This is The Guardian.

Made to measure.

Why we can't stop quantifying our lives.

By James Vincent.

If anything exemplifies the power of measurement in contemporary life,

it is standard reference peanut butter.

It's the creation of the US National Institute of Standards and Technology,

or NIST, and solder industry at a price of $1,069 for 3 170g.

The exorbitant cost is not due to rare ingredients or a complex production process.

Instead, it is because of the rigor with which the content of each jar has been analysed.

This peanut butter has been frozen, heated, evaporated and suponified.

Also, it might be quantified and measured across multiple dimensions.

When buyers purchase a jar, they can be certain not only of the exact proportion of carbohydrates,

proteins, sugars and fibre in every spoonful, but of the prevalence down to the milligram

of dozens of different organic molecules and trace elements,

from copper and magnesium to daco-sinoic and tetradecinoic acid.

Hardly an atom in these jars has avoided scrutiny,

and as a result, they contain the most categorically known peanut butter in existence.

It's also smooth, not crunchy.

The peanut butter belongs to a library of more than 1,300 standard reference materials,

or SRMs, created by NIST to meet the demands of industry and government.

It is a Bible of contemporary metrology, the science of measurement,

...