Connected on 2009-04-29 15:00:00
from , CA, US
- 2:26 pm
- Bugscope Teamhi rb, welcome to bugscope
- Bugscope Teamwe are setting up presets for today's session in 35 minutes
- GuestWow! Pretty incredible technology. Thanks for letting me watch.
- Bugscope Teamno problemo
- Bugscope Teamthis is bugscope version 2.0, old version was gnarly cgi stuff, but it worked in its day!
- Bugscope Teamif you stay for the whole session, we can let you control the scope after the school is done
- Bugscope Teamor you could come back later
- Bugscope Teamthe school is online from 3-4PM central time
- 2:32 pm
- GuestThat would be great. When is the session sceduled to end?
- Bugscope Team4PM central
- Bugscope Teambut you are welcome to watch the session too. they can get pretty exciting depending on how many students login
- 2:37 pm
- 2:43 pm
- Bugscope Teamhi mr. roman, welcome to bugscope!
- TeacherHello
- Bugscope TeamWelcome to Bugscope!
- Bugscope Teamwe couldn't use the bee or the snail, too much moisture in them for the scope vacuum
- Teacherhow does this work? this is the first time we have ever done this
- Bugscope Teamit's easy, and we are here to help you with any problems you might have
- Bugscope Teamabove this chat are images coming from the electron microscpe
- Bugscope Teamyou can control the scope, and drive around and look at things
- Bugscope Teamyou can also click on a preset to move to that location
- Bugscope Teamright now, we are still setting up (presets) and we'll hand over control to you in about 5-10 minutes
- Teacherso minus the snail, and bee are we only viewing the 3 left?
- Bugscope Teamif your image evern goes black (happens occasionally) try a page refresh (F5)
- 2:48 pm
- Bugscope Teamwe've got more than 3, we have a beetle, a tick, a mosquito, assassin bug, caterpillar, fruit fly, etc
- Teacherok thank you
- Bugscope TeamRob preset no. 12 is the one with the little haltere-looking thing.
- Bugscope TeamI see it. Funky.
- Bugscope TeamROB!
- Bugscope TeamMr Roman's class is on in like 11 minutes, so it'll be a little while before we can cruise to it.
- Bugscope Teamhey
- Bugscope TeamYeah Annie I called your lab with a 'bycid question. ;)
- Bugscope TeamSo I, uh, have no idea what that is.
- Bugscope TeamMe neither
- Bugscope TeamIt's in the wrong place to even be a "third" wing.
- Bugscope TeamMaybe it's a mite or a seed. But it looks like it has an indentation for the 'haltere' to fit into, as Cate pointed out.
- Bugscope TeamIt could be some sort of enlarged axillary sclerite.
- Bugscope TeamI should ask Ian. He would know
- Bugscope Teamwe are almost done with presets.... just another moment mr. roman
- 2:53 pm
- TeacherNot a problem
- Bugscope TeamMr Roman this is a nice set of critters you sent.
- Teachergreat im glad the shipped ok
- Bugscope Teamokay, presets are done, session is unlocked, mr roman, you should see controls on the right side of your browser now
- Bugscope Teamgo ahead and start driving around
- Bugscope TeamMr Roman we are ready to roll.
- 3:00 pm
- TeacherYes, the kids are ready to do their presentations
- Bugscope TeamMr Roman you can choose from among the presets, change mag, drive into the wilderness on your own, click to center (safer), focus, etc.
- Bugscope Teamthese are live images from an electron microscope. when you click on magnify, the ESEM is actually changing it's magnification, and the resulting image(s) are sent to you through this bugscope web interface
- Bugscope Teamat higher mags, you'll need to adjust the focus a bit, sometimes
- 3:05 pm
- Bugscope Teamwhen using click to drive (part of navigation), make sure to click once to start moving, then click again to stop. an alternative to click to drive, is click to center, which is much easier to use
- Bugscope Teamthis is a head of a ladybug
- Teacherone of the students questions was do lady bugs bite?
Bugscope TeamOccasionally lady bird beetles will bite. The most notorious biters are the Asian multicolored lady beetles, the orange ladybugs that are around in the fall. They frequently bite.
- Bugscope Teamthe Asian ladybirds are said to mistake nice pink skin for something they would normally eat
- Bugscope TeamThey are also attracted to light colored surfaces, like white tshirts or if you are me, extremely white arms
- Bugscope Teamladybugs are predators -- they eat other insects, including aphids
- 3:10 pm
- Bugscope Teamthis is an ant with a very complex compound eye and ocelli -- like a wasp
- Bugscope Teamcompound eyes are made up of hundreds of individual facets, called ommatidia. each one has a lens in it. if you mag up to the eye you'll see the ommatidia better
- Bugscope TeamAnd the ocelli are smaller versions of the eye that can only detect light and dark.
