Connected on 2011-05-05 19:00:00
from Alameda, California, United States
- 5:49 pm
- Bugscope Teammicroscope is pumping down
- Bugscope Teamstill pumping down
- Bugscope Teampresently you can see the inside of the vacuum chamber with the samples laid out on the 1.75-in.-diameter stub
- 5:55 pm
- Bugscope Teamslow-ly pumping down...
- 6:01 pm
- 6:07 pm
- 6:13 pm
- 6:19 pm
- 6:24 pm
- 6:29 pm
- Bugscope Teammaking presets for today's session
- Bugscope Teamthe presets are all visible on the lefthand screen
- 6:35 pm
- Bugscope Teamalright! we are ready to roll!
- 6:40 pm
- Bugscope Teamhello!
- Bugscope TeamI am re-doing a bunch of presets since the stage jumped a little while ago and goofed up the ones I'd saved
- 6:45 pm
- 6:51 pm
- Bugscope Teamtotally cool
- Bugscope TeamHello S! Welcome to Bugscope!
- 6:57 pm
- Bugscope Teamokay cool we are in business
- 7:08 pm
- TeacherHello Sandhya!
- Bugscope Teamha that is who S is, then...
- GuestYes that's me.
- Bugscope Teammites!
- Bugscope Teamall over this weevil you sent
- GuestSo do I get to see the bug I caught?
Bugscope Teamwe put some of them on the stub -- Cate did. So I am not sure what you sent.
- Bugscope Teamthis one came from Michele
- Bugscope Teamso it could've been yours, S
- Bugscope Teama big ol' weevil
- Bugscope Teamwhich are also called snout beetles
- GuestOk
- TeacherScott - can you tell us about these mites?
Bugscope Teamwe see them on earwigs; they don't have eyes; we are not sure whether they eat detritus or burrow into the chitin somehow
- Bugscope Teamthere are lots of different kinds of mites, and we think these get on the insects when they spend time in the dirt
- 7:13 pm
- Bugscope Teambut rolypolies (which are crustaceans, not insects) do not get mites, or none that we have seen
- Bugscope Teamyou can barely see these by eye
- Bugscope Teamthey're about a fifth of a millimeter long
- Bugscope Teamthere's an upside-down one
- TeacherDo they get on people?
- Bugscope TeamI don't think so. People have their own specialized mites, like in their eyelashes, but we have not see those.
- Bugscope Teamdustmites are softbodied, so when you find them they are almost always shriveled, like aphids
- Bugscope Teamnice job driving!
- TeacherCool!!
- Teacherand gross.....
- Bugscope Teamyou can see some fungal hyphae to the right
- Bugscope Teamthis weevil was rotting -- covered with mold
- Bugscope Teamsome junk on the carapace...
- Bugscope Teamto the right is the fungus
- Bugscope Teamactually the forked thing to the far left is the mite's head stalk
- 7:18 pm
- Bugscope Teamor what we think of as that when we see them head on
- Bugscope Teamheh
- Bugscope Teamoften we find that stingers and cutting mouthparts are like this, with cutting surfaces that slide past each other
- TeacherHi Scot I'm Tina we are interested in the wasp stinger
- Bugscope Teamthe laciniae of a flea look like a chainsaw
- TeacherWhere does the poison come out?
Bugscope Teamsometimes it seems we see a single pore, but lately we've seen more stingers that have a whole bunch of tiny pores in them
- Bugscope Teamthrough which the venom oozes
- Bugscope Teamyeah see how it looks kind of porous?
- TeacherWould you please drive us to a pore and center it
- Teacher?
- Bugscope Teamspiders have serious pores
- Bugscope Teamhard to tell if these are open or just on the surface
- 7:23 pm
- Bugscope Teamugh you can also see where we left some contamination from the beam on the stinger
- Teacherwhat are the tubes we see here?
- Bugscope Teamin a rectangular patten
- Bugscope Teamthey look like tiny setae
- Bugscope Teamreally I don't know; setae can be mechanosensory, chemosensory, thermosensory, or they can have functions like helping the insect stick to a surface
- TeacherHi, I'm Heather. Can you please drive us to some setae?
Bugscope TeamI just moved us to some plumose setae -- meaning they are shaped like long pine trees
- TeacherWhere are we and what exactly are we looking at?
Bugscope Teamwhen you have a question like that, you can try taking the mag down to see, perhaps, where you are
- Bugscope Teamha that was helpful, wasn't it?
- Bugscope Teambut now you can start to make out the head of the dermestid beetle larva, to the right
- Bugscope Teamand you can see that it has six legs -- because it is an insect, and all insects have six legs
- 7:28 pm
- Bugscope Teamalthough not all arthropods with six legs are insects
- Bugscope Teamawesome
- Bugscope Teamtheses are bad little dudes
- Bugscope Teamthese...
- TeacherWe think he looks like he's praying
- Bugscope Teammuseums use them to take all of the meat off of skeletons
- Bugscope Teamthey pray before eating
- Teacherwhy are they bad?
