Publications by authors named "P Masek"

The ability to distinguish between food sources that are good and provide nutrients and those that are potentially dangerous is crucial to the survival of an organism. Here, we describe a taste assay that measures the reflexive feeding response to a given tastant. To examine taste preference for a soluble compound, an appetitive tastant is applied to the proboscis, and the proportion of proboscis extensions are recorded.

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Peripheral detection of tastants allows animals to detect the dietary value of food and its potential toxicity. Many tastants such as sugars and fats elicit reflexive appetitive responses, whereas other foods such as quinine induce aversion. The relative value of food can change in accordance with an animal's internal state and prior experience.

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The ability to modify behavior as a result of previous experience allows an organism to adapt to changes in its environment. Even innate behaviors, like feeding initiation, can change if previously associated with a noxious stimulus. Here, we describe a taste memory assay pairing appetitive and bitter tastants, resulting in aversive taste conditioning.

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Lomnický štít, Slovakia, 2634 m above sea level, is known to be a place of extreme electric fields measured during thunderstorms and is thus a suitable place for thunderstorm-related ionising radiation research. We present one of the strongest Thunderstorm ground enhancements (TGE) ever detected, which occurred on 12 September 2021. The TGE was detected with the SEVAN detector and also with the new Georadis RT-56 large volume gamma spectrometer.

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