The University of São Paulo’s dean of Research, with support from the IEA and the Academy of Sciences of the State of São Paulo (Aciesp), will hold a workshop on Energy, Sensors and the Environment: Electrochemistry at USP on September 21, from 9 am to 6 pm, in the IEA’s Events Room. This is the first event of the Strategic Workshops series, organized by PRP-USP, coordinated by Hamilton Varela, professor at the Institute of Chemistry of São Carlos (IQSC) and president of the IEA Research Commission.

The seminar’s goal is to articulate scholars from the University of São Paulo working in the field of electrochemistry, particularly in interconversion of chemical and electrical energy, sensors, corrosion, environmental remediation and complex systems.

The event will include researchers from the Institute of Chemistry, IQSC, School of Pharmaceutical Sciences of Ribeirão Preto (FCFRP) and the School of Philosophy, Sciences and Literature of Ribeirão Preto (FCLRP).

The first part of the seminar will focus on research in sensors and the environment. Sergio Machado, a professor at IQSC who will speak on sensors and nanostructured electrochemical biosensors, explains that electrochemical sensors are devices that enable monitoring substances of interest, such as pesticides in our food or in the environment, by means of an electrochemical signal (current, potential or electrical charge) that is proportional to the concentration of the substance.

According to Machado, when this signal is generated through a biological reaction (e.g., an enzyme reaction) the sensors are called biosensors. “Their main advantage is their specificity, since enzyme reactions take place between the enzyme and its substrate, free from many of the interferences found in complex samples, such as food or biological fluids (blood or urine),” he says.

In the afternoon, the speakers will address issues concerning energy and the environment. One of the topics will be the development of fuel cells, which are an example of a clean energy source, because they are fueled by hydrogen and their end results are only energy and water. In addition, they are much more efficient than combustion engines.

Fuel cells are reactors that convert energy from chemical bonds into electricity, using reagents external to the system, unlike ordinary batteries (our widely known electrochemical generators of energy) that use reagents contained in the system. Ordinary batteries, moreover, can only store energy and must be recharged.

Fuel cells already have practical use in a multitude of situations, but their scope cannot yet be classified as “large scale.” “This will only happen in the near future, after they have demonstrated their long-term durability,” explains Edson Ticianelli, one of the afternoon moderators.

PROGRAM

Photo: Laboratory of Applied Electrochemistry of the UFRJ

In the universe of modern medicine, the focus is shifting from just offering treatment to curing diseases. Innovative approaches, such as gene therapies, have gained space and relevance. This type of method seeks results by editing the genetic code of individuals and can potentially revolutionize the treatment of serious diseases such as cancer.

On December 13, from 4:00 pm to 6:00 pm, representatives from two organizations linked to the development of effective gene therapies will participate in a workshop at the IEA-USP. Geoff MacKay, president of AVROBIO, and Matthew Kane, president of Precision Biosciences, will present their oncology and enzyme replacement therapy projects at the event Gene Therapy in Oncology and Enzyme Replacement. Silvano Raia, a professor at USP's School of Medicine (FM) and a member of the National Academy of Medicine (ANM), will be the mediator of the meeting.

There will be live webcast

Photo: Max Pixel

New research on the quantum version of the chaotic behavior of Bose-Einstein condensates will be discussed during the Workshop on Bose-Einstein Condensates and Quantum Chaos, to be held from March 30 to April 2, from 9 am to 5 pm, at the IEA’S Events Room.

The event is organized by IEA-USP's Unconventional Nuclear Astrophysics Research Group and will have the participation of physicists from Brazil, Russia, France, Israel and the United States. The workshop is free of charge and open to all interested parties. Registration is not required. The event will be held in English (without translation).

The group’s coordinator, Mahir Saleh Hussein, from USP’s Institute of Physics, explains that no system can achieve the lowest possible temperature (‑273.15 °C) and as a system approaches this temperature its atoms condense to form the so-called Bose-Einstein condensates, a new state of matter in which all the atoms (100 million, for instance) behave as if they were a single atom. These systems can display two types of behavior: orderly, with a predictable future; or, with a change of variables, chaotic, in which the future becomes unknown. The quantum version of this chaotic behavior is known as quantum chaos.

The event will be broadcast live on the web.

Sasaki said that the formation of the Earth and the Moon, 4.5 billion years ago, and the influence of the Moon on the planet are the determinants of the length variation of a day and a month throughout the Earth's history.

Planetary scientist Takanori Sasaki

According to him, the most accepted hypothesis to explain the origin of the Moon is the occurrence of a giant impact between a Mars-sized body and what could be called the proto-Earth.

But when did this impact occur exactly? Sasaki explained that to have this question answered researchers analyze the transformation of the isotope hafnium-182 into the isotope tungsten-182. "Hafnium is a lithophile (rock-loving) element and tungsten is a siderophile (iron-loving) element, respectively connected to the mantle and the core of a star.

According to Sasaki, the giant impact has produced a magma ocean on the proto-Earth, which seems to have lead to a considerable separation between metal and silicates. Thus, the age of the hafnium-tungsten (Hf-W) separation would be the age of the last huge impact, that is, the age of the Earth and the Moon. "It is possible to calculate how much tungsten the mantle has and thus determine the age of the planet." Using this method, it has been concluded that the Earth and the Moon emerged at the beginning of the solar system, 62 million years after the system's rise, 4.5 billion years ago.

The impact has generated a large number of fragments around the Earth, which then regrouped giving rise to the Moon at an orbit just above the Roche limit (minimum distance from the center of the planet that a satellite can orbit without being destroyed by the severity of the tidal forces), said Sasaki. This limit is at a distance of three times the Earth's radius, but now the Moon is at a distance of 60 times the radius size, and should stop to move away when the distance reaches 80 times the radius size, in a multibillion years.

To measure the distance between the Earth and the Moon scientists use time: how long it takes for a laser beam to reach the Moon, be reflected and reach the Earth. The Lunar Laser Ranging Experiment uses this method and the first measurement was made in 1969. With this method, it was decided that the Moon is at 384,400 km from the Earth. Then, the Experiment found a surprising fact: analyzing the data from January 1992 to April 2001, the researchers found that the Moon is moving away 3.8 cm per year. "If this is correct, then the Moon was much closer in the past," Sasaki said.

There is an exchange of angular momentum between the Moon and the Earth. Sasaki cited a hypothesis that is mentioned in the reference book of this area, "Solar System Dynamics," by Carl Murray and Stanley Dermott: "It is highly likely that the orbit of the Moon and the Earth's rotation have considerably changed during the existence of the solar system, especially due to the action of semidiurnal tides [when the Moon is over a location on the Earth and then on its opposite side] caused by the Moon to the Earth."

This means that the Moon attracts the mass of water and this reduces the speed of the Earth's rotation. At the same time, the tide shifting due to the Earth's rotation attracts the Moon, gaining angular momentum and gradually distancing. The Moon also gets slower, reducing the duration of the month.

Sasaki explained that according to the Kepler's 3rd Law (the square of the orbital period of a planet is directly proportional to the cube of half the major axis of its orbit), the closer to the Sun, the higher the speed of a planet, and the further away, the slower. This also applies to the Moon-Earth system.

An attempt to prove the variation in month length has been made by two researchers that studied the structure of a certain type of sea shell. For Sasaki, "this is a controversial article, but it provides some interesting directions." The shells develop lines of daily growth in segments with monthly growth. Analyzing shells today, it appears that they have 30 rows per segment, which means a 30-day month. "In fossil shells of 400 million years ago there are only 9 lines per segment, assuming that the month lasted 9 days. This indicates that the Moon spun faster around the Earth and at a distance 40% smaller than the current one."

