Connected on 2007-11-07 09:00:00 from Wells, ME, US
- 8:07am
- Bugscope Team vac ok, beam on.
- 8:14am
- Bugscope Team starting presets
- 8:21am
- 8:27am
- 8:32am
- Bugscope Team presets are finished, we are ready for the school!
- 8:42am
- Bugscope Team session is unlocked.
- Bugscope Team I think I am going to drive around a little.
- 8:47am
- Bugscope Team Hello MB!
- Bugscope Team Welcome to bugscope!
- 8:52am
- Teacher Hi what is that on the screen?
Bugscope Team we are currently looking at setae on a moth.
- Bugscope Team Cate did all the presets this morning, and I was just looking around.
- Bugscope Team mary beth, if you have any questions please don't hesitate to ask. we are ready for you and your class anytime.
- Bugscope Team earlier I had been on part of the seed; now we are on the moth setae, as Alex said
- Bugscope Team Please try driving, if you would like. And let us know if you have any questions.
- Teacher What is a setae? what body part is it attached to, is it the thorax
- Bugscope Team setae is plural for seta. a seta is a "hair" that comes out of the body of an insect. the setae help an insect sense its environment
- Bugscope Team The presets are often made to incite your curiosity -- to make you wonder what thhis things you see is attached to.
- Teacher I think I am good with driving. so far, I have focused, and hit center image.
- Bugscope Team If you take the mag down you can see what the setae are attached to.
- Bugscope Team there are many many setae on insects, which you normally don't see with your own eyes!
- Teacher should I go out for mag?
- Bugscope Team many people are often suprised by how "hairy" insects really are
- Bugscope Team yep, give it a shot.
- Bugscope Team yes this is good
- Bugscope Team you can start to see where you are, right now of the edge of the body
- Teacher is this a stinger in the center of our screen
- Teacher is 154X going out?
- Bugscope Team moths are notoriously difficult to image because all of the tiny setae are hard to make conductive
- Bugscope Team mary beth, if you ever get lost driving, or want to look at something new, you can click on a preset (lower right), and that will take you to interesting places that we've setup for you
- 8:57am
- Bugscope Team 154x is going to a lower mag than where you were
- Bugscope Team it is hard to tell what that is; maybe if you go still lower in mag
- Teacher are we close to the abdomen?
- Teacher okay, I see I need to go out
- Bugscope Team It looks like we are centered on the abdomen and have wings folded to the sides.
- Bugscope Team if you go north you should reach the head
- Bugscope Team as you are doing
- Teacher moving up to find the head?
- Bugscope Team so that was probably a claw -- the tip of a claw
- Teacher great minds think alike
- Bugscope Team you can see scales at the sides of the image
- Teacher about how long is one wing
- Teacher ohhhhhhhh are these eyes?
- Bugscope Team I think one wing is between 1 and 2 cm long
- Teacher we are thinking this is really cool.
- Bugscope Team there is the head with the tongue in the middle all rolled up
- Bugscope Team you can adjust the contrast to cut the whiteness down
- Teacher can we save the chat?
Bugscope Team Yes, all the chat and images are automatically saved and made available from your member's homepage after the conclusion of the session
- Bugscope Team Now the eyes are visible as those two big round shapes. If you bring the contrast and brightness down you will see the individual facets of the compound eye
- Bugscope Team under 'adjust'
- Bugscope Team flying insects generally have really big eyes, giving them almost a 360 degreee view around them
- 9:03am
- Teacher thanks for the tips
- Teacher This is so cool.
- Bugscope Team mb, your member homepage, in case you don't remember, is: http://bugscope.itg.uiuc.edu/members/2007-065
- Bugscope Team There we go, now we're starting to see some detail in the eyes
- Bugscope Team ah, nice, check out the compound eye, and all the little ommatidia
- Teacher we are going into the eye
- Bugscope Team we're going in, hold onto your seats!
- Teacher ]seatbelts are on!!
- Bugscope Team :)
- Teacher we are amazed. It is like being in the Magic School Bus
- Bugscope Team notice the shape of all the ommatidia, i believe in most, if not all, compound eyes, the ommatidia are always hexagons. is that right scott?
- Teacher Is there a reason for hexagons?
Bugscope Team well, the compound eye is curved, so maybe the hexagonal shape helps the eye to become curved? yes, like scott says...
- Bugscope Team they end up being hexagonal when they close-pack like that
- Teacher The hexagon has 6 sides.
- 9:08am
- Bugscope Team it is the most efficient means of making something round fit with more round things, and to add to that the shape of the eye overall is a dome
- Bugscope Team Hexagons are a good choice because they don't waste any space between them the way circles would.
- Teacher we will leave the eye and trying to find the thorax.
