Connected on 2013-10-21 13:00:00
from Douglas, Nebraska, United States
- 11:54 am
- Bugscope Teamhello!
- Bugscope Teamwe're loading the sample...
- 12:02 pm
- Bugscope Teamsample is pumping down
- 12:20 pm
- Bugscope Teamnow we're making presets
- 12:25 pm
- Bugscope Teamhello Mrs P!
- Bugscope Teamwelcome to Bugscope!
- TeacherHello, Scot, I am checking things out!
- Bugscope Teamwe're still collecting presets for you
- Bugscope Teamif we can keep control of the 'scope a bit longer...
- TeacherThank you, I am waiting on my students to return from lunch.
- Bugscope Teamvery happy to see you on board!
- TeacherThank you, I'll log back in around 12:50.
- Bugscope Teamyou needn't log off...
- 12:31 pm
- 12:37 pm
- 12:43 pm
- 12:48 pm
- 12:54 pm
- TeacherHello, Scot, the students are here.
- Bugscope Teamsuper cool!
- 12:59 pm
- Bugscope Teamthis is a beetle, and you can see on the left that there is a small insect - an aphid
- Bugscope Teamwe're looking at the face of the beetle, and it has lots of mouthparts plus some limbs across it
- Bugscope Teamso for example to the right we see one of the pads that helps the beetle stick to vertical srufaces
- Bugscope Teamsurfaces...
- Bugscope Teamthe pad is called a pulvillus, and it has lots of tiny hairs on it, called tenent setae
- TeacherIs the beetle going to eat the aphid?
Bugscope Teammaybe it was -- that is what ladybugs like to eat, especially
- Bugscope TeamYou can see how hairy the beetle is, those hairs are called setae, and they are used to sense the environment
- Bugscope Teamaphids are softbodied, and when they dry they kind of shrivel up and become unrecognizable
- Bugscope Teamthere is also a lot of dried fluid
- Bugscope Teamin this shot you can see the compound eye in the background
- Bugscope Teamthrough the arched limbs we can see one of the beetle's compound eyes
- 1:05 pm
- Teacherno need- we are labeling what we can as we go.
- Bugscope Teamthe coxa is the small part nearest to the body
- TeacherThe students are sketching what they see and are wondering if you know what the joints of the insects' legs are called?
Bugscope Teamthey have names like trochanter and coxa... I can look them up
Bugscope Teamit goes body, coxa, trochanter, femur, tibia, and tarsus
- Bugscope Teamthe trochanter is next, and longer
- Bugscope Teamfemur and tibia are also names for human limbs
- Bugscope Teamthere are five tarsal segments, the 'forearm' segments
Bugscope TeamThis varies depending on the species of insect.
- Bugscope TeamJoe is an entomologist.
- TeacherThank you.
- Bugscope Teamplease be sure to click on other presets -- you will have access to these same images later as well
- Bugscope Teamyou can see one of the beetle's claws, to the right, and also its antenna
- Bugscope TeamI mean to the left, to the beetle's right
- Bugscope TeamHi Maeve!
- Bugscope Teamthe background is double stick carbon tape, with some silver paint used to help glue down the insects
- 1:10 pm
- Bugscope Teamthe compound eye, instead of the sci-fi movies where insects see multiple images, actually gives the insect a low resolution image.
- Bugscope Teammany flying insects also have simple eyes, called ocelli, on the top of the head
- TeacherOne of the students, Sara, would like to know what purpose the setae serves?
Bugscope Teamthey help make up for the lack of feeling they have with their exoskeleton. The setae helps the insect to feel what is around them, or sometimes they serve different purposes, like smelling/tasting or sensing temperatures
- TeacherThank you.
- Bugscope Teamsetae are often sensory
- TeacherCAn you estimate the size of the specimen without magnification?
Bugscope Teamif you look at the scalebar at the lower left, that is sometimes helpful; this beetle is about a centimeter long
- TeacherI see, thank you.
- Bugscope Teamthe scalebar changes according to the magnification, so when we are at a high magnification it may read in microns or micrometers
- Bugscope Teama micron, or micrometer, is a thousandth of a millimeter
- 1:15 pm
- Bugscope Teammilli means a thousandth, so a milli meter is a thousandth of a meter
- Bugscope Teammicro means a millionth, and a micron or micrometer is a millionth of a meter, quite small
- Bugscope Teama rod shaped bacterium, like E coli, is usually about 2 micrometers long.
- Bugscope Teama human hair can be 75 to 100 micrometers thick
- Bugscope Team100 micrometers is a tenth of a millimeter
- Bugscope Teamthis is cool -- one of the beetle's claws
- Bugscope Teamto the right we see setae that are sticky and help the beetle cling to things
- TeacherWhat does this do for the beetle?
Bugscope Teamit functions somewhat like a hand does for us. some claws can open and close, like a hand
- TeacherWhat type of beetle is this?
Bugscope TeamI think this is sometimes called a cucumber beetle
- 1:20 pm
- Bugscope Teamit kind of looks like a skinny ladybug
- Bugscope Teamsome of the setae we see are used for proprioception, which is a fancy word for self sensing
- Bugscope Teamthat is, insects have setae or bristles that let them know whether, for example, a limb is hyperextended
- Bugscope Teamnow we can see the surface of the exoskeleton, which is called the cuticle
- Bugscope Teamred blood cells in people, for example, are usually 8 to 14 microns in diameter
- 1:26 pm
- Bugscope Teamother cells are often larger, maybe 20 to 30 microns, or micrometers
- Bugscope Teamyou can see now that the micron bar is 10 bacteria long
- TeacherWe have zoomed in to 2496X and are seeing what looks like cell walls on the exterior of the claw-would that be correct?