After all, how long did a day last when the Earth and the Moon came to be? "At first, the Moon was at a distance of three times the Earth's radius, immediately after the Roche limit. With this distance and the estimated angular momentum, it can be said that the day lasted only 4 hours. Over time, the Moon moved away and the length of the day increased: when the planet and its satellite were 30,000 years old, the day lasted six hours; when they were 60 million years old, the day lasted 10 hours."

At the end of his presentation, Sasaki presented a graph relating the development of life ("though not an expert on the issue") with the length of the day through time. According to it, the first evidence of life, 3.5 billion years ago, happened when the day lasted 12 hours. The emergence of photosynthesis, 2.5 billion years ago, happened when the day lasted 18 hours. 1.7 billion years ago the day was 21 hours long and the eukaryotic cells emerged. The multicellular life began when the day lasted 23 hours, 1.2 billion years ago. The first human ancestors arose 4 million years ago, when the day was already very close to 24 hours long.

Universities of the future will vary in their focus: some will dedicate themselves more to teaching, others to research. Interdisciplinarity will become the teaching & research paradigm. Instructors will no longer be conveyors of knowledge, but rather tutors who guide students in learning. Information and communication technologies will be intensely used. There will be greater commitment to the numerous problems faced by society.

This prospective overview summarizes the debate The Future of Universities, held on April 24 as part of the “University” program of the Intercontinental Academia.

The expositors were John Heath, pro-vice-chancellor for estates and infrastructure at the University of Birmingham (UK); Naomar de Almeida Filho, president of Southern Bahia Federal University (UFSB); Luiz Bevilacqua, former president of ABC Federal University (UFABC); Klaus Capelle, president of UFABC; Carlos Vogt, president of the Virtual University of the State of São Paulo (UNIVESP); and Marco Antonio Zago, president of the University of São Paulo (USP).

The panelists of the event were Helena Nader, president of the Brazilian Society for the Advancement of Science (SBPC), and Marcelo Knobel, from the Institute of Physics of the University of Campinas (UNICAMP). The event was moderated by journalist Sabine Righetti, specialized in science and technology policy and in science journalism.

Expositions

For John Heath, digital technologies, now available to a considerable segment of the world’s population, will increasingly impact the modes of learning, enabling a 24/7 approach to education and significantly affecting how research is carried out.

Heath said Birmingham already offers online classes, whereby students in the United Kingdom, United States, Hong Kong and Canada can interact, an experience they deem “transformative.”

The internationalization of education, in his view, will not lead to some kind of educational colonialism. On the contrary, he believes that globalization will actually reinforce the importance of diversity and buoy up the culture of each place.

For Naomar de Almeida Filho, we should consider various possible futures for universities, because he does not believe there will be a single model. In his view, today’s political, economic and social milieu makes it necessary for us to elect knowledge as society’s central and main asset.

For him, contemporaneity implies certain epistemological keynotes, now that time is being cast forward into future. “One feels one is living in a ‘liquid time-space’ [referring to sociologist Zygmunt Baumann’s concept of “liquid life,” precarious and fraught with uncertainty], with enormous diversity, which also causes friction.”

That is why the thought of philosopher Edgar Morin is so relevant today. For Morin, “education is the ‘force of the future,’ because it is one of the most powerful tools for effecting change.”

Like the trivium and the quadrivium, the sets of disciplines that  defined education in the Middle Ages, Almeida Filho lists five characteristics he deems fundamental to contemporary education: communication (skill in using lingua francae); connectivity; proficiency in interpretation; teaching/learning; and listening.

He said it is essential that the university be decolonized and recreated as an effective vector capable of transforming its environs.

For him, inequality in Brazil is fueled by a perverted kind of education. “Given the regressive taxation of our tax system, the State is financed by those who enjoy the least benefits. Thus, the primary and secondary education of a privileged minority is subsidized, leading them to enter the best public [and free] institutions of higher education.”

As for the less privileged, “if they ever manage to overcome their difficulties and begin their higher education, they have to pay.” He acknowledges that there are several mechanisms to facilitate access to university of the poorest youth – e.g., PROUNI, FIES, quotas –, “but these do not change the structure of the system.”

Like Almeida Filho, Luiz Bevilacqua stressed the complexity of the transformations society is undergoing. He called our current period “a time of culture shock” and made an analogy with surfing: “A wave on the beach is, technically, a shock wave and one should not attempt to swim it; one must have an instrument (the surfboard) to ride it.”

For him, “the university, in its current model, is finished and is unlikely to flourish. And there is not much time left to make the appropriate decisions.”

Bevilacqua also does not believe in a single model, but rather in certain guiding principles of transformation: the university should be, above all, a place where learning prevails over teaching; where research advances knowledge instead of enlivening the résumé of the researchers (reversing the current model that emphasizes quantity over quality); and where interdisciplinarity is seen not as a cause, but as a result of the convergence of disciplines.

Klaus Capelle preferred to speak about the future from the perspective of the history of universities, listing the duties that were conferred upon them over time.

He recalled that the roots of the university lay in the academies of the philosophers of ancient Greece, and also in institutions controlled by the Church in the Middle Ages. These institutions were devoted exclusively to teaching. “The significant change took place a little over 200 years ago, when Alexander Von Humboldt, in Germany, proposed a model of autonomous university that incorporated research.”

Capelle identified the 1970s as the time then the maintenance of public universities became so taxing that their members began finding it difficult to “justify their existence to the public ‘merely’ with the benefits of teaching and research.” Thus, the tripod of university action – teaching, research and extension – was strengthened approximately 10 years ago.

“However, at present, society demands from the university not only dedication to teaching, research and extension, but also a series of other purposes, such as social inclusion, technological innovation, entrepreneurship, internationalization, distance education and sustainability.”

For Capelle, too much is demanded from the university and there is too little time to achieve all that is demanded. But he believes the university will maintain its resilience in the face of the new demands, thanks to technological development and to changes in how knowledge is organized.

In the future, he predicts some changes that were unanimous in the debate: the massive use of information and communication technologies; interdisciplinarity as a solid paradigm (“without eliminating disciplinarity”); and the specialization of institutions, because not every university can do everything.

Carlos Vogt said that society has gone from a classical culture of “formation” to one of “information” and constant “transformation.” “Although we may not yet be aware, the university is already living the future, the process of permanent transformation.” This process is based, he said, on the “surfboard” (mentioned earlier by Bevilacqua) of information and communication technologies.

He mentioned UNIVESP’s main characteristics as an example of the use of new technologies, allowing 3,500 incoming students every year to attend one of two engineering courses (production and computation) or one of four courses leading to high-school teaching degrees (mathematics, physics, chemistry and biology).

After two years, UNIVESP’s students receive a certificate of higher education. If they want an engineer’s degree, they must complete three more years; a teaching degree, two more years.

As an example of using technology to educate students, Vogt mentioned the dedicated television channel UNIVESP TV and the university’s YouTube channel, which has already had 30 million hits.

Following up on a comment by Capelle about the history of universities, Marco Antonio Zago said that universities were previously no more than a depository of knowledge, but the period between wars in the 20^th century saw the consolidation of the model proposed by Humbolt, incorporating teaching and research.

For Zago, the missions of the university defined by Spanish philosopher Ortega Y Gasset (1885-1955) and the German thinker Karl Jaspers (1983-1969) remain valid.