- Bugscope Team the thorax on the moth is covered with setae and scales and is difficult to see
- Teacher thanks for the info.
- Bugscope Team if the ommatidia were squares, and then you curved the surface, you'd have holes between some of the squares
- Teacher holes would be drafty
- Teacher we see the dome of the eye really well
- Teacher it looks like the Death Star
- Bugscope Team no doubt, kinda like that big crack in the compond eye now: yicks!
- Teacher are the spiky things eye lashes?
Bugscope Team I'm not sure, but an interesting feature of many compound eyes are little hairs (setae) sticking out *between* individual ommatidia. This may serve a protective function like human eyelashes and it also may serve to sense air-currents for navigation
- Teacher what is the single spike/needle looking item?on the left of our screen or west.
- Bugscope Team different setae have different jobs...some help to tase/smell, some to sense movement, etc. I'm not sure what that specific seta's job was
- Bugscope Team some also detect changes in the wind
- 9:13am
- Teacher going to daddy long leg pollen
- Bugscope Team cool
- Bugscope Team oops went by it
- Bugscope Team mary beth, you are doing an excellent job of controlling the microscope. good work!
- Teacher thanks it is hard
- Bugscope Team nice focus there...
- Bugscope Team looks like a leg, but we'd need to zoom out to be sure
- Teacher thanks for the encouragement
- Bugscope Team wow
- Teacher our thoughts exactly
- Bugscope Team this is not so easy to do, and you really are doing a good job navigating
- Bugscope Team So yes, that's a leg (two actually, one is partly off screen)
- Teacher when daddy long legs loses a leg will it grow back?
Bugscope Team There are some insects and animals that can regenerate lost limbs, but I don't know if daddy long legs are one of them
- Bugscope Team good thing bugs aren't as big as us, huh? we'd be in big trouble if they were...
Bugscope Team The size of insects is actually limited by the physics of their simple breathing systems. It means that even if an insect were to grow huge, it wouldn't be able to breath well enough to sustain itself (kind of relieving, right?). Millions of years ago when there was more oxygen in the air people believe the insects were also larger
- Teacher what is the long stringy thing across the page west to east?
Bugscope Team thats a leg that fell off, and I stuck on the stub
- Bugscope Team I think they have the capacity to grow back, but usually they don't live that long
- Teacher what is this?
- 9:18am
- Bugscope Team there were some seeds that you sent us, this is one I cut in half
- Teacher is this spider spaghetti?
- Bugscope Team real spiders can autotomize their legs -- they can jettison a leg that gets bitten so the toxin in the bite does not reach the cephalothorax
- Bugscope Team An interesting aside about daddy long legs: Contrary to popular misconception they are not spiders. They are in a different order called Opiliones. They're also known as "harvestmen"
- Bugscope Team that was a seed coat
- Bugscope Team the spider is now south
- Teacher we did find that out about daddy long legs
- Bugscope Team mmm, spider spaghetti. with meatballs? (pollen)
- Bugscope Team see his legs had fallen off
- Bugscope Team they are more like crustaceans
- Teacher whoa what is this?
- Bugscope Team this is the body of the DDL
- Bugscope Team no i called him daddy "no" legs
- Bugscope Team DNL
- Teacher lol
- Teacher seatbeltson going in
- Teacher is this near the mouth
- Bugscope Team the head is on the top -- we don't get to see it this time
- Bugscope Team most spiders have a lot more setae then this, i'm wondering if that helps explain why it is in a different category
- Teacher we know spiders have 2 body parts
- Bugscope Team yes you can see one of the pincers
- Bugscope Team to the top right
- Bugscope Team daddy long legs usually have an interesting mouth, but the one here seemed deflated somewhat
- 9:23am
- Teacher going to the mite
- Teacher this mite is on a beetle right?
Bugscope Team that's right, it's on a beetle that belongs to the same family as the june bug
- Bugscope Team there is it's head in the front
- Bugscope Team yep, you can see the large shell of the mite here.
- Bugscope Team it looks like it has eyes
- Bugscope Team mites are my favorite insects
- Bugscope Team To orient you, the mite looks like a smooth oblong shel and has these little legs sticking out of one end. Otherwise they're pretty featureless
- Teacher why are they your favorite Alex?
Bugscope Team well, because they are the bugs that bug other bugs! i guess they bug us too, but still, i always laugh when i see i mite on a big old beetle or something like that.
- Bugscope Team Once you zoom out it should be easier to see where the beetle stops and mite begins
- Bugscope Team Oh cool, two of them
- Teacher we see two of them too
- Bugscope Team Now you start to get a feel for how small they are relative to the beetle, which is already small!
- Teacher we will laugh too.
- Bugscope Team there might even be more in the setae but it's hard to see
- Teacher what is this number 487 um?
