Connected on 2008-12-16 11:30:00
from , NH, US
- 10:29 am
- Bugscope TeamComing down quickly
- 10:35 am
- 10:41 am
- 10:48 am
- 10:55 am
- 11:00 am
- 11:07 am
- 11:20 am
- Bugscope TeamGood afternoon!
- TeacherGood afternoon
- Bugscope TeamWelcome to Bugscope!
- Bugscope Teamhello
- Bugscope TeamThis is the smaller sample you sent.
- TeacherThank you. My students will be in shortly. Meanwhile, I want to remind you that because of our recent school closings, I have not had a chance to brief my kids. Give me about 5 minutes to do so.
- Bugscope Teamok no problem
- Bugscope TeamPlease try drving, if you would like, maybe click to center rather than click to drive, and you may try clicking on a preset, changing mag, whatever you would like.
- Bugscope Teamdriving..
- TeacherThe kids haven't gotten here yet. How many samples do you have from us?
- Bugscope Teamwe received 2 samples from you and we put some insects on as well
- TeacherDo you have the sample of an actual coral polyp? That might be a good one to start with.
- 11:26 am
- Bugscope Teamwe have preset 13 on the lower right that you can click on to get to
- Bugscope TeamDo you recognize this now?
- TeacherThis is very cool! Still waiting for my kids to show up. Yes, this is a good magnification to start with.
- Bugscope TeamCliff we often put insects/arthropods on the stub along with samples we are not familiar with, as today.
- Bugscope Teamyou can see this polyp, and others, and you can see an apparent film on the shaft/stalk portion of this sample
- 11:31 am
- Bugscope Teamlooks like you are able to control the 'scope well. is there much lag time for you, can you tell?
- TeacherNot much lag time. Maybe a few seconds. Is that normal.
- Bugscope Teamyeah that is pretty good
- TeacherOK, here come the students. I'll give them a brief intro and then let them ask some questions.
- 11:39 am
- Bugscope Teamthe samples we are looking at -- your samples -- were critical point dried in order to preserve their fine features for scanning electron microscopy
- Bugscope Teamif they had air-dried, the softer structures would likely have shrunken and distorted
- 11:44 am
- Bugscope TeamCliff, Bruce Fouke is with us for a few minutes, as a guest.
- TeacherThere are usually 8 tentacles. Are we looking at finer subdivisions?
- GuestHi - this is Bruce Fouke from Illinois Geology
- TeacherHi
- GuestI have to give a final exam shortly, but can maybe chime in for a moment
- Bugscope TeamWe appreciate it, Bruce.
- GuestWhat coral species, from where, and is this the infected area of the coral
- TeacherThhis is a healthy specimen (some type of gorgonian) that I ordered from Carolina biological.
- Bugscope TeamThere are two samples on the stub that came from the school, and as Cliff says, this is the healthy one.
- 11:49 am
- GuestOkay, that helps. It is funny that we do not easily se the 8 pinnate symmetry of the polyps in this area
- GuestCan you zoom out a little to see the whole
- Bugscope TeamIt looks like there is a biofilm obscuring some of the surface features.
- GuestGreat!
- TeacherLet me switch to the infected coral.
- GuestOkay
- TeacherThis is a piece of the infected coral. The star shaped structures are everywhere when we look with a light microscope. We have no idea what they are. Any clues?
- GuestThese star-like clusters features are spicules, which are naturally embedded in the gorgonian tissue to increase the stiffness (i.e. elestic modulus) when the gorgonian is exposed to wave energey
- Bugscope Teamwow, cool -- they're spicules!
- GuestThe most common infection for aquaria and open ocean specimens is Aspergillus, a fungus
- 11:54 am
- TeacherThe specimen was taken off a large piece of boulder coral. It appeared to be completely smothering the boulder coral and felt like a tough leathery substance.
- GuestThis looks like a mixed fungal and microbial biofilm infection. Your description fits with that well.
- Bugscope Teamso the spicules are CaCO3?
- TeacherInteresting?
- Guestnot having seen the original specimen, hypothese as follows:
- Bugscope TeamI remember reading about spicules but didn't realize they were sometimes external
- GuestGorgonians have CaCO3 spicules
- GuestSponges have SiO2 spicules
- Bugscope TeamCool, sorry should let you talk...
- GuestA quick EDAX zap by Scott would show mineralogy, and from there we would know
- TeacherBruce, Have you seen the original underwater photo that I sent a few weeks ago?