He quoted an observation by Ortega y Gasset in his 1929 essay “Misión de la Universidad” on the aims of this institution: “Transmission of culture, education for the liberal professions, scientific research and the development of new men of science.”

He also cited the words of Jaspers: “The university is a school – but of a very special sort. It is intended not merely as a place for instruction; rather, the student is to participate actively in research and from this experience he is to acquire the intellectual discipline and education that will remain with him throughout his life. Ideally, the student thinks independently, listens critically and is responsible to himself. He has the freedom to learn.”

Zago recalled the aims of the University of São Paulo, as stated in Decree No. 6283, of 1934, which established the new institution:

a)     To promote, through research, the progress of science;

b)     To convey, through teaching, knowledge that enriches or develops the spirit or is useful to life;

c)      To train specialists in all branches of culture, and technicians and professional personnel in all professions that require a scientific or artistic background;

d)     To accomplish the social work of popularizing science, literature and the arts through synthetic courses, conferences, lectures, radio broadcasting, scientific films and the like.

For him, these goals already contained the embryo of what the university is today, when a new one has been added: the relationship between the university and society.

In his view, this new mission includes formulating proposals to solve the great problems of society, strengthening the relationship with other institutions, and concern about several other issues, e.g., the environment, population growth and changes, food production and the portability of information services. [To demonstrate this, Zago used his cell phone to quote Ortega Y Gasset, Jaspers and the decree that created the University of São Paulo).

Zago believes one specific issue deserves an intense debate, namely, how to deal creatively with the conflict between academic quality and universal access to higher education.

The Debate

Helena Nader, one of the panelists, asked the expositors about the governance of Brazilian universities, which “is distinct from that exercised in every other country represented at the Intercontinental Academia.” She also said that the autonomy of Brazilian universities “is established on paper, but doesn’t exist in fact.”

Regarding the diversity of universities advocated by the expositors, Nader asked whether a university that does not conduct research should be called a university.

Another aspect she highlighted is how Brazilian universities will deal with globalization, “when many models arrive here from abroad and impose themselves, including through economic pressure.”

Marcelo Knobel, the other panelist, questioned the lecturers about the importance given to undergraduate education, which, in his view, "is undervalued vis-à-vis research.” Secondly, he wondered what recommendation they might have to the young researchers participating in the Intercontinental Academia.

Responding to the panelists, John Heath said that higher education in Europe is a free market, with variations: “In Switzerland, it is free of charge; in the UK, it is very expensive.”

As for undergraduate education, Heath chose to highlight what should be the instructors’ role: “They are no longer the owners of knowledge, as the monks were in the Middle Ages; the modern role of a university professor is not to be an authority, but rather a moderator or coach.”

With regard to management, Naomar de Almeida Filho said one of the dilemmas of the university is how to submit its governance to society’s scrutiny. He also stated that autonomy has been often used to maintain the status quo.

He believes that we can move forward on this, as exemplified by an UFSB proposal establishing two councils: a university council, concerned with academic matters; and a strategic-social council, with representatives from the surrounding society: social movements, indigenous communities, trade unions and other organized bodies of the population.

For Vogt, the challenge is to find the balance between generality and specialization. “This cannot be done through the dissection of fields, but rather by aggregating them.” For him, aggregation also involves the question of university governance, “because we have a framework that was compatible with the 1960s, but today we know that the departments have not kept up with the dynamics of groups and of academic life.”

He said that in the 1990s he tried to deal with this problem at UNICAMP, but the corporatist reaction did not allow the discussion to go forward.

This challenge is associated with another one, he warned: “We must avoid the unionization of knowledge.” Vogt said the rationale of trade unions is important, but it cannot override the rationale of knowledge.

On the other hand, he said that what makes universities permanent and longstanding is their conservatism, much like what happens with religious institutions: “We want change, but not to the point of a final vertigo.”

On the importance of undergraduate education, he said it is key, because “you cannot prepare good researchers without preparing good undergraduate students in every field.”

Capelle, answering the question about management, said that presidents of federal universities in Brazil are in a unique position: they are legitimized by their election, but are subject to internal and external constraints that prevent them from fully exercising the governance of the institution.

With regard to undergraduate education, he believes it is wrong to think of it in isolation. “The solution thought out at UFABC is to forgo the tripod of teaching, research and extension, and accept the entanglement of activities, with graduate students teaching extension courses or taking part in research, for example.”

Luiz Bevilacqua said the governance of Brazilian universities is still a cultural issue and each institution has a proposal to improve it.

With regard to undergraduate education, he said the problem is that Brazil has a culture of diplomas, not of competence. “The model of colleges and technological institutions is very important and does not stanch student creativity.”

He also reinforced the view of other expositors on the need for another model of student/teacher relationship, whereby learning occurs not because instructors teach students, but rather because they provide the means to learn: “You have to make students advance on their own.”

Zago answered two questions from the panelists. First, regarding the profile of universities, he said it is not true that all universities should do research: “There is not enough money or resources; and this need not be so.” He said research universities in the United States number no more than 100, several from the first and second echelons, but many of inferior quality.

With regard to the University of São Paulo, he said its gigantism prevents it from growing even more or from making individualized proposals to its students. As for undergraduate education, he said that it is very important, but has not been given its proper value at USP.

As a recommendation to the young researchers of the Intercontinental Academia and their task of producing a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) about time, Zago suggested they question why they should be doing this, and for whom they are doing it (without forsaking how their work ought to be carried out), so that every interested party can benefit from the teachings about time contained in the course.

Opening the debate to other participants, biologist Eduardo Almeida, one of the young researchers of the Intercontinental Academia, asked the expositors how young professors might make a difference in the university of the future.

Marcos Nogueira Martins, professor at the Institute of Physics, asked how one should elevate to higher scientific levels the students who arrive at university with meager scientific culture.

Caio Dantas, former dean of undergraduate courses at USP and currently a researcher at the IEA, asked Naomar de Almeida Filho how it might be possible to reshape the university in very conservative regions. To Carlos Vogt, he asked how it is possible to deal with the labor union aspect of academic institutions.

Luiz Bevilacqua said there is no problem in extending the length of stay at the university of students with scant scientific culture. He added, regarding the necessary changes, that universities must learn to dialogue with members of Congress, because the military dictatorship accustomed every official to address only the executive branch of government.

Answering Caio Dantas’ inquiry, Almeida Filho said that one of the agents of transformation are the public policies for social inclusion that give voice to the population, even if part of it has a conservative mindset: “The university cannot be remiss; it has a civilizing role to play.”

For him, given today’s massive relativism, some values ​​have been lost and the bond between university and society is faltering. “For a university to isolate itself is gruesome. It should incorporate into the cultural milieu those who have been first, and most recently, included in the economy.”

He also commented on university autonomy: “You must think differently about it. The concept of university autonomy thrived in the late 18^th century, after the French Revolution, and in the early 19^th century, at a time when the university had lost its social accountability.”

As for the trade union activism of faculty and staff, he said that “the rupture of the dialogue between university and society opened spaces for union activism.”

Carlos Vogt added that trade unionism in universities is one of the key issues, “but it is not a matter of preventing unionization, but rather of strengthening the academic rationale, of having clear academic projects.”

Klaus Capelle closed the debate by answering two questions: regarding young instructors, he ascribes them a key role in universities that are in the process of consolidation; and regarding less prepared students, he emphasized that they don’t always lack talent and many go on to become success stories: “We must help those whom we want in the university.”

