I know that Layne’s appeared in the comic before, but he’s never gotten an official introduction. He’s my boyfriend, and he’s currently getting his PhD. In what, you ask? Well… The short answer is “science”.

The long answer, at least when he was writing his Master’s thesis, is how “hsp47 is co-expressed with type-2 collagen in in-vitro chondrognesis “. You can see why the short answer in necessary. (Though, in the right company, “developmental biology” is usually sufficient.)

Anyway, his current research involves zebrafish. If you haven’t seen one before, they are small, nearly transparent fish with streamlined fins (though, there’s a variety of mutants in his lab with long, flowing fins). They’re easy to breed and relatively easy to look after which makes them excellent candidates for research science, though I know from personal experience that they enjoy nothing more than evading nets and leaping to their dooms on the floor.

Occasionally, Layne will ask me to help feed them. The fish facility is row upon row upon row of little plastic tanks, each with a tiny school of fish inside, so there is a lot of fish to feed! We do, indeed, feed them brine shrimp, which are measured out into the tanks via a dropper. The zebrafish go crazy any time someone walks past their tank, thinking that it’s now dinner time.

Your Science Quotent for the Day:

Here’s a video of a developing zebrafish embryo. Look at that cute little notochord…