Co-emergence and Collapse: The Mesoscopic Approach for Conceptualizing and Investigating the Functional Integration of Organisms

The fall of reductionist approaches to explanation leaves biology with an unescapable challenge: how to decipher complex systems. This entails a number of very critical questions, the most basic ones being: "What do we mean by 'complex'?" and "What is the system we should look for?" In complex systems, constraints belong to a higher level that the molecular one and their effect reduces and constrains the manifold of the accessible internal states of the system itself. Function is related but not deterministically imposed by the underlying structure. It is quite unlikely that such kind of complexity could be grasped by current approaches focusing on a single organization scale. The natural co-emergence of systems, parts and properties can be adopted as a hypothesis-free conceptual framework to understand functional integration of organisms, including their hierarchical or multilevel patterns, and including the way scientific practice proceeds in approaching such complexity. External, "driving" factors - order parameters and control parameters provided by the surrounding microenvironment - are always required to "push" the components' fate into well-defined developmental directions. In the negative, we see that in pathological processes such as cancer, organizational fluidity, collapse of levels and dynamic heterogeneity make it hard to even find a level of observation for a stable explanandum to persist in scientific practice. Parts and the system both lose their properties once the system is destabilized. The mesoscopic approach is our proposal to conceptualizing, investigating and explaining in biology. "Mesoscopic way of thinking" is increasingly popular in the epistemology of biology and corresponds to looking for an explanation (and possibly a prediction) where "non-trivial determinism is maximal": the "most microscopic" level of organization is not necessarily the place where "the most relevant facts do happen." A fundamental re-thinking of the concept of causality is also due for order parameters to be carefully and correctly identified. In the biological realm, entities have relational properties only, as they depend ontologically on the context they happen to be in. The basic idea of a relational ontology is that, in our inventory of the world, relations are somehow prior to the relata (i.e., entities).

Bridging legal requirements and analytical methods: a review of monitoring opportunities of animal proteins in feed

Availability and safety of food ranks among the basic requirements for human beings. The importance of the food producing sector, inclusive of feed manufacturing, demands a high level of regulation and control. This paper will present and discuss the relationships in the triangle of legislation, the background of hazards with a biological nature, and opportunities for monitoring methods, most notable for prion-based diseases as primary issue. The European Union legislation for prevention of prion-based diseases since 2000 is presented and discussed. The definitions and circumscriptions of groups of species will be analysed in the view biological classification and evolutionary relationships. The state of the art of monitoring methods is presented and discussed. Methods based on visual markers (microscopy), DNA-based methods (PCR), protein-based methods (ELISA, mass spectroscopy, proteomics), near infrared oriented methods and combinations thereof are being evaluated. It is argued that the use in legislation of non-homogeneous groups of species in a biological sense will hamper the optimal design of monitoring methods. Proper definitions are considered to act as bridges between legal demands and suitable analytical methods for effective monitoring. Definitions including specified groups of species instead of single species are more effective for monitoring in a range of cases. Besides the desire of precise circumscription of animal groups targeted by legislation, processed products need well defined definitions as well. Most notable examples are blood versus blood products, and hydrolysis of several types of material. The WISE principle for harmonising the design of legislation and of analytical methods is discussed. This principle includes the elements Witful (reasonable legal principles), Indicative (clear limits between prohibition and authorisation), Societal demands (public health, environment, economy), and Enforceable (presence of suited monitoring methods) in order to promote a balanced effort for reaching the desired level of safety in the food production chain.

Kinship analysis and allelic dropout: a forensic approach on an archaeological case

BACKGROUND

This study relies on the discovery of two pit burials (LTA and LTB) of the Bronze Age Cogotas I archaeological culture (circa 3600-2950 BP) in Spain. LTA was a single burial and LTB contained three skeletal remains of two adults and a newborn or foetus at term.

AIM

The central question posed by this find was whether the LTB tomb constituted a traditional nuclear family (father, mother and son or daughter).

METHODS

Ancient and forensic DNA protocols were employed to obtain reliable results. Autosomal, X-STR markers and mitochondrial DNA were amplified. Subsequently, different kinship probabilities were estimated by means of LR values calculated using the Familias 3 software. Furthermore, an allelic dropout sensitivity test was developed in order to evaluate the influence of allelic dropout phenomena on the results.

RESULTS

It was possible to determine the molecular sex of all individuals and to establish a maternal relationship between the perinatal individual and one of the adults.

CONCLUSION

The remains in the LTB tomb were not a traditional nuclear family (father, mother and son/daughter) and it was probably a tomb where two women, one of them pregnant, were buried.