoon, Mpho!
- Bugscope Team welcome back!
- 6:20am
- Bugscope Team this is salt from a Wendy's restaurant
- 6:26am
- Teacher Thanks, i im still waiting for the teachers
- Bugscope Team hey we are good -- I'm still driving around, making presets. Currently we're on a mosquito.
- Teacher :-) i can see, i think we wont experience any problem
- Bugscope Team Great! Glad to have you on board!
- Teacher I have Joyce, one of the science teacher she need to ask something, please chat with her
- Bugscope Team super cool, glad to say Hi!
- Bugscope Team of course
- Teacher hi, is it possible for you to control the lesson for us?
- Bugscope Team yes it is! you will be able to see the presets on the lefthand screen -- we have already made a few
- Bugscope Team just ask us to bring in the one you'd like to see
- 6:31am
- Bugscope Team we do this often -- control the microscope for our participant schools
- Teacher thats great. we do not have any specific ones but if you have termites, locusts, bees, ants it will do
- Bugscope Team we have a mosquito, an ant, a rolypoly or pillbug, a small wasp, a very small moth... I'm still finding out what Cate put on the stub for us.
- Teacher Great. Will we need to have sound to our learners during the lesson?
- Bugscope Team we will be communicating via chat, and I will have more people on my end to help answer questions
- Bugscope Team any questions at all
- Bugscope Team wasp head...
- 6:36am
- Bugscope Team we are looking forward to questions once the students come in
- Teacher before you go, do you have any spiders, millipedes and centipedes?
- Bugscope Team we have a small spider; the closest we have to a millipede is the pillbug, which is a crustacean
- Teacher it is fine
- Bugscope Team we have limited space on the stub and have to choose small critters
- Bugscope Team also, sometimes we think we have something super cool but when we get up close there is a problem -- for example it may be covered with a film of some sort
- Bugscope Team spider now...
- 6:41am
- Bugscope Team we can already see the venom pores
- Bugscope Team be right back!
- Teacher will alert you as soon as the learners have settled down
- Bugscope Team great!
- Bugscope Team we can keep up a running commentary but would really like to have someone relay questions from the students to us
- 6:52am
- Bugscope Team we are ready to roll!
- Teacher ready when you are
- Bugscope Team super cool
- Bugscope Team some other insects, like roaches, have them as well
- Bugscope Team please ask us questions about what you see -- anything at all!
- Bugscope Team silverfish are covered with scales
- Teacher is it hollow?
Bugscope Team yes it is!
- Bugscope Team many of the features we see appear hollow toi some extent
- Teacher can you eat a silverfish
Bugscope Team sure!
- Bugscope Team but it would not be very tasty -- and they are so small you would have to eat a lot of them
- Teacher how big is it
- 6:57am
- Bugscope Team it is about a centimeter long
- Bugscope Team you can get an idea of the size of things by comparing the image to the data bar on the lower left
- Teacher where do you find it?
Bugscope Team this was in my house!
- Teacher what does it eat
- Bugscope Team silverfish like starch, for one thing, so you might find them around your bookbindings
- Bugscope Team they are said to like shampoo!
- Teacher we call it a fishmoth
Bugscope Team cool!
- Bugscope Team the scales, which make them look silvery, protect them from spiderwebs
- Bugscope Team because the scales are loose, like those of butterflies or moths or mosquitoes
- Teacher this is interesting
- Bugscope Team the scales stick to the web and the insects (sometimes) escape
- Bugscope Team sometimes a wasp sting is worse because it can sting you many times
- 7:03am
- Teacher is the sting of the wasp as bad as the bee sting?
Bugscope Team that depends on the wasp. Bees inject more venom at once, but sometimes the venom is more potent in wasps
- Bugscope Team we can go look for the stinger
- Bugscope Team stingers are modified ovipositors
- Teacher yes we can go look at the stinger
- Bugscope Team let's try!
- Bugscope Team looks like it is bent; let's go up close!
- Bugscope Team this is confusing!
- Teacher it looks blunt
- Bugscope Team this is a scale between the components of the stinger, or whatever this is
- Bugscope Team since it has a joint of some sort, and stingers do not have joints, it looks like it is part of another insect that happens to be here
- Bugscope Team this is a little red-eyed moth
- 7:08am
- Bugscope Team we can see that it is covered with scales like the fishmoth
- Teacher are the hairs on the sting sharp? would they hurt you?
Bugscope Team no. the hairs are too small and probably not big enough to penetrate our skin
- Teacher what part of the red-eyed moth is that
- Bugscope Team this is the head, and now we have found what might be pollen, or mold spores, on the eye
- Bugscope Team we're looking at the compound eye of the moth
- Bugscope Team the individual facets we see are called ommatidia
- Bugscope Team they are individual lenses
- Bugscope Team compound eyes give the insect very good peripheral vision, sometimes 360 degrees
- Teacher is the eye really red
Bugscope Team yes it is!
- 7:13am
- Bugscope Team in the electron microscope we cannot see color because we are using electrons rather than light to collect our images
- Teacher how many lenses does the eye have?
Bugscope Team there can be as many as 17,000 ommatidia per compound eye
- Bugscope Team in a large wasp, that
- Bugscope Team is
- Bugscope Team but a dragonfly can have 32,000 ommatidia per compound eye!
- Teacher may we please see part of the exoskeleton?
- Bugscope Team we cannot see it directly because it is covered with scales!
- Bugscope Team we might move to another specimen
- Bugscope Team here is an ant, very small
- Bugscope Team we are looking at its head, from below
- Teacher what is the lifespan of this insect?
