Connected on 2013-01-11 13:30:00 from Gallatin, Montana, United States
- 12:21pm
- Bugscope Team coating sample...
- 12:32pm
- Bugscope Team sample is now pumping down
- Bugscope Team hello Mr McG!
- Teacher We will have our first group coming in around an hour. Just logging on to test.
- Bugscope Team super cool. Once the sample pumps down we'll start making presets, should be good on timing.
- 12:50pm
- 12:55pm
- 1:01pm
- Bugscope Team fleurs du mal
- 1:07pm
- 1:13pm
- 1:19pm
- 1:24pm
- Teacher OK - we are getting kids logged in
- Teacher let me know if you are ready for us
- Bugscope Team we just have to get the cricket and we're done
- Bugscope Team ok we are good to go!
- Bugscope Team you should have control of the 'scope now
- 1:30pm
- Bugscope Team please let us know when you have questions about anything
- Bugscope Team Hello Everyone!
- Bugscope Team Welcome to Bugscope!
- Bugscope Team this is a rolypoly
- Bugscope Team you can barely see its eye, at least one of them
- Bugscope Team Mr McG is the Supreme Ruler of the microscope
- Bugscope Team but here, let's go to the eye
- Teacher doesn't look like I have a dashboard - presets not moving and no zoom functions
- Bugscope Team huh what about now?
- Bugscope Team sorry
- Bugscope Team you should have control now
- Bugscope Team you can see the individual facets of the eye
- Bugscope Team only about 10 ommatidia
- 1:35pm
- Teacher tried logging out and back in but still no luck. I'll try another browser
- Bugscope Team wait we gave you control as Mr M
- Teacher OK - now it is working!!!!
- Bugscope Team super cool
- Bugscope Team those are setae that help the spider sense what is near it or touching it
- Student what are the hairs on the fangs?
Bugscope Team those are hairs. They help the spider and insects that the hairs are on to feel what is going on around it
- Bugscope Team we call the hairs setae when they are on insects and spiders
- Student is it a venomous spider?
Bugscope Team all spiders are venomous, but some are dangerous to people
- Bugscope Team this one is not dangerous to people, particularly
- Student What type of spider is it?
- 1:40pm
- Bugscope Team I just heard the stage click (I'm sitting at the microscope -- the SEM). Sometimes when we hear that click it means that the stage is bound up, at least a little, and the presets may not work perfectly
- Student do spiders have mucles
Bugscope Team yes they do, on the insides of their bodies like we do
- Student why do the spiders have small hairs
Bugscope Team they need to be particularly sensitive to vibration, and those hairs help them sense sound and touch and other vibrations, even if they do not have webs
- Student 33
- Student how much does a electron microscope cost?
Bugscope Team around $600,000. we bought this one is 1998.
- Student how big is the electron microscope?
Bugscope Team it is about the size of a large desk, with a side cabinet, and also a part with the stage on it that is about 6 feet tall
- Bugscope Team oh also we do not know what kind of spider it is, I am sorrry
- Student real name
- Student what is a roly polys rear name?
Bugscope Team sometimes they are called pill bugs, or sow bugs, or wood louse
- Student How many legs does a rolly polly have
Bugscope Team they have 7 pairs of legs
- Bugscope Team one of the genuses of rolypolies is called Armadillium. You can guess why...
- Student how far can we zoom in
Bugscope Team this microscope can zoom up to a million times, but you probably won't see much above 40,000 times for these bugs
- Bugscope Team those are setae
Bugscope Team some are microsetae, which do not connect to nerves, through the exoskeleton, and some are setae, which do
- 1:45pm
- Student what is the string like thing?
Bugscope Team that is fungus -=- the strands are called fungal hyphae
- Student what is the most interesting bug that you know
Bugscope Team I really like leafhoppers, and I like weevils; springtails are interesting and they may not actually be insects
- Student can the microscope see atoms
Bugscope Team no, not this one. We can see them using the atomic force microscope (AFM)
- Student what are microns
Bugscope Team a micron is the same as micrometer, which is a thousandth of a millimeter or a millionth (that is what micro- means, in this case) of a meter
- Bugscope Team 2 microns is the length of most rod-shaped bacteria (the bacilli)
- Student What is your favorite experiment you've ever conducted with the electron microscope?
Bugscope Team we did this really cool thing called mite wars a few years ago; the goal was to let a bunch of mites that attacked other mites go after mites that eat plants; it was kind of wild
- 1:51pm
- Student what wasp has the longest stinger and how long is it
Bugscope Team some of the cicada killer hornets have stingers that are several centimeters long
- Student why was the stinger not pointy?
