Connected on 2014-09-23 09:00:00
from Richmond County, New York, United States
- 7:56 am
- Bugscope Teammicroscope is p[umpiong\
- Bugscope Teammicroscope is pumping down
- Teachergood morning! thank you for getting setup so early!
- 8:02 am
- Bugscope Teamgood morning!
- Bugscope Teamwe still have to make the presets for your session. I'll start now
- Teacherno problem, no kids until 930
- 8:08 am
- Teacherdo you have to coat the specimens in gold before they are put under the SEM?
- Bugscope Teamyes. we use gold-palladium, which gives a finer coat.
- TeacherScott, what is your role? Are you a post doc student? What did you study during your graduate career? I know the kids will be as interested in who you are as what we are looking at!
- 8:13 am
- Bugscope TeamI manage the Microscopy Suite; we train mostly grad students and postdocs to run a variety of instruments in order to conduct their own research. I was hired here in late 1998 to run this microscope and to help start Bugscope.
- Bugscope TeamPrior to that I'd run an EM facility in Kansas City for 10+ years, and before that a lab at the U of Kansas for 5 years.
- 8:19 am
- TeacherVery cool. My masters thesis was using XRay Fluorescence Spectroscopy at SUNY Albany to study prehistoric stone tools
- 8:24 am
- TeacherAny idea what species of moth you are using?
- Bugscope Teamnot today; when the entomologists log in this morning they may be able to help us with that
- 8:29 am
- Bugscope Teamlobed antenna
- Bugscope Teamwe are ready to roll.
- 8:34 am
- Teachergreat scott, the kids are here we are just talking about the SEM
- Bugscope Teamyou can now drive; please let us know when you have questions
- Bugscope TeamIf you would like, we can confer control to students, one at a time...
- Bugscope Teamthis is Scott, again, on my office computer.
- Bugscope Teamyou have control of the microscope
- Bugscope Teamsuper cool
- Bugscope Teamhere you can see the mandibles, which open side to side, and the palps
- Bugscope Teamalso the compound eyes, of course
- Bugscope Teamthe antennae are broken off
- 8:40 am
- Bugscope Teamthere are three more eyes we cannot see on the top of the head -- the ocelli, or simple eyes
- Bugscope Teamthis is the opening of the stink gland, between the first and second set of legs on the ventral side
- Bugscope Teama lot of fluid had come out of the gland, and the gold-palladium did not stick well to that area
- Bugscope Teamwe use the gold-palladium to make the surface of the sample conductive
- Bugscope Teamand we coat extra thick for Bugscope since it's not for research and the individual features are hard to render conductive
- Bugscope Teamplease be sure to let us know when you have questions about anything
- Teacheris it 24k gold?
- Bugscope TeamI think it's 70% pure gold and 30% pure palladium.
- Bugscope Teamit appears silvery
- Bugscope Teamif you coat with gold only, the coating is chunky, and with a high-resolution SEM we can see that chunkiness, like a late 1960's sculpture.
- 8:45 am
- Bugscope Teamgold-palladium coats as flakes, kind of -- it looks like dried mud up close
- Bugscope Teamhere we see where the sheath of the ovipositor has sprung away, and the stinger/ovipositor is exposed.
- Bugscope Teamyou can change the mag, and also if you click on the screen, the image will center where you click
- Bugscope Teamyou can see one of the lower limbs
- Teacherhow do we change mag?
Bugscope TeamYou can click on the + or - buttons at the top of the image, next to the word "Magnification". Similarly for focus, and image quality adjustments.
- Bugscope Teamwe did not look to see if we could find any hamuli, which are the hooks between the hind- and forewing
- 8:50 am
- Bugscope Teamthat is odd...
- Bugscope Teamwe can make changes for you as well, of course
- Teachercan we come out a bit?
- Bugscope Teamthis is as low as we can get with this setup
- Teacherthey are dying to know who daniel is
Bugscope TeamSome boring old dude who has been part of this since the beginning in 1999. Took a break to do something stupid (got a Ph.D.) and am now an unemployed bum sponging off my wife. :)
- Teachernot seeing + - next to mag, justn ext to focus and contrast, but thats ok
Bugscope TeamIt is to the right of the word. The top row should be read like this: "Magnification: +/-. Focus: +/-. Etc." The spacing may make it seem a bit odd. Or are those not there? If not, then let me know and I'll try to figure out what happened.
Bugscope TeamThe red "+" should be just under the word "the" at the top of the page where it says "Currently near the assassin bug".
- Teacherwhy are they called "assasin bugs"?
Bugscope Teamthey blend in well with their surroundings and then when an insect they want to eat comes by, they grab them with their front legs and pierce the insect with their mouthpart and suck out the juices
Bugscope TeamThey are very good predators, as Cate just said.
- 8:55 am
- Bugscope Teamthe features we're looking at now are on the nano scale
- Teacherand what exactly is a ommatidia?