- 3:15 pm
- Bugscope Teamhere now we can see the eye up close!
- Bugscope TeamAnts have much smaller eyes than many other types of insects.
- Bugscope Teamthe compound eye here also has some setae (insect hairs) in between the facets
- Bugscope TeamThat is because they live underground and in dark places and don't rely on their vision as much as a fly or a bee does.
- Bugscope Teamoften they have very few ommatidia -- they look like raspberries. and some species of ants do not bother to have eyes at all
- Teacherwhy do they have hair on the eye?
Bugscope TeamInsects can't feel, smell, or taste anything through the exoskeleton, so they have to use hairs when they want to do these things. As Scot said, the hair is likely for feeling things that bump the eye.
- Bugscope Teamthe hair is likely mechanosensory -- they can feel when something is touching the eye
- Bugscope Teamwhen we look at fruit fly eyes we see setae like that between most of the facets -- the ommatidia
- Teacherdo all ants bite?
Bugscope TeamI suspect all ants would bite if they got the chance. But a lot of them are too small to get their mandibles around your skin.
- Bugscope Teamthis is the simple eye found on top of the ant head
- Bugscope Teamalso called an ocellus
- Bugscope Teamusually we will see three of these, in a triangle on top of the head
- 3:20 pm
- Bugscope TeamSome ants also sting
- Bugscope TeamYes sometimes we see ants with stingers!
- Bugscope TeamAnts generally get more information using their antennae than they do using their eyes
- Bugscope Teamthis ant is glowing a little because it is charging up with electrons
- Bugscope TeamNice view of that ocellus.
- Bugscope Teamall of the samples we are looking at are in a vacuum chamber, and there is an electron beam passing continuously across the areas that we see
- Bugscope Teamrolypoly
- Bugscope Teamhere is the rolypoly aka pillbug
- 3:25 pm
- Bugscope Teamits head is to the top, tucked into a ball with the rest of the body
- Bugscope TeamNot exactly an insect, but closely related - it's a crustacean, like a crab or a lobster.
- Bugscope Teamroman, i just transfered control over to your new login as "roman". Mr. Roman seems to be disconnected now.
- Bugscope Teama compound eye can be seen in the top middle of the image
- Bugscope Teamlike a Japanese spider crab, my new favorite
- Studentim back on
- Bugscope Teamyay!
- Bugscope TeamNot an insect....
- Bugscope TeamThese pillbugs actually have gills, even though they live on land. That's why you always find them in moist places.
- Studenthow big can the grow
Bugscope TeamThese guys in your garden will never be more than a centimeter. But other isopods that live in the ocean can get enormous - over a foot long!
- Bugscope Teamwe have looked for gills before, not sure we've ever ID'd them
- 3:30 pm
- Bugscope Teamthe eye!
- Bugscope Team(above where we are now)
- Bugscope Teamsee the eye?
- Studentwhat do they eat?
Bugscope TeamThey are "detritovores," which means they'll eat little bits of algae, soil, and microbes. Decaying things.
- Bugscope Teamit's the little bunch of bumps
- Studentno what part is the eye?
Bugscope Teamit is the top of the image, it looks like bumps
- Bugscope Teamthere it is!
- Bugscope Teambad spppelling
- Studentwhat is on the eye?
- Bugscope Teamjuju
- Studentjuju?
- Bugscope Teamjuju = dirt, junk, stuff, etc.
- Bugscope Teamoften we find unidentifiable film or goo on our samples
- Studentwhat are these cracks?
- 3:36 pm
- Bugscope Teamit looks like a droplet of something fell on the head and this is the dried bits of it
- Bugscope Teamyay this is a fruit fly
- Bugscope Teamits antennae are still intact, and its mouthparts look pretty good as well
- Studentdo fruit flys bite?
Bugscope TeamNope, they don't have biting mouthparts
- Bugscope Teamsee the compound eye witih all of the bristles, or setae, sticking out of it?
- Bugscope TeamThey can just sort of lick you.
- 3:41 pm
- Bugscope Teamhere are the hairs in between the facets again, you can see them more prominently here
- Bugscope TeamThey will, however, fly around your face and annoy you if they get in your house.
- Bugscope TeamDaniel, who worked on bugscope in the beginning, raised fruit flies in his kitchen for us. Until he got married.
- Bugscope Teamthis is a really hairy caterpillar, and it only has simple eyes (5 on each side by the looks of it)
- Bugscope Teamthe caterpillar also has some hitchhikers on its body
- Studentit has 5 eyes
- Studentwhat are the bumps?
- 3:46 pm
- Bugscope Teamthe five small bumps are the eyes; do you mean other ones?
- Bugscope Teamthe eyes, or the stemmata
- Studenthow long do the live?