- Guestgorgo spicules and sponge spicules come right up to the very surface
- Bugscope TeamWe are at a long working distance and will have to do EDAX postsession.
- TeacherDo you suggest that it's a sponge covering the coral?
- Guestcliff - no, how can I see this - okay on the EDAX
- Guestthe shot we are now seeing is not a boulder (massive) coral tissue
- 11:59 am
- TeacherThe original photos were sent in JPG format. I can send you a copy later.
- TeacherRight, but it was growing on top of the coral.
- Guestokay - my email is fouke@illinois.edu I can look now if you send the ASAP
- Bugscope TeamCarly, from Bruce's lab, has the images, and I can resend them. Bruce won't be able to stay with us long.
- TeacherStudent wants to know- what is EDAX?
Bugscope Teamits where we use a detector to find out the composition of a sample using x-rays emitted
- GuestSorry all - I have got to boogie to give my final exam to 162 students in my GEOL 143 History of Life course here at Illinois
- Bugscope Teamyes, EDAX is a commercial brand of Energy-Dispersive X-ray Analysis
- GuestQuick summary -
- TeacherThanks for your input bruce.
- Guest1. this shot is not of coral tissue
- Guest2. those are large spicules and their shape suggests they are CaCO3
- Guest3. area in between looks like dessicated gorgo or sponge tissue
- TeacherLet me magnify it more.
- Guest4. the first shots you showed looked like gorgos, but we were missing the 8 pinnate symmetry as well as the well defined polyps with their tentacles
- 12:04 pm
- Guest5. enlargement of spicules sure look like CaCO3 (be aware some sponges also have CaCO3 spicules)
- GuestCiao a presto - bellisimo!!!!!!!!!!!! Nice work Scott and Cliff
- Bugscope TeamBruce Thank You!
- TeacherThank you very much.
- GuestPrego prego ..... my pleasure
- TeacherDoes anyone know if this could be some kind of invasive sponge? Some specimens do tend to grow over coral.
- Bugscope TeamCliff we are lucky we caught Bruce -- I just called him in his office.
- Bugscope TeamIt does look like an invasive sponge, doesn't it?
- Bugscope TeamThe best we can do today is cruise around and document it. All of the images you get will be saved to your school's database.
- Bugscope Teamit is very interesting and surprising to me that spicules are external, like this.
- TeacherI agree. I want to switch images now to give the kids a chance to see some insects for comparison.
- 12:10 pm
- Bugscope TeamAs Bruce suggested, after this session Cate and I can collect x-rays from the sample and perhaps determine whether we're seeing CaCO3 or SiO2.
- Bugscope TeamBut Bruce is right about the shapes of the spicules resembling CaCO3
- Bugscope Teamthis is on the surface of the gorgonian coral from CBS.
- Bugscope Teamrather than the aster (star) shaped spicules we see lots of spheroidal clumps of juju
- Teacherno view of polyps. Is this biofilm? What is juju?
- TeacherAfter the session, will I be able to change views to see the other presets?
- Bugscope Teamthis looks like a biofilm -- you can see strands of filmy material stretching across the sample
- Bugscope Teamyes you can do that at any time
- Bugscope Teamthey are all on the same specimen stub
- Bugscope Teamyes as Cate said you can go to other presets now
- Bugscope Teamjuju is what we call unrecognizable debris on our samples
- 12:15 pm
- TeacherOK, I see a lot of juju. Student question-- Can you describe what you mean by "biofilm"?
- Bugscope TeamCliff you can scroll through the preset selection to the right of this chat box to see the insects
- Bugscope Teamthis is the scorpionfly, it has a long snout as you can see
- Bugscope TeamA biofilm is a protective environment -- a filmy gel -- that is formed, for example, by bacteria.
- Teacherthanks
- Bugscope Teamthey are called scorpionflies because it has a tail like a scorpion, but we cant see that feature very wellt oday
- Bugscope Teamit also has claws like a spider, which is cool
- Bugscope TeamSome bacteria, not all of them, form a bioflim that they can live within. And it keeps them from getting dried out, also protects them from getting washed away by detergents. So sometimes biofilms are bad -- for example Shigella (bad E.coli) may form biofilms on vegetables.
- Bugscope Teamthis is a fly compound eye. compound meaning it is made up of many facets called ommatidia (which are the hexagons)
- Teacherare those circles bacteria?