Photo: Leonor Calasans/IEA

Related material

PREVIOUS MEETINGS

Workshop: Advanced Studies and the University
October, 2011 (São Paulo)

• Video (in Portuguese)

2nd National Meeting of Brazilian Institutes for Advanced Studies
August, 2013 (Porto Alegre)

• Photos
• News

The 3rd National Meeting of Brazilian Institutes for Advanced Studies will be held on August 11 and 12 in Belo Horizonte, with organization of the Institute of Transdisciplinary Advanced Studies (IEAT) of the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG).

The meeting will be attended by the most important leaders of the main IASs based in universities of the Federal District, and of the states of São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Rio Grande do Sul, Minas Gerais, Paraná, Pernambuco and Ceará. It will resume the discussions that took place in 2011 (São Paulo) and in 2013 (Porto Alegre). The mechanisms of interaction and integration between IASs (including the feasibility of creating a permanent entity), the promotion of initiatives to inter- and transdisciplinarity and the proposals to expand the international presence of the institutes will be addressed.

The participating IASs are:

Photos of the meeting

Letter of the meeting

In addition to having a programme dedicated to the natural sciences, the second phase of the Intercontinental Academia in Nagoya also had a workshop on arts, on March 15. The exhibitors were two members of the Tokyo University of the Arts: Akitoshi Edagawa, an expert in cultural economics expert, and professor of global art studies and curatorial practices, and Satoru Kitago, sculptor and director of research.

In his presentation, Edagawa commented on the relations of the artistic act with the transcendence of time, the communicative role of art, and the difference between art and science.

He made a distinction - in relation to time - between the performing arts (performances, happenings, and music, dance and theater presentations) and those called fine arts (painting, printmaking, drawing, sculpture, photography, etc.).

To Edagawa, the performing arts can be called time arts once that the artist and the audience are in direct contact during the artistic act, while in the fine arts the public has contact with the artwork after its implementation.

But even music - considered under the aspect of composition - transcends time thanks to musical notation, although future executions can be distinguished from the original composer's intentions because "many ideas are incorporated by interpreters and passed on to subsequent generations", according to the researcher.

Izanagi and Izanami (2012), by Satoru Kitago

He also stressed that one should consider the relative transcendence of time in aspects of the performing arts made possible by the technological capabilities of image and audio recording.

Cultural differences

The transcendence of time manifests itself differently in the artistic traditions of East and West. In the West, works and artistic procedures are transmitted in time through text, notations and other resources, which is not common in the East, according to Edagawa, citing the set of traditional Japanese arts called gei-do, where there are no records and new practitioners learn to perform from those who master them.

A work of art incorporates aspects of the time when it was produced, but it is understood and appreciated in the future from a new sensibility, said Edagawa. This is the reason to the fact that sometimes a past work of art is considered better than one of the present, which does not happen in science, "because it is believed that it qualitatively progresses with time".

He commented that English poet and philosopher William Hazlitt (1778-1830), when addressing this difference two hundred years ago, said that scientific studies evolve while art does not. Edagawa considers, however, that art can become more sophisticated over time through the incorporation of scientific and technological resources.

Melencolia 1, by Albrecht Dürer

Incorporation of time

To Kitago, each work of art tells a story through spatial and temporal situations, thus expressing its attachment to past, present and future. "Moreover, when presented to the public in different places and times, it gives rise to new stories drawn from the experiences of the observers."

He illustrated his presentation with images of his own work as well as of German painter and printmaker Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528), Swiss sculptor and painter Alberto Giacometti (1901-1966), and Spanish painter and sculptor Antonio López.

Kitago commented on Dürer's Melencolia 1: "We can see a comet in the sky, a geometric shape, and a character that handles a compass with a melancholic expression. Interestingly, recent scientific articles report the presence of amino acids in comets. Amino acids are components in the origin of life and their crystallographic form is quite similar to the one observed in the picture. Perhaps the character was thinking about the future of humanity and life on Earth."

The sculptor related this interpretation with his concern to express "the question about where people came from and where they go" when producing sculptures with human forms.

Still on Dürer's piece, Kitago showed a picture of Cube (1934-35), one of the abstract sculptures of Giacometti: "It resembles a mask, a face and also the geometric shape present in the work by Dürer. I believe that Giacometti was interested in Melencolia 1."

When showing a photograph of another work by Giacometti, Femme Leoni (1947), Kitago said that he, as the Swiss artist, seeks to emphasize the space, the human figure and the passage of time in his sculptures.

Cube (1934-5) and Femme Leoni (1947), by Alberto Giacometti

As examples of explicit representation of the incorporation of time into works of art, Kitago cited López's works. The sculpture Hombre y mujer (1968-1994) represents a couple with young bodies and heads of aged people. The painting Gran Vía (1974-1981) shows the changes that occurred in a Madrid corner during the years it took to be painted. The painting La Cena (1971-1980) shows the changes in the face of a woman during the nine years in which the work was made.

Kitago said that the goal of having discussed the works of López and Giacometti in his presentation was to emphasize that the artwork has not only the economic side: "I believe that artists and researchers should not pursue only economic aspects. The main goal should be trying to express and pursue reality. What I tell my students is to create sculptures with a philosophy, so maybe in a hundred, two hundred years, people continue to receive their message."

Communication

Commenting on Kitago's exhibition, Edagawa said that "it is possible that the message of an artist is transmitted one hundred, two hundred years after their death, but society will have changed a lot and thus not always the real intentions of the artist will be understood."

He asked the opinion of Kitago on artworks done by teams in studios under the guidance of a master artist, as in the case of the works by Japanese artist Takashi Murakami, by Raphael and Da Vinci in the Renaissance or those of when the Buddhist culture emerged in Japan.

Hombre y mujer (1968-94), Gran Vía (1974-81) and La Cena (1971-80), by Antonio López

Despite being a defender of an artist's personal and manual work, Kitago sees no problem in production teams if necessary: "The large works of the Buddhist culture necessarily had to be made that way."

At the time of the workshop a series of exhibitions took place in Japan, including Sandro Botticelli (1445-1510) and Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1571-1610). Kitago said that an interesting activity in both exhibitions was to try to find out which works had been produced by the artists themselves and which were of members of their studios.

Edagawa commented that the insight to this requires a certain capacity of the public and asked Kitago how artists could contribute to this. The important thing, according to Kitago, is that familiarity with art begins in childhood. "I do not think art is difficult to understand, but you need to interact with it from an early age to acquire an artistic sense that provides more pleasure with the works"

Martin Grossmann, former director of the IEA and member of the Intercontinental Academia's scientific committee, said that the works by López commented by Kitago reminded him of The Large Glass (1915-23), a work that Marcel Duchamp took a long time to produce, incorporating the passage of time in it.

The Large Glass (1915-23), by Marcel Duchamp

According to Grossmann, Duchamp has incorporated the viewer, including the non-specialist one, to the art system. "This is necessary in contemporary art. We need to think about the reception of art and how it affects one's sense." He wanted to know the opinion of Edagawa and Kitago on this issue in the Japanese context.

Kitago agreed with Grossmann on the change in the observer's role introduced by Duchamp and said that art has to stimulate the viewer to have new expectations. To Edagawa, the major issue in the artist-audience relationship is communication: "Although contemporary art is often ambiguous about what it wants to express, the artist must make an effort to communicate their thoughts and their philosophy. There must be the intention of trying to communicate."

Photos (from the top): IAR / Nagoya University; Satoru Kitago; Reproduction; Alberto Giacometti Foundation; Fondation Alberto et Annette Giacometti; Antonio López; Philadelphia Museum of Art.