Bugscope Team That's like the distance marking on a map legend. It says that bar is 487 microns (thousandths of a meter) wide. For example human hair is around 60-80 um wide
- Bugscope Team plus they kinda look like M&M's...don't they?
- Teacher yumm
- Bugscope Team 487 um, that is a scale, that means 487 microns. we try to give you a sense of the scale of what you are looking at.
- Bugscope Team now it says 1mm = 1 milimeter
- 9:29am
- Bugscope Team we understand some people might not know what a micron is, but it never hurts to hear it for the first time, and maybe learn it. like chas says, a micro is one thousandth of a meter
- Bugscope Team You can click on it even to see an expanded list of microscope parameters
- Teacher thanks for this infor.
- Teacher going to the hornet. seatbelts on
- Bugscope Team there are scales all over the body of the hornet
- Teacher getting things into focus here hang on
- Bugscope Team This weird looking thing is the end of a leg if you can believe it. The curved part are the two claws
- Teacher what do they new with the claws?
- Teacher sorry do with the claws
Bugscope Team The claws help them attach to things. You can imagine they're great for digging into something like a plant stem
- 9:34am
- Bugscope Team oof
- Bugscope Team Hey sorry I am late!!!
- Bugscope Team Yay Annie!
- Teacher oh, this is a good one
- Teacher Hi Annie
- Bugscope Team Annie is our entomologist.
- Bugscope Team no problemo annie, mary beth is driving us around, doing a good job of it too.
- Teacher We are so thankful to have Chas, Annie, Cate, Scott and Alex here helping us.
- Bugscope Team this is the beetle foot, right?
Bugscope Team yes we are on that beetle related to the june bug
- Bugscope Team :)
- Teacher is this the abdomenn behind the leg?
- Bugscope Team this is the hornet
- Bugscope Team I believe we're over the Hornet right now Annie
- Bugscope Team it is hard to tell from here
- Bugscope Team heh my bad
- Bugscope Team head to the left -- head is to the left I should say
- Teacher the leg is attached to the thorax
- Bugscope Team yes
- Teacher neat o la
- Teacher shall I go north
- Bugscope Team this is a hornet
- Bugscope Team yes
- Bugscope Team sure!
- Bugscope Team looks like you will want to take the contrast down
- Bugscope Team its head is a little bright, need to change the contrast
- Bugscope Team it's all good -- all working
- Bugscope Team this is exciting
- 9:39am
- Teacher should i go minus
- Bugscope Team we have the controls set up so that you can make the same mistakes we do
- Bugscope Team yes you can go to a lower mag
- Bugscope Team and a little south I think
- Bugscope Team you can see the setae sticking out of the top of the head
- Bugscope Team i think mb means minus on the contrast? yes, that should make it darker.
- Bugscope Team the hornet has four wigns
- Bugscope Team wings
- Bugscope Team here is the side of the head
- Bugscope Team they also have notched eyes
- Bugscope Team now we see part of the face
- Bugscope Team this is one of the joints of the jaw there
- Bugscope Team right in the middle
- Teacher where is the eye?
- Bugscope Team The notch is on the top of the head and we may not be able to see it from this angle
- Bugscope Team there is a limb over one of the eyes, like it's too bright
- Bugscope Team the hornet's tarsi are over the eye
- Teacher what is a tarsi? please
Bugscope Team Tarsi are insect feet
- Teacher we are going closer
- Bugscope Team tarsi are the forearm segments
- Bugscope Team ah, now you can see the compound eye, and the facets of it...
- Bugscope Team the individual components are tarsomeres
- Bugscope Team it's really big.
- Bugscope Team or singular tarsus
- Teacher there is a lot of good vocabulary
- Bugscope Team now you can see the eye, on the left
- Bugscope Team or a tarsomere!
- Bugscope Team you can focus on it
- Teacher thanks for hints
- 9:44am
- Bugscope Team mb, when focusing, try going one way for a bit, if it doesn't get better, then you need to fucos the other way.
- Bugscope Team ioyu can adjust the focus in little steps
- Teacher what is the dark space to the east of the compound eye?
- Bugscope Team looks like a socket of some kind?
- Bugscope Team we are looking at the edge of the mandible
- Bugscope Team that is the jaw
- Teacher the focus goes automatically until I click done
- Bugscope Team the mandible as Annie says
- Teacher can we see the stinger?
Bugscope Team i'm not sure the stinger is very visible, but you can try driving there and looking
- Bugscope Team the focus should go in tiny steps, and you look and see where you are
- Bugscope Team the stinger is not visible on this one
- Bugscope Team I looked earlier
- Teacher thanks, going to moth tongue
- Teacher it looks like a cat tongue
- Bugscope Team when you focus, you click plus, then check, plus, then check; if the focus gets worse you click minus, then check, etc.
