St. Thomas the Apostle
Session 2008-044

Application

School

Class

Project

Miscellaneous

Transcript

Connected on 2008-06-10 10:00:00 from West Hempstead, NY, US

• 9:08 am
• Bugscope Teamsession enabled, rxl started, vac started
• 9:26 am

• 9:33 am
• Bugscope Teamhi ro, welcome to bugscope, where are you from?

• Bugscope Teamhi umesh!
• Bugscope Teamhi anobserver, welcome to bugscope, where are you from?
• Bugscope Teamhi karen, welcome to bugscope!
• Bugscope Teamwe are setting up for a session at 10AM
• GuestI am in Arlington, VA at a meeting for the National Science Foundation.
• GuestHi, I work with teenagers interested in technology. Your site is cool.
• Bugscope Teamthanks! we've been doing bugscope for almost 10 years, this website is version 2.0

• GuestI will let my group know about your work and the site.
• Bugscope Teamif you are interested in applying for bugscope, it's easy, and we almost never reject: http://bugscope.beckman.uiuc.edu/apply
• Bugscope TeamThanks Alex and Scott for responding to these questions from NSF. When the session starts, people will just observe.
• GuestThanks for letting me know.
• Bugscope Teamah, umesh, are these guests with you?
• 9:38 am

• Bugscope TeamYes, we are in a meeting. I had mentioned to Scott that people will check-in on Tues.
• Bugscope TeamThis is setup for today's bugscope session with St Thomas the Apostle School in West Hempstead, NY.
• Bugscope TeamAlex, please respond to questions. This is great! Thanks!
• Bugscope TeamWe have been running bugscope since March 1999. The microscope was purchased with NSF funding for this purpose.

• Bugscope TeamWe run three and sometimes four sessions a week when school is in. Anyone from home schoolers to K through 12 to preservice teachers.
• GuestHi there, can i try driving the microscopre
  Bugscope Teamhi pete, we'd be happy to let you drive in a moment, we need to finish setting up presets first though, how about in 5 minutes?
• Bugscope Teamwe do 2-3 sessions per week. since it is summer now, and most schools are out of session, it's a little slower now
• Bugscope TeamWe are on the curriculum of some school districts.
• Bugscope TeamWe are setting up for the school today, and that is our priority right now.

• GuestSo, what kind of bug is it and what are the students going to learn aobut today?
• Guestyes, that will be great. Thx

• 9:43 am
• Bugscope TeamWhat the kids today want to see is a butterfly wing, a leg, a spiracle, and a compound eye. We will try to show them more than that.

• Bugscope TeamWe like to find places on the stub -- on the sample -- that will pique the kids' iinterest and make them want to follow through.
• Bugscope TeamThanks, Scott. Karen is a NSF program officer focusing on technology and K-12.
• Bugscope TeamIf they see a mite, for example, on something, we want them to take the mag down to see just where it is -- as on the eye of an earwig.

• Bugscope TeamOne priority is to have the kids actually understand that they are controlling a $600,000 electron microscope -- these are not just static images.
• Bugscope TeamWe want them to ask about the insects/arthropods, the electron microscope, why the images are not in color, and eventually, if we have done our job -- what we had to study to get the jobs we have.

