Biologist outlines Gaia concept at UNLV

Monday, April 20, 1998 | 10:17 a.m.

Astronauts have been awed by the "blue marble," the image of the cloudy, watery, living Earth from space, a product of British atmospheric chemist James E. Lovelock's imagination about the space program.

The Earth's image in space launched the Gaia idea, a way of organizing vast quantities of scientific information about the home planet. This concept caught the attention of biologist Lynn Margulis.

Margulis will outline the Gaia concept in "Gaia to Microcosm" in the 11th Nevada Medal lecture at UNLV Thursday.

Imagine a process involving 30 million species of flora, fauna and microscopic organisms that interact automatically to regulate the Earth's temperature and the chemistry of the air and oceans. That's the Gaia idea.

The Gaia hypothesis states that the surface temperature of Earth, its reactive gases and its chemical states are regulated by invisible organisms.

The many splendored array of species is a requirement for the Gaia idea to work, Margulis says.

Growth, reproduction, movement and metabolism all fuel the cycle of these biologically crucial elements, she says.

Margulis will present her ideas to the public in Las Vegas.

She will talk about her work during the Nevada Medal lecture, free to the public at 4 p.m. Thursday in UNLV's Bigelow Physics Building, Room 106.

Margulis will receive the Nevada Medal, sponsored by the Desert Research Institute, and $10,000 cash in an award dinner at Caesars Palace following the lecture.

She is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and distinguished professor of microbiology at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. She has also introduced the radical theory of endosymbiosis, arguing that early microbial evolution included combining simple life forms to create higher ones. This idea is a departure from Darwin's concept of survival by successful mutation.

Margulis's thinking has led her to new research, including a search for microbes living on other planets, funded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.