Connected on 2014-09-17 08:15:00
from Fulton County, Georgia, United States
- 7:28 am
- Bugscope Teamsample is in sputter coater just now...
- 7:36 am
- Bugscope Teamthis sputter coater takes extra long..
- 7:48 am
- Bugscope Teamcoated sample is in 'scope and 'scope is pumping down
- 7:54 am
- 7:59 am
- 8:07 am
- Bugscope Teamgood morning, Mrs G!
- 8:12 am
- TeacherHi there, I am going to start the screen cast in just a moment.
- Bugscope Teamsuper cool!
- Bugscope Teamwe are ready to roll!
- Bugscope Teambrb...
- 8:18 am
- Bugscope TeamI'm back, on my office computer.
- Bugscope Teamthis is the head of a mosquito
- Bugscope Teamyou can see its compound eyes, which are the tiny desiccated round things
- Bugscope Teamthe empty donut-like things are the pedicels
- TeacherCan we zoom in on the eyes a bit more?
Bugscope Teamyes you can -- just click the plus sign at the top of the screen, left
- Bugscope Teamclicking on the screen itself will center whatever you click on
- Bugscope Teamif you have trouble please let me know -- I can also drive for you
- Bugscope Teamsweet!
- Bugscope Teamthe mosquito is covered with scales, like moths, butterflies, and silverfish
- Bugscope Teamthe scales come off easily, and they protect those insects when they fly or run into spider webs
- TeacherWow! Impressive!
- 8:23 am
- Bugscope Teamthe features we see now -- the tiny dots -- are on the nanoscale
- Bugscope Teamwe think of them like we think of rods and cones in a human eye
- Bugscope Teamthey look to be 150 to 200 nanometers in diameter
- Bugscope Teamso they are smaller than the wavelengths of visible light
- Bugscope Teambe sure to try other presets on today's sample
- Bugscope Teamand please let me know whenever you have questions
- Bugscope Teamright now we're looking at the mosquito 'forehead'
- Bugscope Teamthis place I will work with, just a sec
- 8:28 am
- Bugscope Teamyou can see bacteria now
- Bugscope Teamsince I made that preset, this morning, the sample shifted
- Bugscope Teamthis is a very small wasp, and we are looking at its thorax, I think it was
- Bugscope Teamthe rod-shaped things are bacilli
- Bugscope Teambacilli are often about 2 micrometers (2 microns) long
- Bugscope Teama micron is a millionth of a meter
- Bugscope Teama thousandth of a millimeter
- Bugscope Teamor a thousand nanometers
- Bugscope TeamMrs G be sure to let us know when you have any questions or whenever you might have trouble driving
- 8:33 am
- TeacherMy students want o know - what is the farthest the SEM can zoom in?
Bugscope Teamthis microscope can technically go to 1 million times magnification, but you won't be able to see anything past 200,000x for most samples
Bugscope Teamwhen we run Bugscope we are working fairly far away from the samples, so we do not get the very best resolution
Bugscope Teamnormally we would have the sample very close to the polepiece, where the electrons come from, but we could not go to lower magnification if we were to do that now.
- Bugscope Teamwe also have a transmission electron microscope, which will allow us to go to higher magnifications
- Bugscope Teamthis is lily pollen, and the background is the anther from the lily; you can see that the plant material is shriveled
- 8:39 am
- TeacherThey want to know what you mean by tradeoffs??
Bugscope Teamwhen we go to super high magnification using the transmission electron microscope (TEM), we can only see a portion of a single sample at a time; then we have to change the sample, so it would not be very interesting for very long
- Bugscope Teamthis is a scanning electron microscope (SEM), and it allows us to see three-dimensional samples at a variety of magnifications without making big changes
- Bugscope TeamI'll go to the microscope and give you a view of the specimen chamber.
