Multivariate statistics and the enactment of metabolic complexity

Enacting biosocial complexity: Stress, epigenetic biomarkers and the tools of postgenomics

This article analyses attempts to enact complexity in postgenomic experimentations using the case of epigenetic research on biomarkers of psychosocial stress. Enacting complexity in this research means dissecting multiple so-called biosocial processes of health differentiation in the face of stressful experiences. To characterize enactments of biosocial complexity, the article develops the concepts of complexity work and complexification. The former emphasizes the social, technical, and material work that goes into the production of mixed biological and social representations of stress in epigenetics. The latter underlines how complexity can be assembled differently across distinct configurations of experimental work. Specifically, complexification can be defined as producing, stabilizing, and normalizing novel experimental systems that are supposed to improve techno-scientific enactments of complexity. In the case of epigenetics, complexification entails a reconfiguration of postgenomic experimental systems in ways that some actors deem 'better' at enacting health as a biosocial process. This study of complexity work and complexification shows that biosocial complexity is hardly a univocal enterprise in epigenetics. Consequently, the article calls for abandoning analysis of these research practices using clear-cut dichotomies of reductionism vs. holism, as well as simplicity vs. complexity. More broadly, the article suggests the relevance of a sociology of complexification for STS approaches to complexity in scientific practices. Complementing the existing focus on complexity as instrumental rhetoric in contemporary sciences, complexification directs analytical attention to the pragmatic opportunities that alternative (biosocial) complexities offer to collective, societal, and political thinking about science in society.

Chicken metabolism, immobilization, and post-industrial production

Chickens have become emblematic of the Anthropocene: They embody the age of acceleration, (post-) industrial value, and intensification in scientific and technological knowledge and practice. Contemporary chickens are the bearers of significant genetic and nutritional knowledge, experimented upon and 'tweaked' so much so that some have denied that contemporary commercial chickens are chickens at all. This article reconsiders chickens through a metabolic lens, and the notion of metabolism through chickens, arguing that attending to chickens opens up new conceptualizations of life and labour in the metabosphere. The article tells a metabolic history of chickens from ornament to enclosed monocrop, by way of the laboratory and nutritional experiments. Then, it looks at chicken metabolism in three conceptual modes: first, as a conduit for value, metabolizing and enhancing human life for the past century; second, through technological innovations extending the gut outside chickens' immobilized bodies; and third, through the planetary impacts of metabolic porosity in geological manifestations, toxic atmospheres, and viral overflow. Ultimately, this article shows how techno-scientific production of chickens has taken place in and created the metabosphere as a site of experimentation and exploitation.

Study on toxicity effects of environmental pollutants based on metabolomics: A review

In the past few decades, the toxic effects of environmental pollutants on non-target organisms have received more and more attention. As a new omics technology, metabolomics can clarify the metabolic homeostasis of the organism at the overall level by studying the changes in the relative contents of endogenous metabolites in the organism. Recently, a large number of studies have used metabolomics technology to study the toxic effects of environmental pollutants on organisms. In this review, we reviewed the analysis processes and data processes of metabolomics and its application in the study of the toxic effects of environmental pollutants including heavy metals, pesticides, polychlorinated biphenyls, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, polybrominated diphenyl ethers and microplastics. In addition, we emphasized that the combination of metabolomics and other omics technologies will help to explore the toxic mechanism of environmental pollutants and provide new research ideas for the toxicological evaluation of environmental pollutants.

Aging biomarkers and the measurement of health and risk

Prevention of age-related disorders is increasingly in focus of health policies, and it is hoped that early intervention on processes of deterioration can promote healthier and longer lives. New opportunities to slow down the aging process are emerging with new fields such as personalized nutrition. Data-intensive research has the potential to improve the precision of existing risk factors, e.g., to replace coarse-grained markers such as blood cholesterol with more detailed multivariate biomarkers. In this paper, we follow an attempt to develop a new aging biomarker. The vision among the project consortium, comprising both research and industrial partners, is that the new biomarker will be predictive of a range of age-related conditions, which may be preventable through personalized nutrition. We combine philosophical analysis and ethnographic fieldwork to explore the possibilities and challenges of managing aging through bodily signs that are not straightforwardly linked to symptomatic disease. We document how the improvement of measurement brings about new conceptual challenges of demarcating healthy and unhealthy states. Moreover, we highlight that the reframing of aging as risk has social and ethical implications, as it is generative of normative notions of what constitutes successful aging and good citizenship.

A systematic review of existing peripheral biomarkers of cognitive aging: Is there enough evidence for biomarker proxies in behavioral modification interventions?: An initiative in association with the nutrition, exercise and lifestyle team of the Canadian Consortium on Neurodegeneration in Aging

Peripheral biomarkers have shown significant value in predicting brain health and may serve as a useful proxy measurement in the assessment of evidence-based lifestyle behavior modification programs, including physical activity and nutrition programs, that aim to maintain cognitive function in late life. The aim of this systematic review was to elucidate which peripheral biomarkers are robustly associated with cognitive function among relatively healthy non-demented older adults. Following the standards for systematic reviews (PICO, PRIMSA), and employing MEDLINE and Scopus search engines, 222 articles were included in the review. Based on the review of biomarker proxies of cognitive health, it is recommended that a comprehensive biomarker panel, or biomarker signature, be developed as a clinical end point for behavior modification trials aimed at enhancing cognitive function in late life. The biomarker signature should take a multisystemic approach, including lipid, immune/inflammatory, and metabolic biomarkers in the biological signature index of cognitive health.

Econometrics as evidence? Examining the 'causal' connections between financial speculation and commodities prices

One of the lasting legacies of the financial crisis of 2008, and the legislative energies that followed from it, is the growing reliance on econometrics as part of the rulemaking process. Financial regulators are increasingly expected to rationalize proposed rules using available econometric techniques, and the courts have vacated several key rules emanating from Dodd-Frank on the grounds of alleged deficiencies in this evidentiary effort. The turn toward such econometric tools is seen as a significant constraint on and challenge to regulators as they endeavor to engage with such essential policy questions as the impact of financial speculation on food security. Yet, outside of the specialized practitioner community, very little is known about these techniques. This article examines one such econometric test, Granger causality, and its role in a pivotal Dodd-Frank rulemaking. Through an examination of the test for Granger causality and its attempts to distill the causal connections between financial speculation and commodities prices, the article argues that econometrics is a blunt but useful tool, limited in its ability to provide decisive insights into commodities markets and yet yielding useful returns for those who are able to wield it.

Exploring the post-genomic world: differing explanatory and manipulatory functions of post-genomic sciences

Richard Lewontin proposed that the ability of a scientific field to create a narrative for public understanding garners it social relevance. This article applies Lewontin's conceptual framework of the functions of science (manipulatory and explanatory) to compare and explain the current differences in perceived societal relevance of genetics/genomics and proteomics. We provide three examples to illustrate the social relevance and strong cultural narrative of genetics/genomics for which no counterpart exists for proteomics. We argue that the major difference between genetics/genomics and proteomics is that genomics has a strong explanatory function, due to the strong cultural narrative of heredity. Based on qualitative interviews and observations of proteomics conferences, we suggest that the nature of proteins, lack of public understanding, and theoretical complexity exacerbates this difference for proteomics. Lewontin's framework suggests that social scientists may find that omics sciences affect social relations in different ways than past analyses of genetics.