fixative

The pattern can be made permanent by spraying with a fixative or hairspray, or lifted with cellophane tape.

Gently rinse the wells with Phosphate-Buffered Saline (PBS) or distilled water to remove any residual fixative.

Normally, to preserve a brain, you pump fixative in via the arteries at low concentrations.

The place has to have some ventilation, as again, the fixative doesn't smell the best and is also bad for the skin.

Probably the coal promoter who handed it to them had washed it, and maybe waxed it or covered it in fixative to make the publicity stunt work better.

Then you have to find a tall enough tree to hang fixative from, as you can't get a pump out into the veld that will run for days.

A possible explanation, also from the ambergris Wikipedia page: > Ambergris used to be very highly valued by perfumers as a fixative that allowed the scent to last much longer, but it has been replaced by synthetic ambroxan.

From the materials and methods: "An anesthetized adult mouse was perfused transcardially with a fixative solution containing glutaraldehyde, paraformaldehyde, and CaCl2 in cacodylate buffer.

The brain was removed and maintained overnight at 4°C in the same fixative solution." I don't know much about neurobiology.