Chemists will be green with envy to find out that a Nobel prize
(possibly in Chemistry) is almost certain to be won by someone
using using nothing fancier than formaldehyde, acrylamide and an
ionic detergent (Sodium Dodecyl Sulfate — the SDS of
electrophoresis fans everywhere)_. For details see Nature vol.
497 pp. 332 – 337 ’13 (16 May Issue). It’s by the same man (Karl
Deisseroth) who already has a Nobel coming for the invention of
optogenetics. First — a bit of history. The tissue of the brain
is so tightly packed that it is impossible to see the cells that
make it up with the usual stains used by light microscopists.
People saw nuclei all right but they thought the brain was a
mass of tissue with nuclei embedded in it (like a slime mold).
Muscle is like that — long fibers with hundreds of nuclei here
and there. It wasn’t until that late 1800′s that Camillo Golgi
developed a stain which would now and then outline a neuron with
all its processes. Another anatomist (Ramon Santiago y Cajal)
used Golgi’s techni