Stratford CSD
Session 2009-071

Application

School

Class

Project

Miscellaneous

Transcript

Connected on 2009-11-17 13:00:00 from Moreno, IA, US

• 11:59 am
• Bugscope Teamvac pumping down
• Bugscope Teamhello mrs. schaa, welcome to bugscope!
• TeacherHi, how goes it?
• Bugscope Teamgood, we are setting up presets. session in 60 minutes, right?
• Teachercorredt
• Teacheroops correct
• Bugscope Teamcool.
• Bugscope Teamyour sample was very interesting
• Bugscope Teamit's in the scope now, the scope vacuum is pumping down
• Teacheryes, we have a proscope that they looked at the pellets with and the kids were AMAZED
• 12:05 pm
• Bugscope Teamwe found a mouse skull, we think a mouse
• Teacheryes, not suprised, these are owl pellets that owls "hacked" up!
• Teacherwhat are we looking at now?
• Bugscope Teamthis is a mess of the hair, most of the pellet is this hair
• Bugscope Teamwe are trying to find interesting things in the hair, then we will make presets out of them
• Teachermouse hair
• Bugscope Teambut we also have individual bones that we'll make presets for
• Bugscope Teamprobably mouse hair, but it looks like a lot of different kinds of hair, so maybe some other things that it ate?
• Bugscope Teamit was fun to dissect the pellet, thanks for sending that to us!
• Teacherwas that your first owl pellet?
• 12:10 pm

• Bugscope Teamcate and i are not sure. it was the first i've seen. scott might have seen one years ago, but he is at home today. maybe he will login remotely and we can ask him

• Teacherare you college students?
• Bugscope Teamnope, both cate and i are full time staff at the Beckman Institute, part of the University of Illinois
• Teacherso college graduates?
• Bugscope Teamcate is a microscopist with a degree in physics. i'm a systems admin with degrees in music composition
• Teachermusic comp running a microscope.....
• Bugscope Teamwell, cate is running the scope, i'm here for technical and chat support

• Bugscope Teamscott is the longest running bugscope member, he's been here from the beginning, 1999
• Bugscope Teamis this your first bugscope session, mrs. schaa?
• 12:15 pm
• Teacherso what made you decide to work at beckman
• Bugscope Teambeckman is a top notch research facility, with amazing science going on in there. so for me, it was a very good opportunity to work here.

• Teachergotcha. cool opportunitiy for kids to learn from it too!
• Bugscope Teamand being a systems admin, the kinds of computers beckman can acquire, well, it makes this job way way cool
• Bugscope Teamyes, the whole reason bugscope was started (through a grant from NASA) was to try and encourage kids to learn about the sciences, and maybe become a scientist one day. doing bugscope is one of the more enjoyable parts of my work day. working with students is a very cool
• TeacherAND get more women into the field!!!!!!
• Bugscope Teamtotally
• Teachermy youngest daughter is a freshman entering the health science field at the University of Iowa
• 12:21 pm
• Bugscope Teamthere is another outreach project on the UI campus that allows girls to come to campus and do research, and create a mock thesis, kind of like being a PHD student for 2 weeks.

• Teacherreally? What is the name? She is planning on Clinical Lab Science, researching blood??
• Bugscope Teamtrying to find the web site for it, hole on

• 12:27 pm
• Teachergirls or college students? my daughter is a freshman at Iowa
• Bugscope Teamhttp://core.igb.uiuc.edu/test/GAMES_poster_main-final.pdf
• Bugscope Teamwow, that was way too hard to find
• Bugscope Teambut there's a PDF of the project, called GAMES (Girls Adventures in Mathematics Engineering and Science), it's for young girls, 6th grade up to high school i think...
• Bugscope Teamthis web page talks about it a bit too: http://www.igb.uiuc.edu/about.html

• Teachermy daughter only has 1 semester of math- Pre-cal..then she NEVER has to take math again! We are more right-brained than left.
• 12:33 pm

• TeacherBut- as you may have heard from author/researcher Daniel Pink- Right Brainers will Rule the World!!!!
• TeacherI'm just razzing you guys cause I figure you are left brainers!
• Bugscope Teamto tell you the truth, i always forget which one is which, left or right, maybe that makes me a left brainer?
• Bugscope Teamor a right?