Bugscope Teambecause they can get loose and eat, for example, all of the leather samples in a museum
- Bugscope Teamso people like them but have to be careful not to let them loose
- Bugscope Teambut if you had a skeleton of a small bird or something and you wanted all the flesh to be gone, the dermestids would be pleased to help with that
- Bugscope TeamI think this is a paper wasp. A bunch of them get into the building in the winter.
- TeacherHi, I'm Elise.
Bugscope TeamHi Elise!
- TeacherDo you know what kind of wasp this was?
- Bugscope Teamum I think it is some sort of paper wasp. it is larger than the parasitic wasps we've been looking at lately
- 7:34 pm
- TeacherDo you think this is the one I found on my lemon tree?
Bugscope TeamI think this is one Cate took out of our 'stock'
- Bugscope Teamtheir jaws -- mandibles -- open left and right, like little gates
- Bugscope Teamthey are kind of forked
- Bugscope Teamthe dark space is between the mandible and the head
- TeacherWhy are there setae on the eye?
Bugscope Teamwhen we see setae on the compound eye, they are usually -- we think -- mechanosensory, which means they are touch sensitive
- TeacherWill you please drive us to the jaw
Bugscope Teamthat is one of the mandibles -- jaws
- Bugscope Teambelow it you can see (could see) now there it is -- part of the 'tongue'
- TeacherWhat's that little fringe?
Bugscope Teamthe fringe helps it lap up liquids, assuming this is one of those wasps that likes sugary stuff
- Bugscope Teambut if it's a paper wasp it may help it wet and mold the 'paper' that forms the nest
- 7:39 pm
- Bugscope Teamthe reason we see so many setae in insects is because they have exoskeletons, so it's like they have armor
- Teacheror a bettle?
- TeacherHi Scot! I'm Alma could you please show us a ladybug?
Bugscope TeamAlma I am sorry we don't have any ladybugs in the 'scope today. But someone moved us to the beetle, which is as close as we can get.
- Bugscope Teamyou can see that one of the antennae is busted off, but the one on the left is intact
- Teachercool Thanks!
- Bugscope Teamabove the beetle's head is a butterfly's wing
- Bugscope Teamthe scales are charging up with electrons
- Bugscope Teamwhich is what the glowing is
- Teacherwhat is the stage made out of?
Bugscope Teamthe stage is aluminum, with carbon doublestick tape on it, and we also use silver paint to help ground the insects/bugs
- Bugscope Teamit is very hard to get enough gold-palladium on the scales to ground them
- Bugscope Teamso they glow like this -- they retain the electrons the microscope is hitting them with
- Bugscope Teamyou can go to the butterfly scale preset, however -- I had found a better place to look, earlier
- Teachercould you please show us something else?
- Teacherthe scales are very amazing
Bugscope Teamscales serve multiple purposes
- 7:44 pm
- Guestthe scales look like roof tiles
Bugscope Teamyes! like shake shingles
- Teacherwhat purposes do they serve?
- Bugscope Teamwhen a moth or butterfly or mosquito flies into a web, it can leave its scales stuck to the web and slip out
- Bugscope Teamalso, the scales help with thermoregulation, and they provide color, both structural color and that from pigments
- Bugscope Teamthis is salt from a Wendy's restaurant
- Bugscope Teamand this is sugar
- Bugscope Teamsugar you can see does not come in cubic crystals
- Bugscope Teamwhereas sodium chloride -- table salt -- does
- Guestthis is one grain of sugar?
Bugscope Teamyes it is!
- TeacherScot - for our last request, will you drive us to your favorite view on anyof these specimens?
- TeacherScot - how do you coat the specimens? How is it sprayed onto the objects?
Bugscope Teamwe use a sputter coater, which pulls a good vacuum; then we add argon gas, and then we run a current through the argon, which makes it glow purple
- Bugscope Teamthe argon plasma erodes gold-palladium from the target (of Au/Pd), and that rains on the sample, in nanometer thickness
- 7:49 pm
- TeacherScot - for our last request, will you drive us to your favorite view on anyof these specimens?
Bugscope Teamleafhoppers are my favorites, at least much of the time
- Bugscope Teamthis is cool
- Bugscope Teamthese tiny things are brochosomes, which are maybe 400 nm in diameter
- Bugscope Teamand the things that look like beads, the large ones, are mold spores
- Bugscope Teamand the pointy things are the surface of the leafhopper's shell
- Bugscope Teamso we were just looking at nanoparticles
- Bugscope Teamon the leg of a leafhopper
- Bugscope Teamthat was my fave for today
- Bugscope Teamthe 'shell' is the exoskeleton, made of chitin
- Bugscope Teamis that it?
- TeacherThanks for driving and sharing! We are going to sign off for now. Thanks again for a great session as always! The teachers LOVED it - lots of oohhss and aahhs!
- Bugscope Teamhttp://bugscope.beckman.illinois.edu/members/2011-033
- Bugscope Teamsweet
- Bugscope TeamThank You!
- Bugscope TeamBye!
- TeacherBye!
- Guestthank you and bye
- 7:55 pm
- Bugscope TeamOh Bye S!
- Bugscope TeamThank You!
