MARGULIS LABORATORY

Symbiogenetics

Environmental evolution

Origin of the eukaryotic cell

Microbial communities

Gaia Theory and Gaian Science

Evolution geography

Areas of interest

The scientific mission of our laboratory is the pursuit of Darwinian "natural history" enlightened by nearly two centuries of scientific insight: Vernadskyan, Lovelockian and molecular biological. Our "object of study" is evolution, not limited to biology but rather "environmental evolution". We track the changes through time of the surface of the "living Earth from space". We try to reconstruct Earth history from clues taken to be representational. Our science seamlessly involves microbiology, cell biology, systems biology, genetics, ecology, "soft rock"-geology (paleontology, sedimentation and stratigraphy), geography, astronomy, astrobiology, atmospheric sciences, metabolic organic, physiology and biochemistry.

We notice that our friends, colleagues and especially our fellow scientists begin to share our vision. We welcome, in Ludwik Fleck's terms (Genesis and development of a scientific fact, U Chicago Press, 1989), a change in "thought-style" of the scientific "thought-collective" as we, along with Jim Lovelock and James A. Shapiro promote a rigorous contextual science. We reiterate T. Dobzhansky's admonition that "nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution" and expand it: nothing at all makes sense except in the light of its history.

Our Rigorous and Contextual Approach to Environmental Evolution

Protoctistology

Biogeochemistry

Community in evolution

Microbialites

Cosmological cycles

Cosmic influences on Earth

The ancient Greek poet, Homer, on Gaia