I have had the honour of reading numerous papers by Vernadsky and find as always with genius, a hidden underlaying dimension of truth. The Biosphere is without hesitation a work of scientific spirituality as well as pure scientific genius! In a time when environmental destruction is ramp, and politically controled scientific stupidity proliferates, logical hope and science is at hand. With Vernadsky science personifies a bridge between life and its meaning. Science is indeed the search for truth, and Vernadsky biosphere is a must for youth!!!!!

It's hard to read this book without coming away with the impression of a powerful, original mind at work. Many of Vernadsky's ideas remain unappreciated to this day. In particular, the idea of life as a cosmological phenomenon, as a means by which energy is stored and transformed on a planetary scale, should become increasingly important as the science of astrobiology develops a rigorous intellectual basis.

I'm very happy that Vladimir Ivanovich Vernadsky becomes little by little known for the English speaking public. Although his "Biosphere" has been written over 70 years ago, even now its ideas remain fresh and actual. Indeed, the "Biosphere" provides a new level of thinking which permits us to consider Vladimir Vernadsky as a deepest naturalist of our century. And now I'm looking forward to the time when they will be translated and published his subsequent books - first of all the book on the noosphere: "Scientific thought as a planet phenomenon".

It's an inexhaustible and wonder-filled resource for the serious student and the fascinated browser...yet it's out of print and unavailable!!! I want to echo Chelly Richard's comments and make a plea to the publisher that the book be reprinted, even if a "new edition" is not possible. In the meantime, fellow Amazonians, let me know if you find a used copy out there!

This handbook is the perfect reference for students looking for information on a specific protoctist or this group of organisms as a whole. Each chapter pinpoints a different organism within the kingdom and is written by an authority. The book is very well organized, making information extremely easy to find - a must for a student just entering the field. My only complaints are that it is out-of-print and expensive. In order to attract young scientists to the field this information must be accessible.

Microcosmos is a natural history of the unseen beings upon whom we depend every moment for survival: the microbes. Margulis, who is currently Distinguished University Professor in the Department of Geology at the University of Massachusetts, did undergraduate work in biology and received her PhD in Genetics. She worked with James Lovelock on developing the Gaia theory, which posits that the earth can be regarded as a sort of super-organism. In Microcosmos we see all aspects of her education and sensibilities -- a close attention to scientific detail and a "big picture" approach to how living entities coexist.

In the introduction she lays out her philosophy about life on earth, for which she was roundly criticized by many reductionist scientists. In the past, she writes, all life on Earth was traditionally studied as being merely a prelude to the appearance of humans. Now, overwhelming evidence suggests that microbes (one-celled organisms) not only inhabit every known living thing on earth, they are also indispensable to the survival of all living things. They, not human beings, are the most important beings on the planet.

Furthermore, in opposition to one of the most accepted tenets of Neo-Darwinism, Margulis states that life did not colonize the planet by competition so much as by networking. Cooperation between one-celled creatures led, over billions of years, to the evolution of beings such as ourselves, who possess the capability for self-conscious awareness. Our human consciousness, of which we are so proud, "may have been born of the concerted capacities of millions of microbes that evolved symbiotically to become the human brain."

Strong words! Yet, Margulis sets forth compelling evidence in the remainder of her book to support her bio-philosophical ideas. Along the way, we learn many amazing things. For instance, we get a perspective on what upstart newcomers we are: the continents we inhabit now appeared in their present locations only in the last tenth of a percent of Earth's history. We learn that bacteria invented genetic engineering. Thus, when ultraviolet light damaged early microbes' DNA, the creatures produced repair enzymes to remove the damaged portions and copy new replacement DNA. This is a natural form of gene splicing.

Sometimes, the DNA used in gene splicing was borrowed from neighboring bacteria of different strains, thus affording these critters a prodigious adaptability. This borrowing still goes on today. Through intermediaries, two very different bacteria can share genetic information. Why is this important? Because it allows the distribution of genetic information in the microcosm with a speed "approaching that of modern telecommunications--if the complexity and biological value of the information being transferred is factored in." This speed makes bacteria the biosphere's first responders in dealing with planetary changes.

In responding to change, bacteria end up altering and shaping their environments. Few people realize that the entire earth's atmosphere, which we depend on for our life's breath, was created, and is maintained, by microbes. This is a good thing to remember next time you feel like spraying down your bathroom or kitchen with anti-microbial spray. Our fear of bacteria is misplaced. Yes, some are harmful to us, but most are beneficial. Indeed they are a lot more helpful to us than we are to the rest of the planet!

