Lynn Margulis

xiii, 259 pages : 23 cm

Featuring numerous full-color photos and illustrations, this book examines the evolutionary history of sexual reproduction. From the thermodynamic underpinnings of sex to the beginnings of human society's decoupling of sex and reproduction, the authors write in a popular science mode on reproduction in species from humans to insects and bacteria to peacocks.

Lynn Margulis, one of the most original and perceptive scientific thinkers of our time, and the writer Dorion Sagan here present a selection from their many essays published in the last decade and a half. This collection includes an extraordinary memoir of Margulis' encounter with J. Robert Oppenheimer as well as provocative ideas on Gaia theory, symbiosis, individuality, and the way scientific research is conducted today.

Although Charles Darwin's theory of evolution laid the foundations of modern biology, it did not tell the whole story. Most remarkably, ``The Origin of Species said very little about, of all things, the origins of species. Darwin and his modern successors have shown very convincingly how inherited variations are naturally selected, but they leave unanswered how variant organisms come to be in the first place. In Symbiotic Planet, renowned scientist Lynn Margulis shows that symbiosis, which simply means members of different species living in physical contact with each other, is crucial to the origins of evolutionary novelty. Ranging from bacteria, the smallest kinds of life, to the largest -- the living Earth itself -- Margulis explains the symbiotic origins of many of evolution's most important innovations. The very cells we're made of started as symbiotic unions of different kinds of bacteria. Sex -- and its inevitable corollary, death -- arose when failed attempts at cannibalism resulted in seasonally repeated mergers of some of our tiniest ancestors. Dry land became forested only after symbioses of algae and fungi evolved into plants. Since all living things are bathed by the same waters and atmosphere, all the inhabitants of Earth belong to a symbiotic union. Gaia, the finely tuned largest ecosystem of the Earth's surface, is just symbiosis as seen from space. Along the way, Margulis describes her initiation into the world of science and the early steps in the present revolution in evolutionary biology; the importance of species classification for how we think about the living world; and the way "academic apartheid" can block scientific advancement. Written with enthusiasm and authority, this is a book that could change the way you view our living Earth.

This text provides a rich understanding and appreciation of the world's biodiversity by presenting examples of each of the some 100 major groups (phyla) illustrated in their natural habitats. Includes: - Introduction - Monera - Protoctista - Fungi - Animalia - Plantae - Appendix classification - Glossary.

Describes how scientists classify living organisms into groups known as kingdoms, and the characteristics of each.

Examines human sexuality and behavior as they attempt to trace its ancestral origins among reptiles, amphibians, fish, and other vertebrates.

Margulis, Lynn, Investigator, Non-NASA Center: U MA, Amherst.

Science and technology affect every facet of our lives, yet the content of science often seems remote and arcane. In first-hand, candid interviews, Mind, Life and Universe not only explores the cutting-edge content of science, but it also reminds us, as beautifully as any book I know, that the pursuit of science is and intensely human endeavor.