From: Whole Earth | Date: June 22, 1997| Author: | COPYRIGHT 1997 Point Foundation. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan.  All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group.Copyright information

Lynn Margulis has been the most imaginative and groundbreaking American biologist for a quarter century. Her outstanding knowledge of microbes, her work on cell formation by symbiosis, her contributions to the Lovelock/Margulis Gaia theory, her recent work on the "tailed" microbes and the evolution of nerve cells, etc., etc. qualified her years ago for Nobel accolades.

I find it sometimes difficult to explain to friends why microbial "natural history" is so damn exciting with its multi-syllabic, Latinate invisibility. In most minds, microbes = disease more than ...