• Teacheranalytical, linear thinkers (usually math lovers) are left brained
• 12:38 pm
• Teachergot to walk away for a min. be right back
• Bugscope Teamok

• 12:43 pm
• Bugscope Team;)
• Bugscope Teamimagine these are not all mice but voles
• Teacherwhat's a vole?
• Bugscope Teamthey are similar to mice but more stout, sometimes called field mice
• Bugscope Teambut are these owls your pets?
• Bugscope Teamvoles are the same subfamily as lemmings and muskrats
• Teacherwouldn't it be cool if we could see remnants of a snake>

• Bugscope Teamyeah the fangs, head

• Teacheroh no, the teachers buy these from Carolina Biological company. The kids dissect the pellets themselves with a tweezers then look at them with a proscope
• 12:49 pm
• Bugscope TeamI had never heard of a proscope before, just looked it up
• Teacherit's a little hand-held thingie that has a magnification of 64 x 1, maybe?
• Bugscope Teamyeah looks kind of cool, and it's digital -- the ones I saw a minute ago on the web

• Teacherwant me to email you the ones we did of the owl pellets?
  Bugscope TeamSure!
• Teacherwhat the email
• Bugscope Teambugscope@beckman.illinois.edu
• Teacherduh, of course.
• Bugscope TeamI think that is right.
• 12:55 pm
• Bugscope Teamthis is really different for us -- very cool-looking but not part of our 'expertise'
• Bugscope Teami just unlocked the session, you should see controls for the scope on your right, mrs. schaa
• Teacheryes
• Bugscope Teamyou can click on a preset any time to go to that location
• Bugscope Teamif you have any questions at all please just ask
• Teacherhang on I'm gonna email you 1 pic quick before the kids walk in
• Bugscope Teamok
• Bugscope TeamCool. Thank You.
• 1:01 pm
• TeacherOk, just sent you one pic
• TeacherOk, so i click on a preset then it puts it on the main screen?
• Bugscope Teamyep
• Bugscope Teami see your screen shot of the pellet contents. ewe...!

• Bugscope Teamooh you can see the scales on the hair
• Bugscope Teamokay, so this is a close up of the hairy mass, which is what comprises most of the pellet
• Teacherthe kids said they couldn't see the hairs when they were dissecting the pellets with their tweezers!
• Bugscope Teamdoesn't look like too much human hair
• Bugscope Teamowl did not eat any people
• Bugscope Teamwe think there was a vole skull in the pellet, so maybe this is vole hair? poor little dude.
• TeacherOk, kids are here, gonna do a little intro, then you can respond to them ok?
• Bugscope Teamlooks like a few different kinds of hair
• Bugscope Teamsounds great Mrs. Schaa!
• Bugscope Teamtotally, bring on the questions!

• 1:07 pm
• TeacherHello scientists! The 1st and 2nd graders are here to look at what you have on the microscope!
• Bugscope Teamhello kids, welcome to bugscope!
• Bugscope Teamyou are looking at a close up of hairs from a little vole (kinda like a smaller mouse) that ended up in the owl pellet
• Teacherok, what are we looking at right now?
• Bugscope Teamthe owl pellet is mostly this think hairball
• Bugscope Teamthese are various samples of hair from the owl pellet
• Bugscope Teamso we cut off a chunk of the thickest part and put that inside the electron microscope for you
• Teacherwhat is this 53 thingie above us?
  Bugscope Teamthat is the scale bar. um stands for micrometers or microns
• Bugscope Teamyou can see the scales on the hair -- most of the hair is rougher-looking than human hair, which seems to have finer scales
• Bugscope Teamif you click on the 53 micron bar you can open a list of 'scope parameters; then click on it again to close that
• Bugscope Teamone micron (1 um) is one millionth of a meter, very very small

• Bugscope Teamyeah, like scott said, try clicking on the scale bar
• Teacherwhat's this?
• Bugscope Teammicrometers are one thousandth of a meter, or one thousand nanometers
• Bugscope Teamthis is part of a skull, we think it's the skull of a vole
• Bugscope Teamlooks like a nasal cavity, hard to tell
• Bugscope Teama vole is different from a mouse, a vole is in the same subfamily as a lemming
• Bugscope Teamyou can see the sutures in the skull, where it grows
• Bugscope Teamright Scot is explaining it better
• Bugscope Teamall the hairs around it are the hairs that made up the majority of the owl pellet. it's hard to remove all those hairs
• Bugscope Teamin babies those are open; when you get older they seal up
• 1:12 pm
• Teacheryou mean the cracks?
  Bugscope Teamyep those are the ones