- Bugscope Teamthis is the inside of the SEM specimen chamber
- Bugscope Teamit is under vacuum
- Bugscope Teamyou can see the platter with insects on it
- Bugscope Teamthe cone at the top of the image is where the primary electrons come from
- Teacheryes
- Bugscope Teamthe long narrow thing on the left, on the platter, is the anther
- 8:44 am
- Bugscope Teamnow we're back on the sample, looking at salt crystals
- Bugscope Teamthis is salt from a Wendy's restaurant
- TeacherThey loved that!
- Bugscope Teamthe crystals do not look like normal salt, which is smooth
- Bugscope Teamhere is a cute little ladybug
- Bugscope Teamit's a larval ladybug, like the caterpillar version
- Bugscope Teamthey are actually not that cute
- TeacherMy students are really impressed. We started working with compound microscopes.
- Teacher:-)
- 8:49 am
- Bugscope Teamthey eat aphids, and they are messy eaters and leave the bodies of the aphids on their own bodies
- Bugscope Teamso to the right we see small leftover bodies of aphids
- Bugscope Teamladybug larvae do not have compound eyes like adults; they have five eyes on each side of their heads that are hard to make out -- they're called stemmata
- TeacherYum!
Bugscope Teamhaha
- Bugscope Teamntennae
- Teacheroh wow!
- Bugscope Teamthis is one of tne a
- Bugscope Teamthis is a small moth, with red eyes, although we cannot see color using the SEM
- 8:54 am
- Bugscope Teamnow we can see the compound eyes, and the palps, and a lot of scales
- Bugscope TeamA single unit of the compound eye is called an ommatidium
- Bugscope TeamEach unit has it's own lens
- Bugscope Teamhere we can see one of the anterior tentorial pits
- Bugscope TeamHere we have a nice view of one of the moth's anterior tentorial pits. These pits correspond to an internal brace of exoskeleton, called the tentorium, which helps brace the insect's head when it moves its mouthparts
- Bugscope Teamthis is one of the front of the head
- Bugscope TeamThere are also posterior tentorial pits, located on the back of the head
- Bugscope TeamInterestingly, this moth has reduced mouthparts and does not feed while it is an adult. So, it would be interesting to see if the tentorium is greatly reduced since it is not as important in bracing the head to withstand the powerful forces of the mandibles
- 9:00 am
- Bugscope Teamit has super sharp, long mandibles
- Bugscope Teamthis is an interesting looking beetle like insect I could not identify
Bugscope TeamI couldnt identify it under an SEM, I'm not used to seeing them this closely :(
- Bugscope Teamwe can tell that it is not handy at climbing walls
- Bugscope Teamawesome!
- Bugscope TeamThis looks like a type of ground beetle, very generic name I know, but you can tell from that little extra piece of cuticle
- Bugscope Teamon its hind legs
- Bugscope TeamThis is an insects tarsus
- TeacherMy students are amazed by the little harilike structures on the legs
Bugscope Teamlet's go up to look at them more closely
Bugscope TeamSince it is probably a ground beetle, you guessed it, it lives on or near the ground. So it probably uses those long hairlike structures to help it dig
- Bugscope TeamThese little hooks help the insect crawl through dirt :)
- Bugscope TeamThey also help with climbing
- Bugscope Teamthe hairs we see, called setae, or bristles or spines, are often sensory: mechanosensory, thermosensory, chemosensory, and proprioceptive (for self-sensing)
Bugscope TeamI'd say these are likely to be mechanosensory because they are lacking pores
- 9:06 am
- Bugscope Teamthis is a small four-winged flying insect -- a surprise for us!
- Bugscope Teamthis is the one with bacteria on its thorax
- Bugscope TeamHere you can see that this tarsus has little pads on it
- Bugscope TeamThese pads help this insect with sticking to surfaces
- TeacherThank you sooo much! My students are about to switch classes. We really appreciate your time and the SEM!! :-)
- Bugscope TeamThank you!
- Bugscope TeamSee you next year!
- Bugscope Teamthanks for using bugscope with your students today
- Bugscope TeamSee you later thanks for doing BugScope :)
- Bugscope Teamhttps://bugscope.beckman.illinois.edu/members/2014-054
