Cool. As a certifiable nerd, this semi-obscure (to most people) reference provokes a lot of memories.
I’ve used the Golgi staining technique. It’s a silver stain that precipitates black deposits in a subset of neurons, producing a sample of stained cells and allowing you to visualize neuronal architecture. It is a somewhat mysterious procedure — I was treating slabs of brain tissue in an arcane series of reactions over days to get the effect, and it was so exciting when my first prep actually worked. It produces these gorgeous black-on-red-gold images, and there was a time when I’d spend hours on a microscope measuring synaptic bouton density. It’s weird to see it in a joke, though. How many people will get it?
And then, Weinersmith brings up Lucifer Yellow in the red button panel:
I’ve also used Lucifer Yellow a lot! It’s a small fluorescent probe that glows very brightly, and I’ve injected it into many neurons to visualize their arbors and also assess connectivity — it diffuses freely through gap junctions.
Again, I have to ask who this joke for? Neurobiologists and histologists and historians who recognize this guy.
You’re never going to tap into that Garfield money at this rate, Zach.
As a former medical lab scientist and hobbyist artist, Masson’s trichrome will always have a special place in my heart! Collagen reminds me of VanGogh’s Starry night!
Frozen sectioned Congo red can go suck lemons however.
I have so many slides with that trichrome staining — almost all of my embryology slides are blue and pink.
I know very little about biology, but it seems I am a nerd; I attended a lecture a year or two ago about the history of staining brain section slides, so I got the joke.
Is it too arcane to mention Freud in the context of staining?