The lag of the universitary system in relation to the current dynamics of knowledge will be discussed by Luiz Bevilacqua, professor emeritus from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), at the conference The University in a Time of Culture Shock, to be held by the IEA-USP on October 10, at 3 pm, in the Institute’s Event Room.

Organized by Renato Janine, coordinator of IEA-USP’s Research Group The Future Questions Us, this will be the fourth meeting of the cycle of seminar Carioca Afternoons: USP Listens to Rio de Janeiro, which aims to strengthen the dialogue between thinkers of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro through the discussion of social issues linked to human relations.

To Bevilacqua, the advances of science and technology in the last century have not generated an update of academic and pedagogical structure of the university, since this would keep "the classic attitude of preserving knowledge niches that have given outstanding contribution in the past but need to be reviewed within a perspective 'of a new science', often seen as interdisciplinary”.

According to the lecturer, this immobility makes the current universitary model incompatible with the typical processes of training and scientific production of the culture shock we undergo, both in terms of a thematic convergence with a potential to create a new core of knowledge and the development of an innovative curriculum design that provides future generations with the necessary instruments to operate in the scenario of mutations.

"Courage, courage, humility, reflection and hard work are absolutely necessary ingredients to beat the uniqueness of modern times – where the past hits the present and wants to intrude the future - without being overwhelmed and without getting hopelessly in the wake of science and technology, once again and perhaps for countless generations," he says.

The event will be broadcast live on the web.

ABOUT THE CONFERENCIST

Luiz Bevilacqua has graduated in Civil Engineering from UFRJ, where he is a professor emeritus at the Alberto Luiz Coimbra Institute of Postgraduate Studies and Research in Engineering (COPPE), and holds a Ph.D. in Theoretical and Applied Mechanics from Stanford University. His recent research focuses on the dynamics of fractal structures, on modeling biological and social systems, on cognitive processes, and on mathematical and computational modeling in biology.

Bevilacqua has been Executive Secretary of the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation (MCTI), Director of Research at CNPq, Scientific Director of FAPERJK, President of the Brazilian Space Agency (AEB), Coordinator of the academic structuring committee of the Federal University of ABC (UFABC), where he has also been President, and member of the founding committee of the Inter-American Institute for Global Change Research.

Currently, Bevilacqua is focusing on the implementation of the Espaço Alexandria UFRJ. Developed with the support of the Provost for Research and Graduate Studies of the University, the initiative aims to stimulate interdisciplinary integration in projects for the advance of the frontiers of scientific knowledge and for the paradigm shift.

Time Acceleration and Post-Democracy: Violence and Communication is the theme of the seminar that IEA’s Humanities and the Contemporary World Research Group will hold on October 1, at 2 pm, in the Institute’s event room.

According to philosopher Olgária Matos, professor at USP’s Faculty of Philosophy, Letters and Human Sciences and coordinator of the research group, the idea is to analyze the time dimension in the contemporary world and to question “what is temporal and what is timeless in modernity". To do so, the meeting will discuss the metamorphosis of the individual due to technological innovations, focusing on the acceleration of the pace of life process.

“The intention is to understand the new figures of otherness, identity and interiority of the new individual, particularly in relationships that require an extensive and qualitative temporality, such as love, friendship or parenting,” she explained.

The theme will be addressed from three analytical perspectives: the thought of French philosopher Henri Bergson on body and memory, the phenomenon of digital culture, and the film "The Strange Case of Angelica," by Portuguese filmmaker Manoel de Oliveira.

The exhibitors will be philosopher Rita Paiva, a professor at the Federal University of São Paulo’s School of Philosophy, Letters and Human Sciences (EFLCH), sociologist Mauro Rovai, also from the EFLCH, and anthropologist Massimo Canevacci, a visiting professor at the IEA-USP. Mediation will be in charge of Matos.

The event will be broadcast live on the web.

Image: Fritz Lang's "Metropolis" (1927).

The original motivations for the creation of institutes for advanced studies can be identified from the late 19th century, when discussions on the role of universities started questioning whether they should be primarily devoted to research and knowledge advancement or mainly to the spread of knowledge through education and the development of technological applications.

The first proposal in support of a distinguished research institution, similar to what would become the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton Univesity (IAS), was brought up exactly a hundred years ago in the book The Higher Learning in America, by sociologist and economist Thorstein Veblen (1857-1929), according to Peter Goddard, former director of the IAS. He gave the conference The Development of Institutes for Advanced Study and their Role in the Contemporary University on March 11 during the second phase of the Intercontinental Academia's first edition, in Nagoya.

The subtitle of Veblen's book is The Memorandum on the Conduct of Universities by Business Men, a reference to the replacement of clerics by businessmen in the governance of American universities during the 19th century. According to Goddard, Veblen believed that this change led to the introduction of standardization systems, accountability and payment for production, meaning the replacement of the academic ideal of a "mediocrity perfunctory routine."

The first institute for advanced studies

Educator Abraham Flexner (1866-1959), one of those responsible for the reform in the teaching of medicine and higher education in general in the United States has been the proponent of the creation of the first institute for advanced studies.

According to Goddard, Flexner was approached by Louis and Caroline Bamberger at the end of 1929. The couple had made a fortune with department stores and were searching for guidance to create a medical school. In a few months they were convinced by Flexner to sponsor the creation of the Princeton IAS, of which he became the founding director.

Goddard said that the essay The Usefulness of Useless Knowledge was written by Flexner to argue that advancements in the most practical value of knowledge do not come from research guided by goals, but from those motivated by intellectual curiosity. The best example of this attitude could not be another than the first hired person by Flexner in 1932: Albert Einstein.

In 1958 the then director of the IAS, Robert Oppenheimer (1904-1967), attributed the emergence of new institutes for advanced studies to the impacts of the increasing complexity of research and the expansion of higher education, since these two restricted the opportunities for scholars to devote themselves to intense intellectual issues, Goddard reported.

Present time

For Goddard, the institutes can offer a lot in relation to the challenges faced by universities in spite of consisting a relatively small part of academia.

Besides the impacts mentioned by Oppenheimer there are also the contemporary culture of auditing, managerialism, and institutional evaluation and analysis systems. This framework has increased the need for research environments where the short-term production of tangible results must not interfere with the fundamental research activity, Goddard said.

Within this context, institutes for advanced studies have been created by universities "as sanctuaries for eminent scholars to give them respite from the demands of the evaluation exercises, and as international standard frameworks", serving for the aspirations of universities to obtain such visibility.

Another important aspect highlighted by Goddard is that the institutes promote the intersection of research topics, allowing them to "establish scenarios to overcome the boundaries between disciplines, institutionalized within the administrative structures of universities since the 19th century and now often seen as inhibitors of scientific progress."

Goddard pointed out four main reasons for the emergence of institutes for advanced studies today:

• opportunities for academics to conduct research led by curiosity and distant from the intense pressures of the modern university;
• international environments within the increasingly international academia;
• success in terms of research output and impact on long-term development of the researchers who work in them;
• they are a benchmark of the universities' institutional and status aspirations.

According to Goddard, the typical characteristics of an institute for advanced studies are to focus on research rather than education, to work at the intersections of disciplines and to offer programs for visiting researchers. However, they differ in several ways, especially when it comes to:

• number of addressed subjects;
• level of constitutional independence (governance);
• level of financial independence;
• permanent researchers (or not);
• specific thematics and programs (or not).

