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Palatable oral pharmaceuticals are crucial for feline medication. The pharmaceutical industry prefers synthetic flavours over organic ones because of hygiene and regulatory issues. The aim of this study was to find a palatable synthetic flavour for future taste-masking of feline pharmaceuticals. The hypothesis was that synthetic meat aromas and free amino acids would be palatable to cats. The palatability of 18 synthetically flavoured mini-tablets was screened with 10–19 pet cats using a rapid 3-portal acceptance test with and without food. The tested flavours were synthetic amino acids (L-carnitine, l-glutamic acid monosodium salt hydrate, l-leucine, l-methionine, l-phenylalanine, l-proline, and taurine), d-(+)-Maltose monohydrate and thiamine hydrochloride. Furthermore, thiamine hydrochloride was combined with amino acids (l-cysteine, l-leucine, l-methionine and l-proline) and synthetic meat flavours (2-acetylpyridine, 2-acetylthiazole, 2-pentylpyridine and 4-hydroxy-5-methyl-3(2H)-furanone). The negative control was a non-flavoured placebo mini-tablet, while positive controls were an organic yeast-flavoured mini-tablet and a yeast- and fish-based commercial vitamin tablet in mini-tablet form. No significant differences were detected between palatable synthetic flavours and the placebo, nor between the synthetic flavours and the yeast flavour. In general, the mini-tablet seemed to be small enough to be accepted inside a food item. These results differ from the earlier literature about the taste preferences of cats for amino acids, and hence free amino acids should not be considered palatable to cats based purely on previous findings. Keywords: Cat, Amino acids, Synthetic flavours, Drug development, Palatability testing

Crib-biting in horses is a stereotypic oral behaviour. Genetic susceptibility has been suggested on a causal basis, together with environmental factors such as stress, gastric discomfort and frustration caused by stall restrictions. This study aimed to test the associations of known or suspected stereotypic genes with equine crib-biting, including Ghrelin, Ghrelin receptor, Leptin, Dopamine receptor, μ-opioid receptor, N-cadherin, Serotonin receptor and Semaphorin. We conducted a candidate gene study with a case–control design, including 98 crib-biting and 135 control horses of two breeds, Finnhorses and half-breds. Detailed phenotypic information on crib-biting behaviour was surveyed through an owner-completed questionnaire. Control horses were more than 10 years old and without a history of crib-biting. Single nucleotide polymorphisms flanking the candidate genes were genotyped using either Sanger sequencing or Taqman assays. According to the survey, the affected horses started crib-biting at a young age, had exhibited crib-biting for more than a year, and expressed the behaviour after feeding or when stressed. Comparison of allele frequencies between the cases and controls for each breed separately did not provide evidence of an association at any of the tested loci. These results suggest that the previously known stereotypic genes are not major risk factors for crib-biting in horses, and further genome-wide studies are warranted on larger sample cohorts.

We present an experimental study of electron spin waves in atomic hydrogen gas compressed to high densities of ∼5 × 10 ^18 cm ^−3 at temperatures ranging from 0.26 to 0.6 K in the strong magnetic field of 4.6 T. Hydrogen gas is in a quantum regime when the thermal de-Broglie wavelength is much larger than the s -wave scattering length. In this regime the identical particle effects play a major role in atomic collisions and lead to the identical spin rotation effect (ISR). We observed a variety of spin wave modes caused by this effect with strong dependence on the magnetic potential caused by variations of the polarizing magnetic field. We demonstrate confinement of the ISR modes in the magnetic potential and manipulate their properties by changing the spatial profile of the magnetic field. We have found that at a high enough density of H gas the magnons accumulate in their ground state in the magnetic trap and exhibit long coherence, which has a profound effect on the electron spin resonance spectra. Such macroscopic accumulation of the ground state occurs at a certain critical density of hydrogen gas, where the chemical potential of the magnons becomes equal to the energy of their ground state in the trapping potential.