- Bugscope Teamit depends on the caterpillar
- Bugscope Teamhere is a little aphid that got stuck on the caterpillar
- Bugscope Teamcaterpillars are eating machines; they store up lots of food so they can metamorphose into butterflies or moths
- Bugscope TeamMany butterflies and moths do not feed as adults--all the nutrition they ever get they obtain as a caterpillar
- 3:51 pm
- Studenthow do the communicate?
Bugscope TeamMost moths and butterflies communicate by smell. They are able to detect each other over long distances using chemicals that they release. These chemicals are called pheromones. Many brightly colored butterflies also communicate by sight.
- Studentdo moths eat clothes?
Bugscope Teamthe moth larvae are the ones that destroy clothes. The moth as adults do no harm
- Bugscope TeamA Monarch butterfly takes about two months to go from egg to caterpillar to chrysalis to butterfly. and they go in waves over the warm months. then they fly to Mexico and hang out for several months
- Bugscope Teampollen grains!
- 3:57 pm
- Bugscope Teamwhoa tick head!
- Bugscope Teamthis the capitulum
- Bugscope Teamwhen it bites it moves the edge pieces out of the way
- Studentis this the mouth or head?
- Bugscope Teamand this central part -- the hypostome -- sticks into your skin
- Bugscope Teamthis is the head/proboscis
- Bugscope Teamyou can see the recurved spines that hold it into your skin
- Studentwhat are the three round balls on the top right side?
- Bugscope Teamthe things on either side with palps that look like weird eyes fold down to the side
- Bugscope Teamthose are pollen grains
- Bugscope Teamgood job driving!
- StudentThanks!
- Bugscope Teamit was probably hanging out on a flower or a plant before it grabbed onto one of my friends
- Bugscope Teamjuju
- Studentwhat is the black stuff all over it
- Bugscope Teamyeah there is some sort of goop on this ticks mouthparts as well
- Bugscope Teamthe opposite side of the part with the spines is similar looking but has finer features that rasp into your skin
- Bugscope Teammaybe it had a small snack before it was caught
- 4:02 pm
- Bugscope Teamalso on the other side of the head we would likely find eyespots that are actually tiny arrays of pits
- Bugscope Teamthis is the tip of the mosquito's proboscis
- Studentproboscis?
- Bugscope Teamfemale mosquitos are the ones that bite
- Bugscope Teamthis is the sheath that holds the bundle of sharp parts that penetrate your skin
- Bugscope Teamwas the sheath -- the proboscis
- Studentwhy dont males bite?
Bugscope TeamThe females need the iron component of blood to form their eggs. Males don't lay eggs, so they don't need iron and so they don't bite.
- Bugscope Teamnow we see compound eyes
- 4:07 pm
- Bugscope Teamthis is the ant, again
- Bugscope Teamyou can see some of its mouthparts -- some of its palpls
- Bugscope Teampalps
- Bugscope Teamants often look like they have a whole 'nother insect in their mouth
- Bugscope Teamthis is one of the wildest looking caterpillars we have seen
- Bugscope Teamthe hairs can be a deterrent to keep predators from eating it
- Bugscope Teamsometimes the hairs can have poison in them
- Bugscope Teamcaterpillars often need to have defenses like that
- Studentwhat are wholes in images
Bugscope Teamthey look to be the pores where the hairs were attached and have since fallen off
- Bugscope Teamsome caterpillars are preyed upon by parasitic wasps, which sting them to paralyze them and then inject eggs into their bodies. the larvae then eat their way out
- 4:12 pm
- Bugscope Teamsome caterpillars, like tarantulas, can release those hairs into the air. the hairs can get caught in your lungs
- Studentthats seems to conclude our session guys. i would like to thank you guys for all the info / help today my kids enjoyed it and got a lot out of it. tthanks for working with us as far as the timing goes i really appreciate it
- Bugscope TeamThank You Roman!
- Bugscope TeamThank you for your questions.
- Bugscope Teamthanks for all your questions and joining us today
- Studentwe had a young group today so the questions seemed kind of silly but the loved it
- Bugscope TeamAwesome.
- Bugscope Teamyou can visit your member page at http://bugscope.beckman.uiuc.edu/members/2009-031/ anytime to view chat and images from today
- Bugscope TeamThey are not the silliest we've ever seen, by far!
- Bugscope Teamyeah and they were pretty quiet kids
- Bugscope Teamfrom our perspective
- 4:18 pm
- Bugscope Teamthe haltere!
- Studentawesome, scot thanks for all your help we will definitley be doing this again so ill keep in touch. i read somwhere that you guys love post cards so ill send one from overe here in california . thanks once again guys
- Bugscope Teamthanks that would be great roman!
- Bugscope TeamCool. We need postcards for the Bugscope bulletin board!
- Bugscope Teamalright -- over and out!
- Bugscope Teambye bye!