- Teacher maybe there is nectar on the tongue
- Bugscope Team it does look scratchy like a cat's tongue
Bugscope Team my cat furmat licks me all the time, to the point where it hurts and i have to shoo him away...
- Teacher we see the coiled tongue and the eyes
- Bugscope Team the tongue is made to uncoil, and Annie has told us that it operates like one of those coiled paper New Year's noisemakers.
- Bugscope Team this is a nice image
- Bugscope Team good job driving, again
- 9:49am
- Bugscope Team i wonder if it makes the same kind of noise, only at a different frequency :p
- Teacher the tongue works like a straw.
- Bugscope Team except they pump hemolymph (bug blood) into the coild to make it extend
- Teacher what color is bug blood?
Bugscope Team it is clear in all but a few species
- Bugscope Team green
- Teacher how does it coil back in
Bugscope Team The insect stops pumping hemolymph into the coil
- Bugscope Team it always looks green to me
Bugscope Team Hornworms have green blood...but it is just the pigment from their cuticle.
- Teacher scott do you have your sunglasses on
- Bugscope Team it must be all of the other stuff
- Teacher thanks for the answers
- Bugscope Team maybe sunglasses would help, actually
- Bugscope Team There are few species of insect with red blood...they have hemoglobin, like we do. These insects live in low-oxygen environments, like poluted streams and deep water.
- Teacher Oh, wow about bug blood and polluted areas.okay, we are moving to the hornet hamuli
- Teacher what is a hamuli?
Bugscope Team Hamuli are hooks that hold the fore and hind wings of bees and wasps winges together.
- Bugscope Team I guess when they hit your window it looks yellow sometimes
Bugscope Team That's fat body and eggs...which is gross, I know
- Bugscope Team hamulus means ring
- Teacher we think it is part of a wing
- Bugscope Team and the hamuli are little hooks that connect a fore- and hindwing
- Bugscope Team so that the insect can fly with, essentially, two rather than four wings
- Teacher is the hamuli like a hinge?
- Bugscope Team now i will forever be thinking i have fat and eggs on my windshield...
- 9:54am
- Bugscope Team gross
- Teacher gross is right
- Bugscope Team Mmmmm....I told you it was gross
- Bugscope Team it is a set of hooks that slides over the second wing edge to make two wings into one
- Bugscope Team Ok everyone. I am sorry that I have to run away. I have class in two minutes!
- Teacher thanks for coming Annie
- Bugscope Team bye bye and thanks for the questions!
- Bugscope Team bye annie and thank you
- Bugscope Team Thanks Annie!
- Teacher is this near the mouth?
- Teacher bye annie,
- Teacher we think thisis thorax
- Bugscope Team Now you will have to take what I say with a grain of salt -- Annie is not hear to correct me.
- Bugscope Team this is the thorax
- Teacher we have to be going as well, our last comments
- Teacher This was incredible. Thank you for taking time to talk with us.
- Teacher Can we visit any time on our homepage? CAn we email you questions?
Bugscope Team yes! your homepage is: http://bugscope.itg.uiuc.edu/members/2007-065
- Bugscope Team Please come back next year.
- Teacher Can we go on this site from home?
Bugscope Team The live interface is only open during a session, but you can visit your member's homepage from anywhere
- Teacher We will come back next year.
- Bugscope Team Certainly you may ask us questions. bugscope@itg.uiuc.edu
- Teacher Can we view the presets on our own?
- Bugscope Team You can indeed reach your page from home -- from any browser.
- Teacher Clapping and saying thanks!!!
- Bugscope Team Yay!
- Bugscope Team thank you mary beth, great session.
- Teacher Bye now. Thanks again. This was terrific
- Bugscope Team i'm glad you all had fun
- Bugscope Team we had a lot of fun as well
- Bugscope Team remember, mites look like M&M's, but they don't taste like them!
- Teacher we will remember, good advice
- Bugscope Team Thanks for the great session MB!
- Bugscope Team ;)
- Bugscope Team Re: homepage, this is an excellent question. Through your homepage, you can access all your images. If you make a presentation to your colleagues at your school, then your homepage (Bugscope session) can serve as a good discussion starting point.
- Teacher logging out bye
- Bugscope Team chow!
- 10:00am
- Bugscope Team Ciao.
- Bugscope Team Thanks, MB, for your participation. Please do not hesitate to share your insights about your session with us. Stay in touch.
- Bugscope Team Hey, Chas, Bugscope Guru, a question. Any way to find out the guest location? Well, later next week. Take care.
- Bugscope Team i'm going to close the session....
- Bugscope Team are we all ready to logoff
- Bugscope Team rxl stopped, session disabled. good session everyone. over and out.