• Bugscope TeamWe want the kids to be intrigued, have a good time, and recognize that we have a great time doing this.
• 9:48 am
• Bugscope TeamWe try to have a rapport among ourselves on this end, and have that show, and include the kids as soon as they begin participating.
• Bugscope TeamWe have done a little over 350 sessions in 9 years. We often have an entomologist on board -- she may be here when the connection starts at 11 your time.
• GuestSo, why is it in black and white?
• Bugscope Teamhello mrs. b, welcome to bugscope!
• Bugscope Teammrs b, we are just finishing up the presets, we'll be ready for you in a sec
• TeacherHello! Thank you for having us!
• Bugscope Teamjust a moment...
• Bugscope TeamKaren we are using electrons to capture the images we see, not light. Electrons are much smaller than visible light. But if that were not the case we would get gray scale anyway, since the secondary electron detector captures images as signal intensity and does not see color.
• Bugscope TeamHi Mrs B!
• Bugscope Teamokay, presets are done, i've unlocked the session, mrs. b you now have control of the scope!
• 9:53 am
• Bugscope TeamMrs B we have some guests from NSF with us, in the DC area.
• TeacherThis is so exciting!
• Bugscope Teammrs. b, the current image you are looking at is a fruit fly. the punch-bag looking thing is called a haltere, and just to the right is a spiracle (breathing hole)
• Bugscope TeamThis is a fruit fly haltere, and you can see a thoracic spiracle to the right of it.
• Bugscope Teamhah Alex beat me all the way.
• Bugscope Team:)
• Bugscope Teammrs. b, you should see controls for the microscope on the right side of your browser: magnify, navigation, focus and adjust. please feel free to drive the scope at your will
• Teacherwhat is a haltere
• Bugscope TeamThe haltere has hypertrophied mechanoreceptors on its shaft. It beats opposite the way the wings beat and provides a sort of balance to the movement of the wings.
• Bugscope TeamIt is like a gyroscope, in a way.
• Bugscope Teamyou can also click on any preset image, and the scope will move to that preset. clicking on a preset is a nice way to get back to an image if you are lost or want to see something new
• Bugscope TeamThe haltere may be a modified hindwing that has evolved to have a balancing function.
• Bugscope TeamHalteres are found in Diptera -- two-winged flies.
• Bugscope TeamIf we were to look at a bee or wasp we would see that they have four wings.
• Bugscope Teammrs. b, the magnification range of the scope is about 30x - 600,000x, although for bugscope, we rarely go much past 20,000-30,000x as top magnification
• Bugscope Teamah, this is the full side view of a fruit fly
• Bugscope Team4 wings and no haltere
• Bugscope Teamplease feel free to ask any questions you or your students might have, we will do our best to answer

• 9:58 am
• Bugscope TeamBecause it is more efficient to fly with two rather than four wings, wasps and bees have little hooks on one set of wings so that the fore- and hindwings attach in flight. To function as one wing per side.
• Teacheris this one of the wings?
• Bugscope Teamnope, this is an eye!
• Bugscope Teamthis is very uncommon, for us -- this compound eye with lots of setae in between the ommatidia.
• Bugscope Teamit is a compound eye
• TeacherAn eye of what?
• Bugscope Teamthe individual facets are called ommatidia.

• Bugscope Teamwe arent sure, maybe some sort of mosquito
• Bugscope TeamIf you take the magnification down you should be able to see where we are.
• Bugscope Teamyou can take down the mag

• Bugscope Teamit is a bit squished and dried out
• Bugscope TeamThere are so many different insects, and when we get them sometimes they are not easily recognizable -- so sometimes we don't know what we have in the 'scope.
• Bugscope Teamthis looks like a mosquito, as Cate said.

• Teacherwhat is this part?
• Bugscope Teamsome insects have thinner cuticle -- thinner chitin -- compared to others.
• Bugscope Teamthis is the head of the mosquito
• Bugscope Team this is the head, to the bottom, and part of the thorax, above.
• Teacherwhat isthis little black area?
• Bugscope Teamyou can see what looks like the proboscis, sticking out of the head, pointing to the NE
• Bugscope Teamit is so small that when we mounted it we could not see what it was.
• Bugscope Teamthe black circles are where the antennae used to be.

• Bugscope Teamthe head is deflated, like a basketball
• 10:04 am
• Bugscope Teamthis may be a male mosquito -- the females are the ones that bite
• Bugscope Teaminsects are usually much 'hairier' than we expect
• Bugscope Teamnotice how hairy the insects are. those hairs are called setae (see-tee). they function like cat whiskers, they help the insect to sense its environment
• Bugscope Teamthe 'hairs' are called 'setae'

• Bugscope Teamsome of the setae are chemosensory -- they are used to smell the air
• Bugscope Teamsince insects have a hard exoskeleton, and can't feel with that exoskeleton, the setae connect to nerves underneath the exoskeleton, and that's how the insects feels things

• Bugscope Teaminsects and similar arthropods do not have skin, as Alex says, so they need a means of sensing their environment
• Bugscope Teamthrough the cuticle

