Connected on 2014-04-16 09:00:00
from Wharton County, Texas, United States
- 8:02 am
- Bugscope Teamsample will be in shortly...
- 8:08 am
- Bugscope Teamsample is pumping down
- Bugscope Teamwe can see the sample in the vacuum chamber now
- Bugscope Teamas soon as the vacuum is good enough, we'll turn on the electron beam, align the microscope settings, and start making presets for today's session
- 8:16 am
- 8:22 am
- 8:29 am
- 8:35 am
- 8:42 am
- 8:47 am
- 8:52 am
- TeacherHello, this is East Bernard Elementary. I'm getting the computer and screen set up for the students. I will have my class and a few classes joining us over then next 45 min.
- Bugscope Teamsuper cool!
- Bugscope Teamplease allow us to finish the presets. After that you can control the microscope
- 8:58 am
- TeacherSorry! We will wait.
- Bugscope Teamit's not a problem. We are almost done
- Bugscope Teamwe are done with presets now. you can go ahead and drive around
- 9:03 am
- TeacherGreat! Thanks!
- Bugscope Teamwelcome to Bugscope!
- Bugscope TeamCate will be on in a minute.
- Bugscope TeamHello Kiki!
- TeacherThank you we are thrilled to be here!
- TeacherWhy does the ant appear hairy/]
- Bugscope Teamplease let us know when you have questions, about anything
- Bugscope Teamthe ant is indeed hairy, as we find many insects are
- 9:09 am
- Bugscope Teamthe hairs, which are called setae (see-tee), have a number of functions. Primarily, they are sensory, meaning that they help the insect collect information about its environment
- TeacherWhat is this furry part?
Bugscope Teamthose are palps, on either side of the moth's proboscis, which is what it uses to suck up food, in the form of nectar, from flowers
- TeacherHow many lenses are in a compound eye?
Bugscope Teamon this moth's compound eye there are likely a few thousand
- Bugscope Teamcompared to this ant, which has perhaps 30 or 40 eye facets
- Bugscope Teamthe palps we mentioned before are accessory mouthparts that help insects taste and manipulate their food
- Bugscope Teamthis is kind of like armor, like a knight would have, or the knight's horse, to protect it
- 9:14 am
- Bugscope Teamsome bristles are used by insects to tell if their limbs are overextended
- Bugscope Teaminsects and similar arthropods, like shrimp, do not have skin like we do. instead they have an exoskeleton -- a shell like a suit of armor that protects them
- Teacherwhy do the roaches have horns/spikes in their knees?
Bugscope Teambristles like that can be for protection and also for sensing touch
Bugscope Teamthey also tell them from overextending their legs. They don't have the sense of pain we get when we are bending our limbs in weird ways
- TeacherIs this how the beetle eats? what does it eat?
Bugscope Teama lot of beetles -- we don't know for sure about this one -- are foragers, and eat whatever material they find that might be edible, like decaying plants
- Bugscope Teamwe see palps here, but they're not at all like those of the moth
- Bugscope Teampalps are often (look at one of of the ants' mouths) used as accessory mouthparts
- Teacherwhy do insects have so many legs?
Bugscope Teamall insects, as adults, have six legs; so I guess it means they are all related that way. it suits the shapes of their bodies
- Teacheris the tongue rough so that it can scrape inside the flower for the nectar?
- Bugscope Teammillipedes, centipedes, and rolypolies, none of which are insects, have more legs
- 9:19 am
- Bugscope Teamthere is no specific reason why they have 6 and not 8, like spiders, or 4, like land mammals. It is just an accident of evolution that the ancestor of all insects had six legs
- Bugscope Teamrolypolies are crustaceans, like shrimp and lobster and crabs
- TeacherThat is cool!
- Bugscope Teamthere is a small number of arthropods that have six legs but are not technically insects; they're called hexapods
- Bugscope Teamand ticks go through juvenile phases in which they have six legs
- Bugscope Teamwhen you rub a butterfly's wings, these are what come off, like powder
- Bugscope Teamthese are scales, kind of like shingles on a house
- Bugscope Teamoops now we're looking at an ant claw
- 9:24 am
- Teacherwhy does this pollen look like a cocoon?
Bugscope Teamthey come in a lot of different shapes. These are just are lily pollen look. They must be sticky and light to they can move to other areas easily. Ragweed look like spiky balls so that they can stick to your clothes
- Bugscope Teamsee the moth's antennae?