• Bugscope Teamyes those cracks are the places where the bone adds onto itself when the skull grows

• TeacherWe would like to back up and see the actual bone..
  Bugscope Teamthis is as low as we can go with the magnification. The SEM is so powerful we can't go any lower
• Bugscope Teamthe spaces between the sutures are called fontanelles
• Bugscope Teamyou mean zoom out? unfortunately, we are at the minimum already. the electron scope is designed to view things smaller than this skull, sorry about that. if you drive around you can probably see some more of the skull though
• Bugscope Teamwe thought we'd put the skill on there anyway, so you could look at details of it

• Bugscope Teamwhen we run the microscope we go to the longest working distance so that yo can see as much as possible at low mag like this

• Bugscope Teamif you are having trouble with "click to drive", try "click to center", that gives you more fine control
• Bugscope Teamthe microscope is designed to go to very high mag and as Cate said cannot always accommodate us at low mag

• 1:17 pm

• Bugscope Teamcool, this is a bone that came from the pellet
• Bugscope Teamthese are all little bones that were found in the pellet

• Bugscope Teamthe bumpy background is the carbon tape we stick specimens

• Bugscope Teamcool! that looked like a femoral head
• Bugscope Teamthere it is
• Bugscope Teamwe are used to looking at ball and socket joints in insects, like where the antennae fit into the head

• Bugscope Teamnow we get to see this, which is much like what your femur looks like where it inserts into the pelvis
• Bugscope Teamnow you can see silver paint in the background -- the bubbles
• Bugscope Teamall these images are black and white, that's because the ESEM uses electrons to gather the image, not light. since color is a result of the frequency of light, and since we aren't using light to gather the image, thus no color

• Bugscope Teamah, cool, we think this is salt
• Teacherwhat's this?
• Bugscope Teamsalt is usually cubic in shape
• Bugscope TeamI wonder if it is ureic acid crystals
• Teachersalt from what?
• Bugscope Teamwell, maybe scott is right, not salt
• Bugscope Teamwell it is salts but not from sodium chloride perhaps
• 1:22 pm
• Bugscope Teamwhatever this is, it came from the owl pellet, for sure

• Teacherwhat is this?
• Bugscope Teamnotice the magnification, 3378x, this is highly magnified.
• Bugscope Teamanimals like us excrete urea, and those may have been uric or ureic acid crystals
• Bugscope TeamScott any ideas? I thought it was some sort of plant fiber
• Bugscope Teamyou can see a curved tooth there
• Bugscope Teamyes it does look like a plant fiber
• Bugscope Teamthis was on one of the bones
• Bugscope Teamthat does look like a snake fang on the upper left
• Bugscope Teamoh wow, cool!

• Bugscope Teamnice, click to center!

• Bugscope Teamgood job driving the scope mrs. schaa

• Bugscope Teambones have canals in them that blood vessels go through, and at a higher mag scale, there are canals called Haversian canals that are part of the bone remodeling process that goes on as long as the animal is alive

• 1:27 pm
• Bugscope Teamthis is the ball and socket of a jaw I bet
• Bugscope Teamwhere the jaw fits into the skull
• Bugscope Teamthe temporomandibular joint
• TeacherWhat are the holes/bumps on the ball?
• Bugscope Teamgo up a little higher and we can see

• Bugscope Teamincrease the magnification we mean

• Bugscope Teamthey are places where the bone is worn, and when it gets into the owl

• Bugscope Team's digestive tract it gets dissolved more easily

• Bugscope Teamunder the skin, that is

• Bugscope Teamcan you drive to the end of the jawbone, if that is what it is? you could use click to center
• Teacherwe're gonna zoom in on the hair now
• 1:32 pm
• Bugscope Teamcool!

• Teacherwhat is this?
• Bugscope Teamwe aren't sure, sorry
• Bugscope Teamit's very very small though
• Bugscope Teammaybe some kind of mold?
• Bugscope TeamI wasn't sure, it reminded me of a pollen grain, but it's too small

• Bugscope Teamyeah it is really interesting but we don't know. it is about the same diameter as a bacterium is long

• Bugscope Teamif you are trying to center in on something, using "click to center" works much easier

• Bugscope Teamthe small things are crystals of some sort, and this may also be a crystalline structure that formed more quickly
• Bugscope Teamnice, so this is about one micron in diameter?