• Teacherwe thought the scales were flat and oval and surprised to see that they are not
• Bugscope Teamthey are very beautiful, like tiny feathers
• Bugscope Teamyeah, isn't it cool how different insects look under an electron microscope!
• Bugscope Teamthey can come in a few different shapes, they dont all look like these
• Bugscope Teamit is hard to keep them from charging up in the electron beam because they are not easy to ground

• Bugscope Teamthere are some things that were discovered only AFTER scientists started looking at bugs under a microscope. things like brochosomes were not known to exists before then.
• Bugscope Teamall of the things we are looking at using the scanning electron microscope today have been coated with several nanometers of gold-palladium
• Teacherwhy do the oens in the back look more spikey?
• Bugscope Teamthe gold-palladium makes the 'bugs' conductive
• Bugscope Teamah, yes, and notice the scale bar at the lower left of the image, that gives you a measure of how big things are
• 10:09 am
• Bugscope Teamsome of them are indeed more spikey, and they may have another function, more like normal sensory setae
• Bugscope Teamin the scale bar, 1 um = one micron = one millionth of a meter
• Bugscope Teamthe scales come off very easily, and they help butterflies, moths, and skippers slip out of spider webs
• Teacherwhat is a skipper?
• Bugscope Teamthey are also responsible for some of the colors we see -- the colors may be formed by the shape of the scale rather than a pigment
• Bugscope Teama skipper is similar to a butterfly; it has a few distinct differences
• Bugscope Teamthey have short wings, thick bodies, and fly fast, almost a third of all North American butterflies (around 200 species) are skippers
• Bugscope Teamhere is a cool image of a skipper butterfly: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Green_Grass-Dart.jpg
• Bugscope Teamby the way mrs. b, all the chat and images are saved to your bugscope member page, i'll send you the link after the session
• Teacherthank you sooo much!

• Bugscope Teamskippers hold their wings differently compared to butterflies, and their antennae are club-shaped with a little hook at the end

• Bugscope Teamtheir bodies are also generally thicker

• 10:14 am

• Bugscope Teamthis is the eye of the moth up close

• Bugscope Teamor butterfly --
• Teacher\what are those bumpy areas called?
  Bugscope Teamthose bumps are the individual facets of the compound eye, they are called ommatidia
• Bugscope Teamthe hexagonal shapes are the ommatidia
• Bugscope Teamthe individual facets of the eye
• Bugscope Teameach ommatidia has a lens in it and gets an image and sends it to the bug brain

• Teacherit is interesting to see that the comppund eyes look like honeycombs

• Bugscope Teambut unlike human eyes, the lens cannot move. so that's why it's thought the insect has all these ommatidia, so that it can see a wide range (wide angle view) but without having to develop complex eye movement... i think

• Bugscope Teamthe honeycomb shape allows gives the eye curvature
• Bugscope Teamcompound eyes are very sensitive to motion -- they register motion more readily than our eyes
• Bugscope Teamthat is why flies can see us and get away so easily
• Bugscope Teamto a fly we seem to move very slowly

• Bugscope Teamnow we see bacteria
• Bugscope Teamon this small beetle
• Bugscope Teamgerms!
• 10:20 am
• Bugscope Teamthis is an interesting beetle -- usually they do not have scales like this one

• Bugscope Teamthey are the small rod shaped objects
• Teacherwas this beetle sick?
• Bugscope Teamthere are also mold spores apparent at high mag
• Bugscope Teamthis all likely happened after it died

• Bugscope Teamfungus and bacteria move in quickly and make things rot -- or we would be miles deep in dead bugs all of the time
• Bugscope Teamand other things...
• Bugscope Teambacilli -- the rod-shaped bacteria -- are usually about 2 microns long. We can see that these are much longer.