Bugscope Team it was somehow bent, I am not sure why.
Bugscope Team not really sure, maybe it helps to sting other insects. It does look like it would hurt a lot
- Student why are there hairs on the black part but not the white part
Bugscope Team maybe we can just see them better against the black areas
- Student do bees sting with the same venom
Bugscope Team yes, but it is usually more concentrated
- Teacher What are we looking at here guys - the FSM baby?
Bugscope Team this is the click region of the click beetle, and the thing we see that looks like an octopus is something we see fairly frequently; it seems to be a plant that flies through the air; but we were thinking it looked like a flying spaghetti monster
- 1:56pm
- Bugscope Team this is some bacterial plaque -- the rod-shaped structures, yes
- Teacher which are the bacteria - the small rod shaped structures?
Bugscope Team that would be exactly right
- Student we brush our teeth and they obviously dont have toothbrushes so can they drowned in there own bacteria if enough grown in there mouth?
- Student why is it smiling
Bugscope Team haha. that is the curve of the mandibles
- Bugscope Team here you can see the compound eye up close
- Bugscope Team the mandibles open side to side, like a gate
- Bugscope Team yeah this could be focused....
- Bugscope Team the individual facets of the compound eye are called ommatidia
- 2:01pm
- Student how many of these circles are on this eye?
Bugscope Team probably several thousand per compound eye
- Bugscope Team we can see that it has some dried salts on it
- Bugscope Team that is what those little crystal shapes are
- Teacher nice job focusing!
- Bugscope Team this eye has fewer ommatidia
- Student what is the eye made out off and why do people call others bugeyed
Bugscope Team insects usually have big bulbous compound eyes that usually stick out from the rest of their head. The compound eye is made up of the same stuff as the rest of the insect exoskeleton. People may be called bug-eyed because they have big eyes or are able to kind of pop their eyes out a little.
- Bugscope Team it has a few of those gnarly looking fungal hyphae on it
- Bugscope Team if you had compound eyes you would have better peripheral vision, and also -- you would have a better ability to see motion, which is a good thing in the insect world
- Teacher Like Marty Feldmon
Bugscope Team yeah exactically
- Student *in
- 2:07pm
- Student where are you guys at un relation to the microscope?
Bugscope Team presently I am sitting at the microscope and using its computer to talk with you; Cate is upstairs in her office, but she made the sample and was down here to help set up; Scot is another computer down here, and sj is me in my office
- Student what kind of light do earwigs see? like bees see ultra violet rays?
Bugscope Team I don't know for sure, but I imagine earwigs do not see in UV and their vision is fairly basic
- Bugscope Team bees so some colors well and others not so well at all; I believe most of them can also see in the UV but I am not sure
- Student What are we looking at here?
Bugscope Team this is the end of one of the beetle palps. they help the beetle taste food and to move the food around in its mouth
- Student what is a palp?
Bugscope Team a palp is a kind of accessory mouthpart that is like a limb, like a knife and fork that can also taste
- Student Thanks!
- Student thank you!!!
- Student THSNK U GOT TO GO
- Student Thanks
- Student Thank you go to go!
- Student thank you very much!!!!!
- Student thank you for this lesson!
- Bugscope Team thanks!
- Student Thank You for your time
- Teacher a bit of a break and then one more group coming in, about 5-10 minutes
- Bugscope Team um that below was supposed to say Bees see some colors well...
- Bugscope Team Thank you, Everyone!
- Student BYE
- Student thanks for showing us these images and what a great lesson
- Student thank you!!!!
Bugscope Team Thank you, Dax!
- Bugscope Team Bye you all!
- 2:12pm
- Bugscope Team hello Dragonfly! Are you still with us?
- Bugscope Team bees are said to not see red very well at all; they can actually confuse it with green. it is also said that if they were not able to see a UV wavelengths, they would lose interest in foraging
- Bugscope Team http://www.westmtnapiary.com/Bees_and_color.html
- Student hi
Bugscope Team Hi TrevyM!
- Student Lol
Bugscope Team haha Nice.
- Bugscope Team this is a beetle; you can see it has lamellated antennae
- Bugscope Team the antennae have lobes and can actually fold open kind of like a fan
- Student Cool
- 2:18pm
- Student sweet
- Bugscope Team you can see the palps -- two sets of palps. and yo can also see one of the compound eyes
- Student wierd
- Bugscope Team insects and comparable arthropods like centipedes and rolypolies do not have skin or bones; they have an exoskeleton instead, which is kind of like if you were wearing a suit of armor
- Student cool
- Student can we see the silverfish head?
Bugscope Team I just clicked on it, hope Mr McG is cool with that.