- Bugscope Teamthis is the ant's mouth in which we can see its palps
- Teacherwhat are the dots mid picture?
Bugscope Teamthose are the tips of palps
- 9:29 am
- Bugscope Teamthey are coming out toward us
- Teacherwhat is their purpose?
- Bugscope Teamthey help the ant taste its prospective food -- what it might want to eat
- Teacherthank you
- Bugscope Teamto the left we see a loose scale from a moth or butterfly -- or from a mosquito of silverfish
- Bugscope Teamthis is kind of sad -- the roach's head is broken
- Bugscope Teamroaches are very streamlined
- Bugscope Teamthe compound eyes are so smooth it can be hard to see the individual facets
- Bugscope Teamhaha so does this look like salt to you?
- Bugscope Teammost salt is cubic, like this, like little blocks
- Teachernope!
- Bugscope Teamhere is an ant's compound eye
- Bugscope Teamyes ants in general cannot see as well as moths
- 9:34 am
- Bugscope Teamsome species of ants do not have eyes at all
- Teacherwe wondering if the ant has poor vision due to less facets than say moths...
Bugscope Teamyes they do. but they may be more sensitive to chemicals than moths. They rely more heavily on their antennae than their eyes, since they live in the ground
- Teacheramazing!
- Bugscope Teamants depend very strongly on their antennae, which pick up, as Cate says, chemical signals
- Bugscope Teamants are predators in the insect world, and many insects have defenses, of some sort, against ants
- Bugscope Teamaphids, for example, have things that look like dual exhaust pipes -- they're called cornicles, or siphuncles -- that if ants touch them will squirt out a kind of glue that immobilizes ants
- Teachercool
- Bugscope Teamon the other hand, some ants protect aphids, and the aphids reward them by producing a kind fo sugary nectar
- Bugscope Teamto the left we see the ant's mandibles, which are the jaws.
- 9:40 am
- Bugscope Teamin insects, the ones that have mandibles, the mandibles open left and right, like a gate
- Bugscope Teamour lower jaw is called a mandible, and our upper jaw, part of the rest of our head, is called a maxilla
- Teacherwhat is ommatidia?
Bugscope Teamthey are the individual facets your see here on the compound eye
- Bugscope Teamlast week there was an article online that said that the little features we see on the individual ommatidia are there to cut doiwn glare
- Bugscope Teamdown...
- Bugscope Teamthose tiny features are smaller than a micrometer -- they are on the nanoscale
- Teacheris the lady bug larvae available?
- Bugscope Teambacteria, for example, are often about 2 microns (micrometers) long
- Bugscope Teamif you can't select it, we can drive there for you
- Bugscope Teama micrometer (micron) is a thousandth of a millimeter, or a millionth of a meter
- 9:45 am
- Bugscope Teama nanometer is a thousandth of a micrometer, or a billionth of a meter\
- Teacherare the spikes for protection?
Bugscope Teamyes we think they are
- Bugscope Teamladybugs are predators, even as larvae; they love to eat aphids
- Bugscope Teamhere you can see a very small antenna and four palps
- Bugscope Teamthe eyes are super tiny, like little bumps
- Bugscope Teamthis is the moth'
- Bugscope Teams proboscis, which is coiled up when it is not being used
- Bugscope Teamit is like a long straw that the moth can stick into a flower and use to draw out nectar
- Bugscope Teamit's mostly red ants that sting
- Teacherare there any ants that don't sting?
Bugscope Teamyes there are so many kinds of ants that there are really almost any variation.
- Bugscope Teamwe can see the stingers when they have them
- Bugscope Teamsome ants spray formic acid as a protection against predators
- Bugscope Teamthe abdomen of an ant is called a 'gaster.'
- 9:51 am
- Bugscope Teamants often have, on both of their forelegs, a comb that they can use to clean their antennae
- Bugscope Teamhere it is
- TeacherAll of our students thank you so very much for your time and all of your information! You guys rock!
- Bugscope Teamthank you for using bugscope with us today
- Bugscope TeamThank You!
- TeacherThis is amazing. A fascinating opportunity.
- Bugscope TeamThis is super fun for us.
- Bugscope Teamhttp://bugscope.beckman.illinois.edu/members/2014-035
- TeacherWe are going to log off. Is there anything specific I should do before?
- Bugscope Teamthis is your member page, with today's transcript on it
- Bugscope Teamwe are good, no. Thank YO
- Bugscope Teamyou!
- Bugscope Teamhaha
- TeacherThanks again!
- Bugscope TeamBye!