• Bugscope Teama little more maybe
• Bugscope Teamabout 2 microns I think

• Bugscope Teamthat means you can fit 500,000 to 1,000,000 of these little dudes in 1 meter

• Teacherwhat do you think this is?
• Bugscope Teamthis is another crystal, and it is not cubic like sodium chloride
• 1:38 pm

• Bugscope Teamgallium arsenide makes crystals like that, but certainly so do other more common chemicals
• Teacherthis is?
• Bugscope Teamthis is the tooth of the vole
• Bugscope Teamthe vole skull had one tooth still in the socket
• Bugscope Teamlet'
• Bugscope Teams drive further along the skull

• Bugscope TeamI think this is an eye socket

• Bugscope Teamscott is controlling the scope now, he is an expert

• Bugscope Teamyep, and there's the other eye socket

• Bugscope Teammolars
• Bugscope Teamwow, cool

• Bugscope Teamsharp teeth at the front and molars at the back
• Bugscope Teamthat's a good way to go for eating stuff

• 1:43 pm

• Bugscope Teamfunny looking molars
• Bugscope Teamyou can see where the enamel is worn
• Bugscope Teamdeer teeth look like this, somewhat

• Teacherwe're losing the little ones, move us around more please!
• Bugscope Teamenamel at the top (middle of the screen) , dentin at the bottom

• Bugscope Teammore bones here

• Bugscope Teamthese are probably mostly ribs

• Bugscope Teamah cool rib bones

• Bugscope Teamyes rodent teeth grow constantly

• 1:48 pm

• Teacherteacher thinks they are ribs

• Bugscope Teamblobs of hair all over the place, it was hard to remove some of the hairs
• Bugscope Teamwe have people who use the microCT to image mouse ribs, and those are usually separate, but these could be shortribs

• Bugscope Teamwow, that looks cool

• Bugscope Teamthis looks more like a human hair but it is tapered

• Teacherwhats the ribbing on it?
  Bugscope Teamthose are the scales; they show us how it grows, in little bursts

• Teacherwow amazing!
• 1:53 pm

• Bugscope Teamlooks like a screw (a small one at that) :)

• Teachercan you take us inside the hole?

• Bugscope TeamI am not getting updates, working from home...
• Bugscope Teamsomeone else may have to drive

• Bugscope Teamthe pits in the bone are where it dissolved a little when it was inside the owl

• Bugscope TeamI want to see if that is a fang

• 1:58 pm

• Bugscope Teamlooks like a snake fang, very small

• Teacherwhat this?
• Bugscope Teamooh I don't know what these are

• Bugscope Teamsome kind of hairs?

• Teacherbut there aew smooth-whiskers?

• Bugscope Teamyeah, they were very smooth

• Bugscope Teamblood vessels I think, some of them

• Bugscope TeamI am sorry we do not know this stuff for sure, but it is exciting for us to see

• Teachertake us on another journey

• Bugscope Teamlet's check out this other bone

• Teacherwhat kind of bone is this?

• 2:03 pm
• Bugscope TeamI think it is a long bone, like a femur or humerus

• Bugscope Teaminside is where the marrow normally is

• Bugscope Teamthe bone we were on was really skinny and curved

• Bugscope Teamit is hard to maintain perspective with these samples -- thank you for sending them. it is a new world for us
• Teacherok we have lost the 6-7 year olds, thanks for showing us!
  Bugscope Teamsorry but we understand

• Bugscope Teamwe should have put some bugs on too, but we weren't sure about that
• TeacherEnjoy the sample!
• Bugscope Teammrs. schaa, make sure to check out your member page: http://bugscope.beckman.illinois.edu/members/2009-071, all the chat and images are saved to that page
• Bugscope Teamthank you for sending us something different to look at. The CT image movie was fun to see

• Teachernext year we study bugs so we will be in touch

• Bugscope TeamMrs Schaa consider working with us again, and we will be glad to do this again with insects

• TeacherWe will!!!!! Thanks! Good-bye!

• 2:09 pm
• Bugscope Teamnice session everyone, good bye!