- Student how big is it
Bugscope Team we can get an idea of the sizes of what we're looking at by referring to the scalebar on the lower left of the screen. you can see that it reads in millimeters right now
- Bugscope Team the silverfish's head is sideways
- Student what is the furry stuff on it
Bugscope Team we see lots of setae, which look like hair, and we also see lots of scales, which are actually also setae, and which butterflies, moths, and mosquitoes have as well\
- 2:23pm
- Student b
- Student How big is the microscope
Bugscope Team it is kind of like a large desk with a taller component to one side, about 6 feet high, and also a cabinet toward the back. it has its own room, air, nitrogen, filtered electrical power, chilled water, etc.
- Student QUE FIGURA ES
Bugscope Team this right now is the tip of the stinger of a small wasp
- Bugscope Team if you go to the Bugscope web site when you're done, you can see a photo of the microscope
- Student What is the moon crater looking thing on the stinger?
- Bugscope Team we can see one of the wasp's arms to the left. it is glowing because it is charged up with electrons from the electron beam we are using to collect these images
- Student why does it hurt when the wasp stings you
- Bugscope Team we coat the samples with gold-palladium alloy to make them conductive, but sometimes the connection to ground is lost and we see evidence of charging like that
- Student what are the bumps on the wasp
Bugscope Team the wasp has some sort of dried liquid on it. That's what the bumps on the wasp are. The big bumps under it are features of the double stick carbon tape
- Bugscope Team we are sorry this is a little difficult to see; I can work on it a bit, at the microscope, if you have time
- Teacher please do
- 2:28pm
- Student Please do
- Student thats bacteria?
Bugscope Team the rounded rod-shaped things are bacilli -- one of the three general shapes of bacteria
- Student are they still alive
Bugscope Team no
- Student bananas
Bugscope Team yeah they are kind of like stubby bananas, like plantains
- Bugscope Team the beetle had a dirty mouth; we are looking at the mouth now
- Student what is tes
Bugscope Team this is the mouth area of the beetle
- Bugscope Team now we can see some of the palps
- Student is this black and white or is it a different color
Bugscope Team it's in grayscale (black and white). To get those bacteria and virus images in color we have to do that after we take the image
- Bugscope Team and two of the bacteria
- Student that looked like a pancake
- Student what type beetle is this
Bugscope Team not sure; it is kind of like a june bug and kind of like a Japanese beetle, but it is neither
- Bugscope Team there are more beetle species than any other insect species
- 2:34pm
- Student what type of spider is it
Bugscope Team Nicken this is some kind of house spider
- Student Why are some senttae longer then others?
Bugscope Team the bigger ones probably help tell the spider it is bumping into something- like cat whiskers.
- Student what is the fuzz in the background
Bugscope Team the double-stick carbon tab that the insects/arthropods are stuck to is in the background, and it has bumps on it. some of those bumps are due to silver paint as well
- Student why is the spider furry
Bugscope Team a lot of the hairs probably help the spider feel vibrations (like from prey)
- Student how are spider
- Guest Smow
- Student coating sample plis
Bugscope Team the coating was done with an alloy of gold and palladium, using a sputter coater, which can produce a very thin layer of conductive metal
- Student how come tarantulas don`t make webs
Bugscope Team they don't need to, apparently, but they do produce the same silk
- Student is that the mouth?
Bugscope Team yes, the beetle's mouth right now
- Bugscope Team the thing that goes down and curves around the mouth like a club is an antenna
- Bugscope Team tarantulas are very fragile. some of the hairs we see on tarantulas are called urticating hairs, which means that they induce itching in whatever comes close enough to sniff them
- Student Where did you get all these insects?
Bugscope Team we collect them ourselves, we get them from entomologists, people send them to us
- 2:39pm
- Student How many legs does it have?
Bugscope Team they have 14 legs
- Student what are those things rolled up on top of its head
Bugscope Team those are the antennae
- Student what is the scientific name for a roly-poly
Bugscope Team one of the rolypoly genus names is Armadillium, so a particular species would be Armadillium something.
- Student how do they get they're legs inside themselves
Bugscope Team they kind of fold up
- Student Does the roly poly have eyes?
Bugscope Team yes it does; let us know if you want us to take you there to see them
- Student W.H.A is der
- Student Why are there holes in the rolly pollys legs?
Bugscope Team there are places where the legs broke off. Insects can break easily after they die and dry out
- Student yes please!
Bugscope Team Bolivia here is one of the compound eyes; you can see that it has about 10 or 12 facets, or ommatidia. Some large wasps can have as many as 17,000 ommatidia per compound eye.