This book isn't an easy read, but it will broaden one's outlook on our place in the natural world. Even if bacteria are not in the end responsible for the intricacies of our human brain and consciousness, we still owe them many debts. This book unveils the smallness of humans before the vast and minute workings of nature, and encourages a sense of humility before the greater Life that surrounds us.

I believe that this book will one day be a collector's item because it first seriously advanced the idea that symbiosis is a primary mechanism of evolution.

For a reason I can't recall, I was hurrying through the stacks of the U. of Rochester Medical School Library in the very early 1970's. The title on the spine of one book happened to catch my eye, The Origin of Eukaryotic Cells. I didn't know what eukaryotic cells were. Impulsively, I took the book out and read a bit of it while standing in the stacks. Then I decided to check it out of the library. Over the next two weeks I read the whole book very carefully. I had very little scientific background, but I did remember that when I took freshman biology in 1953-54 at the U. of R. I thought that it looked to me as if parts of more complex single-celled microbes were, in fact, simpler microbes that had somehow gotten inside the more complex cells and stayed there.

This book confirmed that idea, and it changed my life because it renewed my interest in evolution. I began reading a great deal about it. I still read a lot about evolution. I've just finished reading Lynn Margulis' most recent book, Acquiring Genomes, written with Dorion Sagan, also more than just a good read. Both books advance the concept of symbiosis as a major cause of evolutionary change. They specify, by giving the details, one very important way, perhaps the most important way, in which evolution can occur in leaps and bounds rather than soley by the long-term acquisition of genetic mutations.

Anyone with a deep interest in evolution ought to read The Origin of Eukaryotic Cells. And perhaps they should buy up extant copies of it to pass on to their descendants as an investment.

Well. I would not have been terribly suprised had this turned out to be a great book. Nonetheless, I was pleasently so when I realized I actually enjoyed it as much as Microcosmos. I don't know how much of which author went into what--and that does not really seem to matter. The ideas flow easily and evenly--the biology is straightforward and understandable, and the chronology seems (at least for me) easy to follow. In my humble opinion, another excellent book, and a must for any real thinkers library. I have mine..where's yours?

This book is a stunning compendium of the range of life forms found on our planet. Margulis and Schwartz describe it as "a catalog of the world's living diversity." It is a vividly descriptive assortment of selected examples from the Five Kingdoms of life formulated by R.H. Whittiker. The authors stress how much new knowledge, particularly in the study of unicellular life forms, has been gained in recent years. They explain how classification identifies organisms and show how modern techniques have led to the expansion of life's kingdoms from two to five. A description of prokaryotes and eucaryotes is given, followed by the body of 92 phyla descriptions. The book is arranged to be either studied as a reference or browsed as an introduction to biological forms. Each entry is carefully organized with the type of information [environment, measurement scales, diagrams] in a consistent location.

However, this is more than simply a collection of illustrative examples of various organisms. The most fascinating chapter relates the authors' proposal to modify one of the standard classifications of life - the Protoctists, replacing Whittiker's Protists. "The Kingdom Protoctista is defined by exclusion," they state. "Its members are neither animals, plants, fungi nor procaryotes." Their common characteristics are nucleated cells, some kind of flagellum and live in an oxygenated atmosphere [unlike many unicellular forms which cannot tolerate oxygen. Their argument contends that many multicellular forms are more
directly related to these unicellular forms than they are to other multi-celled organisms. The new classification "also solves the problem of blurred boundaries that arises if the unicellular organisms are assigned to the multicellular kingdoms." They list 27 phyla [of 36 total]with diagrams exhibiting a range of bizarre structures and life cycles.

Another noteworthy entry is Trichoplax adhaerens. Remember the name of this creature - "it is the simplest of animals." Composed of but a few thousand cells, it is a dull gray body just visible to the unaided eye. In looking at the photo and diagram of this creature invokes a sense of wonder - this is, after all, a distance relative living in the nearest aquarium with the shad.

This book is a delight to browse following one of the authors' intents. Their second purpose, using this book as a reference, is even more admirably met. Clear photographs coupled with excellent diagrams, including typical environments of the selected specimens, add visual support to a readable text base. Any reader interested in the way life is structured and seeking insights into evolutionary development would do well to consider this book. It's not an academic text, but conveys a wealth of meaningful information.

