From the Margins to the Frontlines of Evolutionary Science
Lynn Margulis *1938–2011
(Kopie 1)
Life on Earth is such a good story you cannot aford to miss the beginning... Beneath our superfcial diferences we are all of us walking communities of bacteria. The world shimmers, a pointillist landscape made of tiny living beings.
Lynn Margulis
(Kopie 2)
The evolutionary biologist Lynn Margulis, was born in Chicago in 1938. She earned her bachelor’s degree at the age of just 19 as a participant in an early entrant pro-gram for biology at the University of Chicago. A master’s degree in zoology from the University of Wisconsin followed in 1960 and a doctorate in genetics from the University of California, Berkeley in 1965. In 1970 Margulis formulated the serial endosymbiotic theory of the origins of eukaryotic cells, which describes how organ-elles arose in organisms via symbiogenesis of early cells and independent bacteria. Her work revolutionized modern concepts of how life arose on Earth. At the time her findings were rejected, but the theory has since been widely accepted.
(Kopie 3)
In collaboration with British scientist James Lovelock she postulated the controversial Gaia hypothesis that views the Earth as a single self-regulating organism. Her research earned her several awards including the U.S. National Medal of Science. Margulis was professor of biology at the University of Massachusetts, twice married, and the mother of two children. She died in 2011 aged 73.