The first Polish animal contagious disease act of 1844

The Veterinary Control Act of 1844 was the first to regulate in entirety the control of infectious diseases in animals and questions of sanitary inspection of animal food products in the Kingdom of Poland. The act listed explicit procedures regarding diagnostics, control and eradication of diseases as well as concerning animal food product inspection. The act required that animal owners become familiar with symptoms of animal diseases, their methods of control and that they prevent their spreading. The obligations of veterinarians, state physicians and administrative control bodies in the control of animal diseases were specified by the act. Besides the main text on the control of diseases and meat inspection the act also contains elements of food law, some norms concerning public law and order (e.g. requirements concerning dogs) and even some regulations on animal protection.     

A cost of long-term memory in Drosophila

Two distinct forms of consolidated associative memory are known in Drosophila: long-term memory and so-called anesthesia-resistant memory. Long-term memory is more stable, but unlike anesthesia-resistant memory, its formation requires protein synthesis. We show that flies induced to form long-term memory become more susceptible to extreme stress (such as desiccation). In contrast, induction of anesthesia-resistant memory had no detectable effect on desiccation resistance. This finding may help to explain why evolution has maintained anesthesia-resistant memory as another form of consolidated memory, distinct from long-term memory.     

Laser-induced ferroelectric structural order in an organic charge-transfer crystal

We report the direct observation by x-ray diffraction of a photoinduced paraelectric-to-ferroelectric structural phase transition using monochromatic 100-picosecond synchrotron pulses. It occurs in tetrathiafulvalene-p-chloranil, a charge-transfer molecular material in which electronic and structural changes are strongly coupled. An optical 300-femtosecond laser pulse switches the material from a neutral to an ionic state on a 500-picosecond time scale and, by virtue of intrinsic cooperativity, generates self-organized long-range structural order. The x-ray data indicate a macroscopic ferroelectric reorganization after the laser irradiation. Refinement of the structures before and after laser irradiation indicates structural changes at the molecular level.