Bugscope Teamthey are these- the individual facets of the compound eye.
- Bugscope TeamHello Reynolds!
- Bugscope TeamWelcome to Bugscope!
- Bugscope TeamWe're working with the Staten Island Academy this morning.
- Bugscope Teamplease let us know if you have any questions for us
- TeacherCate, the kids know I love moths and we have been studying them. Can you tell us the species of moth we have today?
Bugscope TeamI'm sorry. I have no idea.
Bugscope TeamI wasn't part of the specimen prep, so I didn't get a look at it before it went into the chamber. Based on its size, I'm guessing it is probably a European corn borer moth, Ostrinia nubilalis Huber. We see a lot of them this time of year as the second brood of caterpillars has pupated and become adults.
- Bugscope Teamthis is the wasp's claw, and in between the 'tines' we see what is sometimes called an 'arolium' in grasshoppers, for example
- 9:01 am
- TeacherWhat are the induvidual hair like structures called?
Bugscope Teamsetae, bristles, spines, trichae, microtrichae, microsetae, and then just hairs again
Bugscope TeamThe list the Scot provided is just a sampling. The specific term used varies depending upon anatomy and function.
- TeacherCan you look at rocks and non living objects with it?
Bugscope Teamall the time!
- Bugscope Teamwe look at biofilms, microcapsules, all kinds of micro and nanofabricated devices
- TeacherDo you ever use living specimens?
Bugscope Teamthey are not happy to be in low vacuum, so we don't if we can help it
- Bugscope Teamthis is a fairly well-equipped microscopy suite, so we have all kinds of other image and spectra collecting devices
- Bugscope Teamwe have transmission electron microscopy, atomic force microscopy, fluorescence microscopy of many different types, microCT, nanoCT, laser scanning confocal microscopy, Raman imaging....
- 9:06 am
- Bugscope Teamit has some juju on it
- Bugscope Teamoh yeah as Daniel says this is an ESEM, which means we can image samples without coating, as well
- Bugscope Teamdiatom!
Bugscope TeamMmmm... Jelly donut.
- Teacheris this the highest magnification possible?
Bugscope TeamFor Bugscope, generally yes. For the scope, not even close.
Bugscope Teamno we can go much higher, but the way we have the 'scope set up today, we have limited our resolution a bit
Bugscope TeamWe limit the upper magnification somewhat because it is hard to focus when the magnification gets too high.
- Teacher10 microns?
Bugscope TeamA micron is one millionth of a meter. Just as a millimeter is 1/1000th, a micron (technically a micrometer, but micron is the accepted shorthand) is 1/1,000,000th of a meter. In other words, 1/1000th of a millimeter.
- 9:12 am
- Bugscope Teamwhen we're running Bugscope we have the sample more than an inch away from the pole piece, which allows us to go as low as 37x or so but not as high as 200,000x and still get good images.
- TeacherThank you so much for your time today, the kids absolutely loved it. Can the kids log in at home to continue exploring these images?
- Bugscope Teamand we can go over 200,000x as well
- Bugscope Teamhttp://bugscope.beckman.illinois.edu/members/2014-071
- Teacherwhat is a diatom?
Bugscope Teamit's a silica-shelled, single cell algae
Bugscope Teamor I've heard them described as algae...
Bugscope TeamYes, they are photosynthetic algae. They build translucent silica shelles around their bodies and can be quite beautiful. They also persist for a long time in the soil after dying, so form an important clue in the fossil record about the environmental conditions of the region.
- Bugscope TeamReyn olds
- Bugscope TeamThank you! The link below is to today's session -- it has a transcript and some of the images
Bugscope TeamNOTE, that link pasted into the transcript below lacks the ":" between "http" and "//". It should read "http : //" (without the spaces) but a bug in the transcript software strips it out. We haven't found where that is happening yet, so we haven't been able to fix it.
- Bugscope TeamReynolds Science (sorry I can hardly type) please let us know if you have any questions.
- TeacherThanks again!
Bugscope TeamIt was fun having you! We hope you want to do this again!
- 9:17 am
- Bugscope TeamSIA if you want to drive any more you may -- all of the images go to your school's member page for today
- Teacherdo you burn the specimens to get the gold back?
Bugscope TeamThe Scot is saving them up to make a gold tooth! (Not really.)
Bugscope Teamit is so thin it's not worth messing with
Bugscope TeamIt's only a few atoms thick, so it would take several truckloads of coated bugs to be worthwhile. :)
- Bugscope TeamPlease feel free to continue to drive around if you like.
- Teacherthanks, i will
Bugscope TeamDid the mag +/- buttons every show up? If not, what browser and browser version are you running? We like to know this information so we can find bugs and fix them for future schools and sessions.
- 9:32 am
- Bugscope Teamwe're shutting down.. Thank you, Everyone!
- Bugscope TeamDave... my mind is going... I can feel it...