- Guest I'm the defender of the free world
Bugscope Team Thanks, man.
- Student do roly poly's grow their legs back
Bugscope Team no. the only way a bug would grow something back is if it had another molt to go through. Some spiders that live a long time like tarantulas will have multiple molts. If a caterpillar lost a leg it would have all of its legs when it turns into a butterfly or moth
- Student hi obama
- Student why does it have weird eyes
Bugscope Team they probably do not see very well; mostly they would just register light and shadows
- Student whats that bumpy thing?
Bugscope Team that is the compound eye
- Student what is the clump on its eye thats connected to the sting stuff?
Bugscope Team some juju -- dried fluid and dirt
- Student YIJICA its the eye. :)
- 2:44pm
- Student string
Bugscope Team really not sure; we may be seeing some fungal hyphae, or it could be web from a spider
- Student gross
Bugscope Team haha
- Bugscope Team the President was not here for very long
- Student Are the claws sharp?
Bugscope Team yes but they are so small you would hardly feel them
- Student there settae on claws?
Bugscope Team there are some. You have to remember the insect really can't feel much through the exoskeleton
- Student Why are they hooked together?'
Bugscope Team it just happened, apparently, when the beetle died. we do not see that very often
- Student what is dis because i don not
Bugscope Team this is the abdomen of a beetle, and the tarsi of the hindlegs. tarsi are the last five segments of the leg.
- Student Can u see these claws with the naked eye?
Bugscope Team I think just barely.
- Student Harry spider knee time!
Bugscope Team yes it is
- Student is he sharping his claw
Bugscope Team no, probably doesn't need to
- 2:49pm
- Bugscope Team spiders have, among other types of setae, plumose setae, which means that they have projections all of the way around, kind of like a Christmas tree.
- Student Do u know how old the spider was?
Bugscope Team no I am sorry
- Student what are the things that look like corn flakes
- Bugscope Team the things that might look like rocks right now are most likely dust and dirt
- Student f
- Student why do they need septa in there mouth
Bugscope Team it's like a filter device
- Student how much did the microscope cost
Bugscope Team this one was about $600,000 in 1998, and recently we checked into getting a new one -- they cost about the same
- 2:54pm
- Student are the setae sharp?
Bugscope Team yes they are, but from our perspective they are so small that they would only tickle if you could feel them
- Student gross. :(
Bugscope Team Bolivia that is part of what makes this fun!
- Bugscope Team if you were holding a ladybug you might feel some tickly feeling from the claws. Not so much if it bit you though
Bugscope Team yes you would definitely feel it if it bit you
- Student where did you find these arthopods
Bugscope Team people send them to us, bring them in in jars, we collect them in the summer, sometimes in our own houses. it is cool because when we come across bugs we are the predators and can actually make use of them
- Student when cool kids like us arent using the microsope who is
- Student What other jobs do you guys have?
Bugscope Team we help other people image their samples for their research. We might also image samples for companies. We don't just focus on insects
- Student When you are not using the microscope who is?
Bugscope Team graduate students and postdoctoral scholars, so people who are done with college, and sometimes college studetns
- Student i saw some yellow stuff come out of a lady bug is that its blood
Bugscope Team it could be or it could be bug waste
- Student what are your backgrounds,cate/scot
Bugscope Team I have a degree in English and biology; Cate was a physics major, so she is smart
- Student nice beetle leg
- Student THANK YOU
- Bugscope Team the hemolymph (bug blood) is usually clear, but when you mash a bug you sometimes get other stuff mixed in
- Student thank you very much
- Student thank you
- Student !!!
- Student THANK YOU SOOO MUCH!!
- Student thank you !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
- Student Thhhhhhhaaaaannnnkkkk uuuuuuuuuuu! had a great time!
- Student THX :)
- Bugscope Team thank you!
- 2:59pm
- Student Thank you so much scotj and cate!!!
- Student THANK YOU PEOPLE!
- Student thank you: :) bye
- Student 45gy6dhy
- Student ]
- Student Peace homeis!
- Bugscope Team Thank You!
- Bugscope Team Thank you, Bolivia!
- Student Thank u for letting us use the microscope!
Bugscope Team Thank you, Montana.
- Student BYE
Bugscope Team Bye LoveMichelle!
- Student Gracias! :):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):)
Bugscope Team Gracias, Todd!
- Student thank you :):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):))::):):
Bugscope Team Thank you, Drab & Hanley!
- Teacher Awesome job team. Thank you so much for hosting us. The kids loved it!
Bugscope Team See you next year!
- Student thank you, from dylan and noah
Bugscope Team Thank you, Dylan and Noah!