Photo: IAR/Nagoya University

Naoshi Sugiyama, a physicist from the Nagoya University, spoke about time according to the Einstein's special and general theories of relativity on March 9, at the Physics Workshop of the second phase of the Intercontinental Academia (ICA), in Nagoya.

Sugiyama's approach has been didactic and simplified for a proper understanding of the audience, with several participants from the humanities and the social sciences.

He explained that the special theory of relativity (1905) is based on two principles:

• Principle of Relativity, which states that all inertial frames of reference (moving at a constant speed) are equal;
• Principle of Invariant Light Speed, which is the same for all inertial frames of reference.

According to him, the understanding of these principles makes it easy to understand why time is relative and not absolute, as considered before Einstein's theories, which he quoted: "If the observer is still, the clock of a moving system beats more slowly." This is called dilution, Sugiyama said.

He added that in the General Theory of Relativity (1915) Einstein included the effect of gravity in the theory ("with the presence of strong gravity, time is also retarded") and established the equivalence principle, in which gravity and inertial strength can not be distinguished.

Regarding practical life, Sugiyama demonstrated how this dilution of time needs to be considered in the operation of a Global Positioning System (GPS). "It takes at least four satellites to determine x, y, z and t (the three spatial dimensions and time), and to calculate the distance from them by means of very precise measuring of time."

This precision is important because as the speed of light is 300,000 km / s if there is an error of a second the determined location will be at a distance of 300,000 km from where it actually is.

For the location to be identified with a margin of error of 10 cm, time needs to be measured with a maximum tolerance of 3/10 of a billionth of a second.

The effect of dilution by relativity implies the identification of spots on the Earth's surface outside their actual location: "In the case of special relativity, as satellites travel at high speed (4 km / s), the estimated location gets 25 cm away from the actual position at each second. In the case of general relativity, as gravity at 20,000 km high is weaker than that on the Earth's surface, the difference between the assumed location and the actual one is 160 cm."

To be precise, the GPS has to deal with the dilution of time caused by the satellite's speed and the weak gravity at the height of its orbit, said Sugiyama.

What is the relationship between discerning the consciousness of self – in the sense of an individual’s apprehension of his own existence – and the perception of time? Psychoanalyst Leopold Nosek devoted his conference on April 25 at the Intercontinental Academia to an analysis of this matter.

He said that, given the fact that consciousness of self includes temporality and that humanization presupposes perception of time, one cannot but wonder how time presents itself to, and is perceived by, human beings.

In his reasoning, Nosek made use of analogies with works by “two writers who addressed the relativity of time from within the rationalist tradition:”  The Magic Mountain (1924) and Doctor Faustus (1947), both by German-born Thomas Mann (1875-1955); and The Leopard (1958), by Italian author Tomasi di Lampedusa (1896-1957).

In the passage from The Magic Mountain quoted by Nosek, Hans Castorp, the main character, has just reached the conclusion that, for the mind, time does not flow uniformly; the mind only assumes it does so to maintain the proper order of things. Therefore, all measurements of time are no more than conventions.

According to Nosek, time and consciousness of self are contemporary themes. He mentioned Freud’s The Interpretation of Dreams (1900) as one of the landmarks, from the viewpoint of perception, for most texts that discuss Modernity.

He said that in this work by Freud one can see the loss of our naïve trust in the conscious mind and the inexorable breach between the conscious and the unconscious. For Nosek, we could speak of Modernity as the awareness of disruption.

Addressing the emergence of this disruption, Nosek said we must remember how brief the Renaissance actually was, “with its glorious view of the individual as part of circumstances over which he had control.” However, it did not take long for Mannerism to come about, “with its distorted figures, its suffering subjectivity.”

He said that art historian Arnold Hauser (1992-1978) saw Mannerism as the onset of the perception of modern man, “the perception of a shattered unity, of a broken harmony.”

As for The Leopard, Nosek noted that the novel is set in the mid-19^th century, the time of Italy’s reunification and modernization. The main character, Don Fabrizio, prince of Salina, after a dance, realizes that he, unlike others, captures the passage of time, which is accompanied by “progress, destruction of old structures, creation of new wealth and new desolations.”

According to Nosek, “the prince of Salina, in a sudden glimmer of his own skin, grasps his circumstances, his historical destiny and his subjective self; his own place is revealed to him. What more could he obtain?”

For Nosek, grappling one’s circumstances and one’s time blends in with the apprehension of the limits and the space of human existence: “We continue, therefore, within our theme: the interconnection between the consciousness of self, the awareness of one’s ‘proper place,’ and the image of time defined by frustration and limitation.”

In Doctor Faustus, the main character, the musician Adrian Leverkühn, makes a pact with the devil, Mephistopheles, giving his soul in exchange for 24 years of genius as a composer. Nosek noted how Mephistopheles warns the musician to pay attention to the hourglass.

For Nosek, Mephistopheles’ warning means Leverkühn should remain aware of life. As a result of the pact, Lerverkühn becomes part of Modernity, “through atonal spaces, the spatial expansion of musical contradiction, accompanied by scientific inquiries and by the theory of uncertainty and chance.”

He finished his presentation with some propositions by psychoanalyst Donald Meltzer (1922-2004) in his book Explorations in Autism (1975), where he organizes the space of life in a “geography of fantasy" that moves along in time.

According to Meltzer, experienced time can be a cloister where events are not available to memory and to thought (as happens in autism); it can be circular, undeveloping, where there is no death; or it can be oscillating, moving from within to outside the object and vice-versa, a continuous operation of omnipotence that makes the differentiation of self from object reversible, and also makes the direction of time itself reversible.

According to Nosek, remaining unidirectional and linear, from birth to death, requires a painful process, never completed, of renouncing the fusion between the self and the object, of struggling against narcissism, of assuaging omnipotence.

Photo: Leonor Calasans/IEA

Scientific research and technological development in Japan should be guided by the social use of knowledge, innovation and cooperation between scientists, institutions and countries. The recommendation has been given by the president of the Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST), Michinari Hamaguchi.

His was the final exhibition of the first day (March 7) of conferences at the second phase of the Intercontinental Academia (ICA), in Nagoya. The theme of his speech was Higher Education and Academic Research From the View Point of Funding.

Hamaguchi said that humanity must face the depletion of natural resources, the food crisis, the global warming, the environmental degradation and the population growth. According to him, these challenges can not be solved separately by institutions, sectors of research or even by a specific country.

To this scenario he adds the changes in life and society resulting from rapid technological development, such as information and communication technologies: "We live in a totally different world than 30 years ago. Jobs are disappearing and more and more people consider that we live in a false industrial revolution, being ours a critical time indeed."

Concerning the Japanese context, Hamaguchi said that there is an additional social component: the aging of the population due to increased longevity and low birth rate.

Science for society

He recalled that in the Declaration on Science and the use of scientific knowledge, drawn up at a world conference organized by Unesco and the International Council for Science (ICSU) in Budapest, in 1999, the role of science was defined based on four objectives:

• science for knowledge, knowledge for progress;
• science for peace;
• science for development;
• science in society and science for society.

Tragedy

Regarding the contribution of science to society, Hamaguchi highlighted the urgency of efforts in Japan to overcome the consequences of the earthquake followed by a tsunami that devastated northeastern Japan on March 11, 2011, when more than 18,000 people died: "How can we contribute through scientific and technological development so that the survivors rebuild their lives and regain their joy?".

The tragedy had also a profound impact on the credibility of Japanese scientists. Before the tsunami, almost 80% of the Japanese trusted the scientists, but this percentage dropped to 40% after the tragedy, now reaching 60%.

