Chapter 6. Staining

Equipment and Materials

You’ll need the following items to complete this lab session. (The standard kit for this book, available from www.thehomescientist.com, includes the items listed in the first group.)

Materials from Kit

  • Goggles

  • Coverslips

  • Pipettes

  • Slides (flat)

  • Stain, eosin Y

  • Stain, Gram’s iodine

  • Stain, Hucker’s crystal violet

  • Stain, methylene blue

  • Stain, safranin O

  • Stirring rod (optional)

Materials You Provide

  • Gloves

  • Butane lighter (or other flame source)

  • Ethanol, 70%

  • Microscope and illuminator

  • Paper towels

  • Toothpicks

  • Water, distilled

Background

As we learned in the last lab session, staining is an essential tool for optical microscopy because it allows viewing structural details that would otherwise be difficult or impossible to discriminate. ...

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