- Bugscope Teamthe small little balls in between are brochosomes, which is something we only find on leafhoppers
- Teacherwhat do they do?
Bugscope Teamthe leafhopper use the brochosomes to coat the eggs with a protective layering, so they dont dry out
- Bugscope Teamthe spike coming up in between is an insect hair we call a seta (pl. is setae)
- 12:21 pm
- Bugscope Teamyou can see, from the micron bar, the relative sizes of the features you are imaging
- Bugscope Teamso we liked this image because it's not often we see brochosomes on a fly
- Bugscope Teambacilli -- the rod-shaped bacteria -- are often about 2 microns (micrometers) long
- Bugscope Teamhere is a small colony of mites on an earwig's body
- Bugscope Teamthese are mites on an earwig. they arent very good looking because they have some sort of juju plastered on them
- Bugscope Teamearwigs are those pincher bugs
- Bugscope Teamnow you can see that they are close to 0.25 mm long
- Bugscope TeamCate found another species of mites on the borer this morning, and those have eyes -- these do not.
- Teacherare these mites parasitic or commensal?
- Bugscope Teamthey are probably commensal, but i am not sure. We know that they do apparently die with the host
- Bugscope TeamWe don't know much about the mites; they are not well studied.
- 12:26 pm
- Bugscope Teamyou can see the little dude in back has two eyes, close-set.
- TeacherVery good
- Bugscope TeamFor us it is fascinating to find such things. And it is humbling; we realize that there is so much to know about this realm that we get to peek into.
- Teacherstudent question- what keeps mite populations under contro?
Bugscope Teamwell im sure if there got to be a lot of mites, any insect bigger than it would be able to it. The mites on insects usually hang out in places where the insect is unable to get to it to get it off
- Teacherwhat type of borer is this?
Bugscope TeamWe think the borer may be in the family Bostrichidae, which includes auger beetles and powderpost beetles.
- 12:31 pm
- Bugscope TeamI think it is an ironclad beetle
- Bugscope TeamHelp I'm a rock!
- TeacherWas this from my original sample?
- Bugscope Teamyes we found this on the smaller sample
- 12:36 pm
- TeacherStrange shape to it. Any clue to what mineral it might be?
- Bugscope Teamsome of these things we may be able to do elemental analysis upon after the session
- TeacherWill someone be able to email me the EDAX results?
- TeacherWill someone forward the other pictures to Bruce. I would love to follow up on this.
- Bugscope Teamwhen we beam electrons at a sample, as we are today, we get x-rays back, regardless of whether we collect them or not
- Bugscope Teamwe are protected from the x-rays by the heavy metal chamber the samples are in
- Bugscope Teamour EDS (energy-dispersive spectroscopy, or EDAX) detector lets us collect x-rays, which have different energies depending upon what elements they come from
- TeacherAre the specimens coated with anything first?
Bugscope Teamwe coat our regular samples with a gold-palladium alloy to help make the samples conductive
- Bugscope Teamso we can try doing some of this after the session
- TeacherSounds good. Thank you so much for helping us out. Let me know if you want to join our next dive expedition to Belize!
- 12:42 pm
- Bugscope Teamthat sounds like a deal
- TeacherDoes this make it an expensive procedure?
- TeacherOK,
- Bugscope Teamwe do bugscope for free, we get grant money for that
- TeacherRight, but does it still cost a lot to coat the specimens?
Bugscope Teamoh since it's coated with Au/Pl you would think it is expensive. The targets we use to coat the samples with are expensive. The targets are round thin disks around 2 1/2-3 inches in diameter. But we charge people who use it a small amount because we get so many people who need to coat their samples and the target lasts for a long time
- Bugscope Teambut we do run a multiuser lab facility and for other people, using EDAX is the same fee as using the microscope
- TeacherThe students have to get going now. How do we follow up on the session?
- 12:49 pm
- Bugscope Teamyou have a page that you will be able to access after the session
- Bugscope Teamhttp://bugscope.beckman.uiuc.edu/members/2008-113
- Bugscope Teamhttp://bugscope.beckman.uiuc.edu/members/2008-113
- Bugscope Teamhttp://bugscope.beckman.uiuc.edu/members/2008-113
- Bugscope Teamand in the meantime we will try, when you're done, collecting some x-ray data
- Bugscope Teamwe should be able to send you spectra via email
- TeacherGreat, thanks again.