Japan must prepare for similar events. Most importantly, he said, is to seek solutions to issues as infrastructure, education, urban areas, nourishment and communication networks.

According to Hamaguchi, the JST's actions support the communities affected by the tsunami and the radioactive leak in Fukushima. One of the cited examples has been the development of an equipment to quickly verify if the rice being produced in the region is or not contaminated by radiation.

Universities

The speaker stressed that the technological revolution, besides deeply affecting the industry, employability and various aspects of the society's life, also leads to drastic changes in the university and the production of knowledge.

For him, the traditional forms of education will no longer function as a means of transmitting knowledge to new generations, and professors are losing their special role in society and may become ordinary citizens in a network. Therefore, Hamaguchi considers essential that Japan creates a new academic system and a new way of setting up university networks based on cooperative work.

JST programs

Hamaguchi said that the main programs of the JST for research funding are designed to stimulate innovation, including those related to basic research. One of the concerns is to support the intellectual property and train professionals working in the interaction between companies and academia.

According to him, the main program focused on innovation considers three assumptions: an aging population, an intelligent society and sustainability. The initiative has three development guidelines: 1) "backcast approach": to imagine a future society and what needs it will have in 10 to 20 years, and to plan the steps to be taken so that the objectives are achieved; 2) "under the same roof": to put together researchers from industry and from universities to harmonize their differences in performance, such as the time dedicated to a long-term research, for example; 3) a longer period of funding: the JST funds projects for 9 years, something unusual in Japan, where the projects are usually supported for 3 to 5 years.

Changes

After the conference, Hamaguchi answered some questions from the audience. Carsten Dose, executive director of the Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies (FRIAS) and General Secretary for the ICA, asked about the expectations in relation to changes in Japanese universities for them to become better in terms of innovation, given Hamaguchi's experience as president of the Nagoya University from 2009 to 2015. He said that Japan needs to change the style of doing science, paying greater attention to the needs of society.

In his view, another important aspect to demand changes is the fact that Japan has 2018 undergraduate programs and is facing the problem of reducing the Japanese population. One indicator of this gap is the reduction in competition in entrance exams at universities this year, he said. "The 18 year-old generation is decreasing rapidly. By 2025, Japan will be reduced by 103,000 (10%) in the number of people at that age. Currently, this population represents less than 60% from what it was in the peak period. This means that the system will collapse."

He added that there are 760 universities in Japan and 40% of them have problems. "We expect a kind of disaster in a few years. So we need to figure out how to reform higher education, but at the moment no one knows how to do this."

Martin Grossmann, former director of the IEA-USP and member of the Senior Committee for the ICA, wanted to know if there is a crisis of the social sciences and humanities in Japanese universities, since the news have been reporting that the country's institutions will give less attention to them.

Hamaguchi said that, the important is to incorporate social scientists from the beginning of projects related to the natural sciences and also to harmonize the styles of both fields: "The social sciences generally work with long periods of the past and Japan needs to think about the future. In addition, natural scientists work in groups, while social science research is often carried out by a single researcher."

Neuroscientist Ruud Buijs

In a conference at the Intercontinental Academia on April 21, Buijs discussed this interaction, illustrating his exposition with numerous examples from studies of animals and humans.

He initially gave a schematic overview of the workings of the hypothalamus, a part of the brain highly connected to primitive parts of that organ and, via the autonomic nerves of the spinal cortex, to other parts of the body, sending them commands from the brain. “In addition to being essential for us to move our hand and other actions, the spinal cortex is also indispensable for the proper functioning of physiological processes. To achieve this type of physiological control we need the hypothalamus.”

The biological clock, which receives information about light and dark directly from the retina, is located in the hypothalamus, near the suprachiasmatic nucleus, the primary center for regulating circadian rhythms.

According to Buijs, it is now possible to remove the biological clock of the brain of a guinea pig and keep it functioning in vitro, maintaining electrical activity in a cycle of approximately 24 hours, autonomously, without having to do anything else.

Accuracy

To illustrate the accuracy of this mechanism, he said that forensic medicine can determine with great precision the time that someone was murdered by analyzing the expression of the biological clock in their organs, especially if the victim is found within 48 hours of death.

The moment when someone comes into the world is likewise determined by the biological clock. He showed a graph showing that the birth of the first child of pregnant residents of Amsterdam peaks at around 8:00 am. (In the Netherlands, babies are generally born with the help of a midwife.) Another chart showed that the peak time was between 4:00 and 5:00 am for the second or subsequent children, something that Buijs attributes to the fact that women become more savvy regarding labor. A third chart, however, shows a peak around noon and refers to births with obstetricians, when “babies are born in the doctor’s time, who induces labor or performs a cesarean section.”

In some cases, the moment of an individual’s death can also be determined by the biological clock, as shown by the fact that the peak of heart attacks occurs in the early part of the morning, with greater incidence on Mondays (perhaps due to the deregulation of schedules over the weekend, ventured Buijs).

Hormones

In Buijs’ view, the biological clock resorts to several mechanisms to enforce rhythms upon the body, using in many cases the hormone corticosterone. “In experiments with mice, corticosterone peak occurs soon after the night period (we know that mice are active at night), while the peak of the hormone melatonin occurs at night, indicating it induces activity in animals.” In humans, melatonin also peaks at night, but unlike what happens to mice, melatonin promotes sleep in humans.

To study this process in an animal antithetical to the mouse, one with diurnal habits, Buijs used the Arvicanthis ansorgei, a wild African rodent. These animals are active in early and late daytime. “We say that the biological clock prepares our body for the onset of the active period. When measuring corticosterone in the animal, it was found that the peak occurs just before active periods, so there are two corticosterone peaks in 24 hours. This means that, somehow, the biological clock adapts to the animal’s life style and adopts two peaks of activity.”

The hypothalamus contains specific areas that control temperature, heart rate and food intake. The biological clock imposes a temporal pattern to them all. “These connections are strong and there is no escaping the biological clock.”

Buijs said that the areas of the hypothalamus linked to food intake exert a type of influence similar to that of the biological clock, and work in harmony with it. He cited as an example the role of temporal and metabolic factors in modulating body temperature. In animals with nocturnal habits, the temperature is higher at night, then lowers and finally rises again, anticipating the active period.

The metabolism influences temperatures, so that, during the daytime period (of repose), they are low. If the biological clock is injured, the rhythm of temperature variation disappears and remains unaffected even by the metabolic factor, confirming the relationship between metabolism and biological clock.

To produce corticosterone, the paraventricular nucleus of the hypothalamus produces a hormone that leads to the production, in another part of the hypothalamus, of the adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH), which stimulates the production of corticosterone in the adrenal glands. Therefore, it was to be expected that upon examining the daytime and nighttime levels of corticosterone in an animal, we would find a relationship with the levels of ACTH. But that is not what happens.

To investigate this, Buijs inserted a virus similar to that of rabies in the adrenal glands of mice. Because this virus has the property of being absorbed by nerve terminals, reproducing itself in the body of the cell and migrating to other cells via the nerve terminals, it is possible to follow the chain of command from the brain to the glands.

Thus, it was possible to establish that neurons in the spinal cortex communicate with the adrenals. It was also possible to follow the impulses of the biological clock, proving that it uses not only hormones to send commands to the organs, but also autonomic pathways. This is advantageous, because something introduced into the bloodstream will take a certain amount of time to reach the organs. With a direct connection to the organs, the biological clock prepares them for what is coming in the blood and also for the arrival of hormones.