Bugscope Team usually an insect lives as an adult for about 6 weeks, but some live only a day as adults, and some live for years, for example a queen bee
- 7:18am
- Bugscope Team here we can see the exoskeleton
- Bugscope Team they do not have a heart like we do, and they do not have veins and arteries -- they have an open circulatory system
- Teacher where do we find the heart of the ant?
Bugscope Team they don't have a heart like we do. They have a long tube that runs along the body with hearts on the tube at the abdomen
- Teacher how big is the brain of an ant?
Bugscope Team the brain of this ant will be perhaps 200 micrometers in diameter, about a fifth of a millimeter
- Bugscope Team their hearts are really just a series of chambers
- Teacher how long does the egg take to hatch?
Bugscope Team it depends, but perhaps 16 to 40 days
- Bugscope Team presently we're looking at a cercus -- the 'tail' of a silverfish
- Teacher can we go to a mosquito?
- 7:23am
- Bugscope Team do you recognize this?
- Bugscope Team you can see the compound eyes, and the pedicels, which are the bases of the antennae and look like furry donuts
- Teacher yes
- Bugscope Team and lots of scales that protect it from spiders
- Teacher what is the structural difference between a male and a female mosquito?
Bugscope Team one thing you can see right away is that the antennae are quite different
- Bugscope Team if you see a mosquito with very frilly, ornate antennae, it is a male and will not bite you
- Bugscope Team female mosquitoes, like this one, have more basic antennae
- Bugscope Team the females are the ones you have to look out for because they are looking for a blood meal
- Teacher do all insects have scales?
Bugscope Team no, mainly just moths, butterflies, mosquitoes, and silverfish.
Bugscope Team some beetles and weevils have scales as well
- 7:28am
- Bugscope Team both females and males have the same proboscis, but only that of the female has the cutting components
- Teacher where do mosquitoes store blood after sucking it from humans?
Bugscope Team their abdomens
Bugscope Team it goes right to their stomach
- Teacher please show us the cutting part of the proboscis
- Bugscope Team we cannot see the cutting parts -- the parts that are components of the fascicle. they are inside the sheath of the proboscis, which is covered with scales. I am sorry. Sometimes we can see those components, but usually they are hidden. I can send you a link, later, to some images I took of those components.
- 7:34am
- Bugscope Team this is the tip of the proboscis, and the cutting components and the siphon tube are inside
- Bugscope Team this is why it's nice to have a real entomologist. They can correct us when we are wrong
- Teacher how many other insects suck blood?
- Bugscope Team some, such as deerflies and horseflies, use cutting/slashing mouthparts to get blood to drink
- Bugscope Team this is what the inside of the chamber looks like
- Teacher why does it itch when the mosquitoes suck our blood?
Bugscope Team the mosquitoes inject us with an anticoagulant to keep our blood flowing. The anticoagulant is what causes the itch
Bugscope Team it's a histamine reaction from our bodies to the bite area
Bugscope Team wait...sorry not quite awake and that's not quite right, the histamine make it bumpy, which is why some people get larger bumps, the itchiness is the vasodialtion stuff,
Bugscope Team the vasodilation makes it so the area swells up so the nerves nearby is irritated
- Bugscope Team the samples need to be in a vacuum so we can collect the electrons that come back from them
- 7:39am
- Bugscope Team you can see the rolypoly's compound eyes today!
- Teacher do we put the speciman inside the chmaber?
Bugscope Team the samples we work with need to be very dry, and we also coat them with gold-palladium so they will be conductive
- Bugscope Team the roly poly has very few ommatidia, as you can see
- Teacher why is called a roly poly rampant?
Bugscope Team 'rampant' means it is standing up on its hind legs, kind of a joke. like in heraldry
Bugscope Team definitely not sight. They have small eyes and live mostly in dark places anyway
- 7:44am
- Bugscope Team for some reason i caught the wrong question. Oops
- Teacher what does it eat?
- Bugscope Team they eat decaying plants and stuff like that, even dead insects
- Teacher which of the 5 senses of the rolypoly is the strongest?
Bugscope Team I'm not sure, but if i had to guess it'd probably be taste?
Bugscope Team like cate said, it's definitely not sight, you can kind of tell that by comparing the number of omatidia in their compound eye to that of the mosquitoes or other more sigh reliant insects/arthropods
Bugscope Team i guessed taste, since they're soil dwelling, and might be more protected by soil/leaf litter, but taste and touch would probably be their two more important senses
- 7:54am
- Bugscope Team humans have 3 color receptive cones in our eyes. Butterflies have 5. Mantis shrimp have 16.
- Teacher do the compound eyes see as clearly as we do?
Bugscope Team no, not even close
Bugscope Team they get a much lower resolution picture than we do
Bugscope Team they also see in a slightly different range of colour than we do, often in the ultraviolet to slightly below red spectrum
Bugscope Team and what they see isn't multiple images of the same thing depending on the number of ommatidia, but rather a mosaic of sorts
- Teacher why does the electron microscope only show pictures in black and white?
Bugscope Team we are using electrons to image and not light. Electrons are smaller and can resolve things as small as a few nanometers big.
- Teacher thank you very much for this experience, it was very informative and we highly appreciate you getting up early to take time to show us these pictures. we hope to keep in contact. goodbye Grade 8 OWLA girls
- Bugscope Team thanks!
- Bugscope Team Thank You for connecting with us Today!
- Bugscope Team we look forward to seeing you again
- Bugscope Team this was really fun for us
- Bugscope Team this is cool
Bugscope Team that is cool
- Teacher Thank you to the whole team from the teachers and students.
- Bugscope Team Thank You!
- Bugscope Team See you next year!