Bugscope Teammaybe Joe knows; I am not sure whether those are the borders of cells or not. They are indeed close to the size of some mammalian cells.
Bugscope Teamhmm. I think those lines you are seeing is actually how the cuticle is formed. It is secreted from the inside, and layers form atop each other, and afterwards undergo a hardening process
- TeacherThank you.
- Bugscope Teamsome setae do not project through the cuticle; they are not sensory and they are called microsetae.
- TeacherAre the small white flecks dust?
Bugscope Teamyes! we often see tiny particles like that
- Bugscope Teami would say roughly a year or two, if we are counting from egg to adult.
Bugscope Teamadults not lasting more than a month or so.
- TeacherThank you. What is the life span of the cucumber beetle?
Bugscope Teamthey usually live between 1-3 months.
- Teachermolecular
- 1:31 pm
- TeacherIs it possible to see at the molecualr level with this scope?
Bugscope Teamwhen we use the microscope for Bugscope we are limited in the magnification we can achieve; we can see clusters of molecules but individual molecules, generally
- TeacherThank you
- Bugscope Teambut *not* individual molecules
- Bugscope Teampeople sometimes remind us that a diamond is considered a large molecule of carbon atoms
- Bugscope Teamwith a transmission electron microscope, we have a better chance of seeing molecules, but they are usually really quite small
- TeacherMay we click on a different specimen sample on the left or do we remain on the beetle?
Bugscope Teamplease click on any of the presets; we made them for you
- Bugscope Teamyay! it's a fly's head!
- Bugscope Teamyou can see its compound eyes very clearly, and you can see the bases of its antennae
- Bugscope Teamits body fell off...
- 1:36 pm
- Bugscope Teamwith flies, the compound eyes of males are often close together and sometimes touch; females' eyes are often far apart
- Bugscope Teamthe kind of 'fur' we see on the surface of the head is called the 'vestiture'
- Bugscope Teamwe can see that the fly has thousands of ommatidia per eye
- Bugscope Teamsome large wasps or hornets are said to have as many as 30,000 ommatidia per eye
- Bugscope Teaman ommatidium is an individual eye facet
- Bugscope Teameach of those ommatidia sees a part of the larger picture, and together provides the fly with the whole image.
- Bugscope Teamthe dome shape of the eye, with its thousands of lenses, means that the fly has very good peripheral vision; it can see much more than we can see without moving our headsu
- TeacherThank you, Scot.
- Bugscope Teamdepending on the way the interior of the ommatidia are set up, some insects are better able to see in the dark
- 1:41 pm
- Bugscope Teamhere we can see the honeybee's stinger
- Bugscope Team it is blunt, but we can see the barbs on the sides that help it cut into skin and also stay stuck there
- Bugscope Teamthis honeybee had a long, difficult life, looks like
- Bugscope Teambut it didn't sting any mammals, apparently
Bugscope TeamScott, is saying that it hasn't stung any mammals because mammalian skin tends to hook the stinger, pulling it along with the bee's guts out with it.
- 1:46 pm
- Bugscope Teamtthese also work as an ovipositor
Bugscope Teaman ovipositor is used to deposit eggs (ova)
- TeacherThank you-the barbs are fascinating!
- Bugscope Teamthese are moth scales, they kind of resemble ridged potato chips
- Bugscope Teamthe way they are physically structured is part of what gives moths and butterflies their colours
- Bugscope Teamsometimes the scales are also filled with pigment cells
- Bugscope Teamthey are a form of seta
- Bugscope Teamso the pores we saw a second ago are from where some of the scales were lost
- 1:52 pm
- Bugscope Teamthe ridges we see interfere with the wavelengths of light and produce what are called structural colors
- Bugscope Teamsome of those structural colors -- colors due to the widths of the ridges -- can be in colors we cannot see
- TeacherWhat color would this insect be?
Bugscope TeamI think it was a yellowy brown color
- TeacherThank you.
- Bugscope Teaminsects that look quite dull to us may be broadcasting bright colors in ultraviolet light to other insects
- Teachercool!
- Bugscope Teamtotally gnarly
- Bugscope Teamnow you can see features -- the little round components of the mold spores -- on the nano scale
- Bugscope Teammaybe 150 to 200 nanometers..
- Bugscope Teamthis is cool as well
- 1:57 pm
- Bugscope Teamwe're going to run out of this kind of salt at some point, and we will be sad
- Bugscope Teamsodium chloride -- table salt -- forms cubic crystals
- Bugscope Teamhere the sodium chloride forms cubes that also form a larger cube
- TeacherWhere does this salt come from?
Bugscope TeamWendy's.
- Bugscope Teamthese are from salt packets
- TeacherIs this regular table salt?
Bugscope Teamwe think this salt, which is mostly regular table salt, also has an anticaking agent in it that makes it form those cool incised shapes. but we do not really know.
- 2:02 pm
- Bugscope Teamthey are shaped like aztec ruins
- TeacherWe were wondering why it is called aztec salt-
Bugscope Teamit's just what we started calling it because to us it resembles Aztec carvings
Bugscope Teamin Aztec ruins, as Cate says
- TeacherI see!
- Bugscope Teamtiny bits of dust and salt
- TeacherThank you so much-the students have to go to their next class-this was fascinating!
- Bugscope TeamThank you!
- Bugscope TeamWe enjoyed working with you!
- Bugscope Teamthanks for using bugscope today with us!
- TeacherThank you, what a wonderful, informative opportunity!
- Bugscope Teamthank you!
- Bugscope Teamsee you next year!
- 2:08 pm
- Bugscope Teamtime to shut down!
- Bugscope Teamthank you, Everyone!