If the biological clock uses these means to communicate with the body, what means do the organs use to respond to biological clock? “Many scientists still think the biological clock is an autonomous timepiece that requires no feedback. Of course, this is not true. We have evidence that it needs feedback. The biological clock is in constant interaction with the body.”

In mammals and many other animals, this response is regulated by melatonin, which leads the body to bypass the biological clock cycle. Buijs displayed graphs showing the increased production of melatonin in a reindeer in Finland in the autumn, when the duration of night increases from less than one hour at the end of July to more than 11 hours in mid-September. Also in Finland, where the temperatures of certain periods of the year make the night flight of mosquitoes impossible, bats begin making diurnal flights to hunt for food. “Each organism makes manifold efforts to get in balance with the environment, where the length of the day/night cycle will determine the standard daily rhythm and the pace that the animal will adopt.”

According to Buijs, different areas of the brain produce the same neurotransmitter. The biological clock is one of the areas that produce vasopressin, an antidiuretic hormone with vasoconstrictive effects that also acts as a neurotransmitter in the brain. The biological clock produces vasopressin for an area that is also influenced by gonadal hormones.

Buijs showed images of two areas in the brain of a mouse with vasoconstrictive innervation, one that is influenced by gonadal hormones and another sensitive to the biological clock. When the mouse is neutered, vasoconstriction in the first area disappears, but remains in the area that is sensitive to the biological clock. This would indicate the possibility of an eventual loss of vasoconstrictive innervation for physiological or functional reasons. According to Buijs, this possibly occurs through the reduction of gonadal hormones, e.g., during preparation for winter, when the animal hibernates.

The size of the testicles and the testosterone levels of the European hamster (an animal that hibernates) are much greater in summer than in winter. Both the size and the level decrease abruptly between late July and late August, apparently preparing the animal to survive the coming winter. “The hamster goes into hibernation for four or five days, wakes up for 24 hours and eats, drinks and urinates a little, then goes back into hibernation, in a very well-organized process in temporal terms. If testosterone is given to the animal during this period, it will not hibernate, will attempt live in open spaces and will die.”

Images of certain area of the hamster’s brain (the same one observed in the mouse of the previous example) are completely different in the summer and in winter, indicating how the animal’s rhythm influences the central nervous system. The decrease of gonadal hormones prepares the animal for winter. The loss of vasoconstriction in the septum allows it to adapt its physiology and plummets its temperature to 5°C.

Type 2 diabetes and obesity

Two other examples of disordered physiological processes possibly caused by a desynchronization between the biological clock and the physiological mechanisms themselves are, according to Buijs, the onset of type 2 diabetes and the development of obesity.

In the case of type 2 diabetes, this might have to do with the fact that the brain needs more glucose for the active period of the individual’s daily cycle. The amount of sugar (glucose) consumed by the brain in 24 hours is 100 g and the quantity available for the rest of the body is 5 g. “The selfish brain competes with the rest of the body for energy. ‘Compete,’ however, is not a good verb, because the brain is the boss and orders that the sugar be given to it.”

An experiment was carried out with people suffering from type 2 diabetes and had twice the glucose levels of people without the disease. Although the level of glucose is already quite high in patients, it begins to rise even further around 5:00 am, preparing the body for the active period of the day.

The explanation for this, according to Buijs, is that the brain becomes more active and requires more energy in the beginning of the period of greater activity. To meet the demands of the brain, the biological clock prepares the body to make more glucose available.

When the body provides more glucose, it peak in the bloodstream quite rapidly, but then the level drops in a short time. By observing this phenomenon throughout the day, it was found that peaks in blood glucose levels decrease until the onset of the active period.

Interestingly, if you compare both phenomena, you’ll see that the glucose peak in the blood corresponds to lowest glucose peak in the muscles. “This means that the biological clock is doing two things at once: on the one hand, it is stimulating the production of glucose; on the other, it is making the brain absorb more glucose. A perfect preparation for the active period of the day.”

What is the role of the biological clock in obesity? Buijs said one of the correlations has to do with the period of sleep: the shorter the period, the greater the chances of developing obesity. But there’s another correlation, related to factors that promote the growth of fatty tissue.

Actually, the autonomic nervous system involves two systems (the sympathetic and the parasympathetic), by means of which the brain sends commands for the fatty tissues to grow. By injecting a virus similar to that of rabies in retroperitoneal fat (the back of the abdominal cavity) of mice, it is possible to identify the area of the brain that controls the parasympathetic system – which is, in general, the system for repose. “When cutting the innervation of the system, the uptake of glucose decreases, indicating that a command from the brain is required for the fatty tissue to absorb it.”

By analyzing the abdominal fat of two 14-year old boys, one non-diabetic and the other diabetic, the clinical finding was that the accumulation of fatty tissue in the gastrointestinal compartment is associated with the disease. According to Buijs, understanding that the parasympathetic system is important for the accumulation of fat suggests that the system’s commands for the gastrointestinal compartment may be stronger than the commands for the subcutaneous area. This might mean that both regions need other body signals; otherwise, the brain will not be able to distinguish between the compartments.

To resolve this doubt, markers were injected in abdominal tissue of mice and it was found that in the autonomic center (which commands the fatty tissues) there is a pair of different nerves to command the fat of each compartment. The differentiation of nerves may be followed up to the hypothalamus, where the differentiation can actually be seen in one of the structures that receive information from the biological clock. Thus, we find that the biological clock has nerves that communicate only with some part of the body not with another.

The conclusion of these experiments is that different controls for different tissues is what enables the centralized control of fat distribution. According to Buijs, this can be seen in the fact that individuals who accumulate abdominal fat suffer an imbalance in the body’s fat compartments, suggesting that some cases of diabetes and hypertension may involve this type of imbalance in the commands of the autonomic nervous system – not only in commands stemming from the hypothalamus, but in those from the biological clock itself.

Buijs’ working hypothesis for future research is that disarray in the reciprocal relationship between the biological clock and the organs – at any level and at any stage of life – can result in illness. “The disease can be induced, for instance, by ingesting food at the wrong moments during the 24 hour cycle.”

The Tiradentes Prison, where political prisoners were incarcerated during the New State (1937-45) and the military dictatorship (1964-85), was demolished in 1972, leaving only the entrance arch, listed in 1985 as a cultural historic interest "by the symbolic value that it represents for the fight against will and institutionalized violence in our country in the recent past."

The IEA-USP will present some recent research contributions on the construction, consolidation and preservation of social and political memory in Brazil, Argentina and South Africa at the seminar Memory, Memorials and the Future of Democracies, to be held from November 12 to 14 at the Institute. (see the programme).

According to the organizers, the fundamental proposition of the meeting is to discuss the work done by memorials and museums, and research on memory - which rely on different strategies and methodologies - and thereby "capture what can not be captured: traits, remains and reminiscences that somehow refuse their own continuance."

When applied to memory, the acts of preserving, maintaining and containing reveal "the efforts to stay due to all of what resisted to the full objectification to be sparsely found on bodies, testimonies, archivable erasures and leftovers, and failures of what can be remembered."

The seminar is sponsored by IEA-USP's UNESCO Chair in Education for Peace, Human Rights, Democracy and Tolerance, and the Center for the Study of Diversity, Conflict and Intolerance (Diversitas) of USP's Faculty of Philosophy, Letters and Human Sciences (FFLCH), with support from CNPq, FAPESP and two of USP units: the Faculty of Education (FE) and the Institute of Psychology (IP).

The event will be broadcast live on the web.