• Bugscope Teamcrickets are often kind of boring to look at but this is kind of cool

• Bugscope Teamthis may be collapsed -- dehydrated
• Teacherwhat is a palp?
  Bugscope Teamit helps the insect taste or manipulate food
• Bugscope Teamone antenna is visible below and to the left
• 10:25 am

• Bugscope Teamyou can see some of the spider's limbs to the right and top

• Bugscope Teamof the screen
• Bugscope Teamthe spider's abdomen is to the right

• Bugscope Teamwhere the spinnerets are
• Bugscope Teamthe head of the cricket is due south

• Bugscope TeamIt has lots of what are likely chemosensory setae

• Bugscope Teamwith which the insect can small the air and taste its prospective food
• Bugscope Teamsmell the air I should have said

• Bugscope Teamthis is what allows the ladybug to walk on vertical surfaces
• 10:30 am
• Bugscope Teamor ceilings
• Bugscope Teamthese are tiny setae that work like little suction cups
• Teacheris this the ladybugs legs?
  Bugscope Teamthese are special setae (hairs) on ladybug legs

• Bugscope Teamthey are sticky, and in great numbers allow the ladybug to hold onto things

• Bugscope Teamthis is on the leg -- on the tarsi

• Bugscope Teamthere is a claw
• Bugscope Teamtaking the mag down lets us see where we were

• Bugscope Teamand this is a pad called a pulvillus

• Bugscope Teamwhich has the tenent setae on it

• Bugscope Teamnow we see more of the body
• Bugscope Teamwe mount most insects upside down -- ventral side up -- so that you can see the limbs and the mouthparts
• Bugscope Teamthere isnt usually anything interesting on their backs
• Bugscope Teamthe head will be to the north
• Bugscope Teamyeah they have smooth backs -- the elytra are the wing covers

• Bugscope Teamnow you can see the head, and one of the eyes, and an antenna

• 10:35 am
• Bugscope Teamoops not now

• Bugscope Teamnow see the head, streamlined into the body?

• Bugscope Teamladybugs have palps that are shaped like little vacuum cleaner nozzles

• Teacheris this it?

• Bugscope Teamthis is a ladybug, near the top left is it's mouth area, which is really wild looking
• Bugscope Teamjust above shaped like a triangle, an inverted triangle
• Bugscope Teamthere are two of them
• Bugscope Teamand there is an antenna coming out of the head area, pointing to the SE

• Bugscope Teamthere cool!
• Bugscope Teamand notice the compound eye near the right
• Bugscope Teamthe mouth is very complicated looking
• Bugscope Teamyou can see the dumps (ommatidia) of the compound eye
• Bugscope Teambumps?
• Bugscope Teamyes yes, bumps! oops, typo, sorry
• 10:40 am

• Bugscope Teamspiders have interesting looking setae
• Bugscope Teamsetae that are sensitive to vibrations

• Bugscope Teamthe setae look like slender evergreen trees

• Bugscope Teamthe spider's head is to the north

• Bugscope Teamyou can see that the abdomen, after the spider died, shrank quite a bit

• Bugscope Teamspiders have soft bodies compared to most insects

• Bugscope Teamwell they arent insects even, they are arachnids

• Teacherdo all spiders have fangs?

• Bugscope Teamthese are the fangs. they have poison pores, but the one we can see has some gunk over it
• Bugscope Teamyes all spiders have fangs

• Teacherwhere are then poison pores?
• 10:45 am
• Bugscope Teamat the tips

• Bugscope Teamspiders inject venom into their prey

• Bugscope Teamand the venom dissolves the insides of the 'bug'

• Bugscope Teamthen they suck the dissolved insides out, like a milkshake
• Bugscope Teamor for us, depending on the spider, will hurt a lot
• Bugscope Teamthis pore is clogged

• Bugscope Teamrecluse spiders are dangerous because their venom can cause our tissues to ulcerate -- to die at the place we were bitten
• Bugscope Teamtissue necrosis
• Teacherthank you very much for showing us these slides, unfortunatesly we must go to lunch. We truly enjoyed this experience.
• Bugscope Teammilkshakes for munch
• Bugscope Teamlunch
• Bugscope Teamthese are all live images of the bugs
• Bugscope Teamthank you mrs. b, your images and chat are all saved at: http://bugscope.beckman.uiuc.edu/members/2008-044
• Bugscope TeamThank You for connecting today!
• Bugscope Teamthank you for your great questions
• Bugscope Teamremember though, these aren't slides, you were controlling a $600,000 microscope live!
• Bugscope Teamwe will look forward to seeing you next year
• Bugscope Teamokay, let's close up the session
• 10:50 am
• Bugscope Teamrxl stopped, session disabled, locked