Connected on 2013-05-29 09:00:00 from Fairfield, Connecticut, United States
- 7:13am
- Bugscope Team sample is coating right now...
- 7:21am
- Bugscope Team and sample is in the 'scope, pumping down
- 7:29am
- 7:35am
- Bugscope Team good morning!
- Teacher Hello- Will there be a sound component to this session? Do we type in questions only?
- Bugscope Team no and yes
- Teacher Good morning to You!
- Bugscope Team we're working to finish the presets in the next 10 minutes or so
- 7:40am
- Bugscope Team the presets will show up on the lefthand screen; you will be able to click on any of them to have the microscope drive to that position on the stage
- Teacher The students will be here in about a half hour- we will also have guests logging in from Thailand & a school near where Silkworms are used for textile micro-enterprise.
Bugscope Team sounds great!
- Teacher I hope that we sent enough insects!
- Bugscope Team I think there are plenty of insects and arthropods
- Bugscope Team we don't know what everything is; kind of cool
- Teacher The kids wrote a lot of questions. Do they all log in as guests to send these to you or should I type them in as we go?
- Bugscope Team the kids should be able to log in as Students, with no password
- 7:46am
- Bugscope Team sometimes it is necessary to refresh the browser in order to obtain the Student option at login
- Teacher Thanks- Stepping out for a minute- staying logged on....
- Bugscope Team sometimes the Student option does not show up and the students must be logged in as Guests, again with no password
- Bugscope Team super cool
- 7:51am
- Teacher I'm Bacccck
- Bugscope Team haha Awesome
- 7:56am
- Teacher I have never seen these things before
- Teacher How are you taking the actual photos?
- Bugscope Team we're not really taking images now
- Bugscope Team just the quick little preset images you see on the left
- Bugscope Team when we collect images we slow the electron beam down and let it take its time scanning the specimen or area we want to see
- Teacher Later, what kind of camera, back, cmos, ccd, is necessary to capture images?
- Teacher Would you permit us to use some 'real' images ?
- Bugscope Team it's a secondary electron detector (SED) that uses a scintillator tube
- Bugscope Team it collects images as signal
- Bugscope Team you have a member page that has this transcript and images on it; we can also give you access to better images
- 8:01am
- Bugscope Team or it collects signal that becomes images
- Teacher Students are arriving now.
- Bugscope Team sounds great!
- 8:06am
- Bugscope Team we are ready to roll
- Guest Hello from Brandon and Warm Heart kids in Thailand!
- Bugscope Team hello Brandon and Warm Heart Kids!
- Bugscope Team Hello to Thailand!
- Bugscope Team SM has control of the microscope, presently
- Bugscope Team please let us know if Warm Heart would like control
- Bugscope Team this is the moth proboscis
- Bugscope Team it'
- Guest Great, it's fun to watch
- Guest Is this a fly?
- Bugscope Team s coiled up when it is not being used
- Bugscope Team it is a moth, kind of hard to tell from this perspective
- 8:12am
- Teacher Ok- Danbury is ready! Welcome warmheart
- Bugscope Team moths are usually difficult to image because they have thousands of scales and other setae covering their bodies
- Bugscope Team scales do not coat well with the gold-palladium we use to make the specimens conductive
- Teacher May we see the eye?
- Bugscope Team SM you can click on any of the presets to make the 'scope drive to that position
- Bugscope Team or you can click directly on the screen to get a feature to center
- Bugscope Team because SEM is sitting at the 'scope, he can tweak the focus etc. and kind of help out
- Bugscope Team please be sure to let us know when you have questions about any of this
- 8:17am
- Bugscope Team to the left we see some of the scales that, for one thing, protect the moth from getting caught in spider webs
- Bugscope Team and now, to the left again, we see the coiled proboscis of the moth
- Bugscope Team when the moth wants to extend its proboscis into a flower, it forces hemolymph into it and makes it shoot out like a party favor
- Teacher Are there different types of setae?
Bugscope Team yes there are many different types of setae
- Bugscope Team some setae are thermosensory, some are chemosensory, some are mechanosensory
- Bugscope Team some setae are modified into scales
- Bugscope Team some are called tenent setae, and they are found on a pad called a pulvillus that helps the insect stick to a surface -- it's how a fly walks on the ceiling
- Bugscope Team I clicked on the mosquito preset, but you are welcome to choose your own presets
- Teacher If this is a female mosquito- which part do we want to avoid?
- 8:22am
- Teacher Is this visible on the sample?
