Gardens of War
In the middle of a living passive conflict between three religious communities the Catholic, Muslim, and Protestant, at 15 minutes from the city of Split in the Republic of Croatia created in 1991, stands the Mediterranean Institute for Life Sciences (MEDILS).
The institute, is surrounded by vertical white hills that emerges scarped and white from the deep and blue waters of the Adriatic Sea. Standing imponent 9 meters above, MEDILS headquarters are built on what once was the house of the Yugoslavian president Josip Broz Tito.
The mansion was his personal villa and the barracks for a personal army of around 200 soldiers. Tito's bastion stood during the period he started and leaded, called as the "non aligned movement" during the cold war. This political position lead to the Yugoeslavian economic boom of the 60´s and 70's, and a wide international recognition of Yugoeslavia. Tito died in 1980 of gangrene due chronic circulatory problems on his legs, at his funeral, assisted; four kings, 31 presidents, six princes, 22 prime ministers and 47 ministers of foreign affairs from 128 different countries.
Today Tito's villa, is populated with trees, squirrels, ants and the salty winds from the
Adriatic Sea and its islands as its main protective guard. This scenario full of political history and mystery brings up to the mind enclosed secrets and fictitious elucubrations on the cold war period that when combined with the interesting croatian language and war stories all around the region, brings you to the banal and stupid memories of those old James Bond movies of the epoch.
MEDILS is a private research endeavour. A miracle on science research administration, inspired in the medici's Academy during the renaissance, it promotes and educates a new generation of creative free thinkers on biological basic oriented research and science communication strategies. With some alliances located in Paris and New Castle, MEDILS collaborate in the promotion of creativity in resolving scientific problems "thinking the unthinkable". The institute was founded in 2003 with Miro Radman as its president and co founder. Starting research on the mechanisms of aging and robustness of life with an emphasis in what today is known as the frontier discipline in Biology and known as the synthesis of all the hard science disciplines also known as Systems Biology.
My arrival to the institute in this trip is directly connected with the purpose of the AXA/Paris V chair on aging, which funds my studies at Paris Sorbonne V University. The AXA initiative is funded by the AXA foundation a branch of the AXA bank, which supports research projects, PhD and postdoctoral grants through close alliances with the Sorbonne Universities of Paris and other socio economic initiatives, including climate change and conflict.
The workshop purpose is to bring the top most ideas from creative students into a social scientific milieu, where the ideal is to communicate thoughts, hypothesis, ideas, and present the new directions on aging research. The AXA chair is composed of top research experts on the field, coming from institutes as Max Planck in Rostok - Germany, United Kingdom - New Castle, Croatia - Split and France - Paris. The whole network of laboratories is to understand the main factors that influences aging at the individual and populational level. Studying the habits, diet, free radicals, immunology, genetics and the natural processes of repairing, degradation and protein accumulation processes through both; experimental and mathematical modelling.
One of the most remarkable issues is the lack on the diversification on bioethics topics and ethology. As the overall approach is quantitative or semi quantitative, the research process becomes stricltly autist in this sense. If they do social science, their focus is merely conductual which in a certain way is understandable to use this approach beause results the most practical way and quantitative mode to obtain data from populations. Politically and this is another of my critics, the whole network, including the local endeavours, are based on a technocratic modus operandi, where internet applications solve social problems in Pakistan and potentially everywhere in the world, which indirectly is the most flat and careless way to see culture diversification and local dynamics in terms of behavior. But as I said before, the technocratic focus leads the whole research machinery in a westernalized modus operandi.
There are several questions that remains after all. How countries with highly diversified cultures, can implement local adapted scientific sophisticated procedures and protocols? Somehow is understood that science has no nationality, but is that true? What if the way of thinking is potentiated in terms of philosophy, achieving higly diversified scientific methods and highly sophisticated local scientific ways of thinking?
The institute, is surrounded by vertical white hills that emerges scarped and white from the deep and blue waters of the Adriatic Sea. Standing imponent 9 meters above, MEDILS headquarters are built on what once was the house of the Yugoslavian president Josip Broz Tito.
The mansion was his personal villa and the barracks for a personal army of around 200 soldiers. Tito's bastion stood during the period he started and leaded, called as the "non aligned movement" during the cold war. This political position lead to the Yugoeslavian economic boom of the 60´s and 70's, and a wide international recognition of Yugoeslavia. Tito died in 1980 of gangrene due chronic circulatory problems on his legs, at his funeral, assisted; four kings, 31 presidents, six princes, 22 prime ministers and 47 ministers of foreign affairs from 128 different countries.
Today Tito's villa, is populated with trees, squirrels, ants and the salty winds from the
Adriatic Sea and its islands as its main protective guard. This scenario full of political history and mystery brings up to the mind enclosed secrets and fictitious elucubrations on the cold war period that when combined with the interesting croatian language and war stories all around the region, brings you to the banal and stupid memories of those old James Bond movies of the epoch.
MEDILS is a private research endeavour. A miracle on science research administration, inspired in the medici's Academy during the renaissance, it promotes and educates a new generation of creative free thinkers on biological basic oriented research and science communication strategies. With some alliances located in Paris and New Castle, MEDILS collaborate in the promotion of creativity in resolving scientific problems "thinking the unthinkable". The institute was founded in 2003 with Miro Radman as its president and co founder. Starting research on the mechanisms of aging and robustness of life with an emphasis in what today is known as the frontier discipline in Biology and known as the synthesis of all the hard science disciplines also known as Systems Biology.
My arrival to the institute in this trip is directly connected with the purpose of the AXA/Paris V chair on aging, which funds my studies at Paris Sorbonne V University. The AXA initiative is funded by the AXA foundation a branch of the AXA bank, which supports research projects, PhD and postdoctoral grants through close alliances with the Sorbonne Universities of Paris and other socio economic initiatives, including climate change and conflict.
The workshop purpose is to bring the top most ideas from creative students into a social scientific milieu, where the ideal is to communicate thoughts, hypothesis, ideas, and present the new directions on aging research. The AXA chair is composed of top research experts on the field, coming from institutes as Max Planck in Rostok - Germany, United Kingdom - New Castle, Croatia - Split and France - Paris. The whole network of laboratories is to understand the main factors that influences aging at the individual and populational level. Studying the habits, diet, free radicals, immunology, genetics and the natural processes of repairing, degradation and protein accumulation processes through both; experimental and mathematical modelling.
One of the most remarkable issues is the lack on the diversification on bioethics topics and ethology. As the overall approach is quantitative or semi quantitative, the research process becomes stricltly autist in this sense. If they do social science, their focus is merely conductual which in a certain way is understandable to use this approach beause results the most practical way and quantitative mode to obtain data from populations. Politically and this is another of my critics, the whole network, including the local endeavours, are based on a technocratic modus operandi, where internet applications solve social problems in Pakistan and potentially everywhere in the world, which indirectly is the most flat and careless way to see culture diversification and local dynamics in terms of behavior. But as I said before, the technocratic focus leads the whole research machinery in a westernalized modus operandi.
There are several questions that remains after all. How countries with highly diversified cultures, can implement local adapted scientific sophisticated procedures and protocols? Somehow is understood that science has no nationality, but is that true? What if the way of thinking is potentiated in terms of philosophy, achieving higly diversified scientific methods and highly sophisticated local scientific ways of thinking?
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