- Bugscope Team the mouth is to the upper left. It's called a proboscis and holds feeding tube and cutting parts
- Bugscope Team as you might know, mosquitos are the most dangerous insect because they can carry so many diseases
- Bugscope Team the fascicle is inside this tube, which is covered with scales
- Bugscope Team the fascicle has (usually) four cutting components, a siphon tube, and another part we don't know the purpose of
- Bugscope Team this is a parasitic wasp
- Bugscope Team we did not look to see if its ovipositor was visible
- Bugscope Team now we can see its thorax and part of its abdomen
- Bugscope Team all of the images we see are in black and white because we're using electrons to do the imaging
- Bugscope Team you can see that the wasp has four wings
- 8:27am
- Bugscope Team the specimens are coated with gold-palladium and affixed to an aluminum stub with silver paint and doublestick carbon tape
- Bugscope Team this is the thorax of the assassin bug
- Bugscope Team now we see more of it
- Bugscope Team you can see its compound eyes
- Teacher Why is it called an assassin bug?
Bugscope Team it pokes its proboscis into other insects and sucks the juice out of them
- Bugscope Team I think most assassin bugs also have venom that helps disable its prey and also dissolve their internal organs, much like a spider does
- Teacher Did you mount the bee we sent? It was large?
- Bugscope Team Titleist
- 8:32am
- Bugscope Team sorry we didn't see any insects sent from you
- Teacher Oh well. Tell us about the crazy treehoppers?
- Bugscope Team we looked up the Brazilian treehoppers
- Bugscope Team the weirdness about them -- there are many kinds -- seems often to be modifications of wings that are not utilized as wings
- Bugscope Team this is as close as we get -- a leafhopper
- Bugscope Team leafhoppers are true bugs, meaning that they have piercing/sucking mouthparts, just as aphids, assassin bugs, ambush bugs, and stinkbugs do
- Bugscope Team the compound eye of the leafhopper is streamlined into its head and has a male mosquito antenna resting on it
- Teacher Was the lightning bug too large?
Bugscope Team lighting bugs are also true bugs -- I'
- Bugscope Team so Cate made us a pretty cool sample of her own from what we had in stock
- 8:37am
- Bugscope Team lightning bugs would fit nicely on the stub, which is 1.75 inches in diameter
- Guest would love to have the Thai kids at some point if it's ok!
- Guest this is fantastic
- Bugscope Team Warm Heart you are of course welcome to run your own separate Bugscope session
- Guest oh ok, I'm sorry - I thought it was mentioned that conrols could be passed over for a moment
- Bugscope Team also, we can ocnfer control of the microscope to you now if you would like to drive
- Guest Happy to just watch too
- Bugscope Team um 'confer'
- Guest Oh, yes, please!
- Bugscope Team this is a super tiny super cool little pseudoscorpion
- Bugscope Team Warm Heart you now have control of the microscope.
- Teacher The students were wondering about jobs that would use the SEM and how you got involved. We saw the Career page. If warmheart wants to control the scope- great!
Bugscope Team we run a facility that has about 30 sophisticated microscopes in it, including the SEM, TEM, AFM, light and laser scanning confocal microscopes, micro and nano CT machines, etc., plus lots of sample prep instrumentation
- 8:42am
- Bugscope Team we train grad students and postdoctoral scholars, mostly, to use the instruments to do perform their own research
- Teacher ve scanned?
- Bugscope Team pseudoscorpions are pretty interesting when it comes to 'bugs' we have seen
- Bugscope Team today we have someone coming in with some Archeae -- a new branch of ancient bacteria-like organisms
- Teacher Have you colorized the photos?
Bugscope Team haha not me, but some people do
- Bugscope Team this is the top of the pseudoscorpion's head, so you might be able to see its eyes
- Bugscope Team there is also a pseudoscorpion mounted on its back
- Bugscope Team these are so small I don't know how Cate even found them to put them on the stub
- Teacher How do you decide what to look at? Are you specifically looking for certain distinctive features in certain specimens ?
Bugscope Team we want to find the coolest and often the creepiest parts
- Bugscope Team they are usually parts that have some function. like the claws or the eyes
- Bugscope Team we want to let Bugscope participants get an idea of how insects/arthropods do many of the same things we do but in a different way
- Bugscope Team 5 microns is about 2.5 bacteria long
- 8:48am
- Bugscope Team Warm Heart you might want to try the brochosomes preset if you would like to see nanoparticles
- Guest Very cool. Kids are loving this.
- Bugscope Team here it appears that we're imaging something like dried salt particles, which in this case are amorphous
- Guest Don't want to hog it though, happy to send it back
- Teacher Thank you so very much. Our questions will be better after we sleep on this (Ha). We have to go to another class now and cede any control and your time to WarmHeart! I will stay logged in as I go to my next class to make sure that the session goes as long as you want!.
- Bugscope Team brochosomes :)
- Bugscope Team Thank you, SM!
- 8:53am
- Guest Thanks Susan!
- Bugscope Team Warm Heart if you would like to drive for another 10 minutes or so, and also let us know when you have questions, we're happy to be here to help.
- Guest Is this still a scorpion?
- Bugscope Team we are on a leafhopper
- Bugscope Team they are the only insect that makes those little balls
- Guest Very cool
- Guest I think we've seen some here in Thailand
- Guest Time to put the kids to bed. Thank you so much!
- Bugscope Team thanks for joining us today!
- 8:59am
- Bugscope Team Thank You!