Although this is primarily intended to be an illustrated reference guide, it's a surprisingly fun one to thumb through. Part of that is the delight of looking at pictures and illustrations of some truly strange organisms (science fiction writers should really buy this book to see what genuinely alien creatures are like), but also due to the plethora of interesting facts.

I know that when I was reading through the section detailing the Animal phylla, I was struck by how many creatures -- entire phyllums -- get along without even rudimentary brains (or digestive systems, respiratory systems, circulatory systems, or even organs, altogether, in some cases). Likewise I was surprised to learn that only two phylla (including our own) ever developed winged flight.

The sections comprising the non-Animal kingdoms were of particular interest to me mainly for the simple reason that they invariably get little attention from most texts. At best, you'll usally find a chapter dealing with micro-organisms as a whole, and a brief chapter on plants. To see how much sheer diverity there is in just the Fungus kingdom is eye-opening.

I will note that the book does assume a basic level of biological literacy and that it sometimes throws jargon at the reader with little warning or explaination but, as a whole, this is a very accessible work and well worth having on one's shelf.

At first, a person like myself might seem somewhat hard to convince that all the 100's of thousands of species on the planet can be divided up into just five kingdoms or "Groups." However, by the half way mark I could not only see how this is true--more importantly I could understand--and agree with the author. What this truly gifted scientists has done is to "break down" the walls of convention and show people (even myself) how it all really worls. Lynn Margullis is the worthy sucessor to Charles Darwin. Period.

A theory of everything book begins with the big bang and concludes either with modern humanity or our someday-to-be colonization of the stars. This offering by the mother/son team of Margulis and Sagan is now 16 years old and a bit ragged around the edges, but still an informative read. Margulis' claim to fame is the symbiosis theory now standard fare in college biology texts. It states that mitochondria and chloroplasts were once free living bacteria that became trapped in other bacteria, giving rise to eukaryotic cells. Margulis also hypothesizes that flagella were once free living spirochetes. Her emphasis on nonhuman life (mostly prokaryotic) as the dominant biological mover is refreshing and she takes us on a virtual tour of the inception of life on this planet, accompanied by a nifty geological time chart, through to some pretty farout scenarios of how life might escape our one day to be dead sun. She goes as far as to posit Homo photosyntheticus, or plant people, who have chloroplasts in their skin and eat light.

Most of us think of evolution as darwinian survival of the fittest, with cheetahs and gazelles in a competitive arms race for survival. This book more accurately portrays selective mechanisms as predominately cooperative and microbially based. Certainly we would not be here to contemplate at all were it not for our ancestor bacteria, and this mocrobial history is written into our very genome. Approximately 5 % of our genome is putatively defunct viruses for example.

Chapter 2 is a pretty good synopsis of prebiotic chemistry. Chapter 4 gives a good definition on the disparateness between sex and reproduction. Chapter 5 shows how bacteria are essentially one ubiquitous species that casually transfer genes horizontally. Chapter 10 gives a great account of meiosis and mitosis and their permutations in the two biological domains, as well as fairly debunking the notion that the value of sex is its superior ability to offer genetic variability over fissioning prokaryotes. In Chaper 11 she gives a good account of how plants and animals (veritable colonies of bacteria) came to colonize the land on earth. Humans enter the scene in chapter 12 via neotony. The last chapter, chapter 13, goes out on a variety of speculative limbs in conclusion.

While this book contains its share of factual errors, probably due to its age, its a well crafted popsci book that makes geotemporal biology accessible to the lay reader.

This is an outstanding and very readable book on the world of microbes. Beautifully written and filled with insights, it should be required reading for biology students. I couldn't put it down and I hated biology in high school! I takes you from the beginnings of our planet to the present time, showing the reader the crucial role of microbes in the creation and maintenance of all life. This book will also be of interest to any serious student of the Gaia hypothesis. Read it and you will never think of cells, bacteria and viruses the same way again. You will come away with a humbling and enlightened view on man's place in a world created, dominated, and maintained by microbes.

For those of you who don't know, Lyn Margulis is the ex wife of the late Carl Sagan (prior to Ayn Druian) and Ms. Margulis is Dorian Sagan's mother.Together, they make an excellent writing team.

If you're one of those who has felt worried that the earth might not survive what we're doing to it, then worry no longer! We, as a species which has brought 'wholesale ecological carnage' to the planet may not survive, but the earth surely will! What soon emerges from this insightful book is that humankind is a relatively young species, still 'vulnerable, error-prone.' Humans are not seen as the dominant species - the pinnacle of evolution - but as one of the still immature species. The real players are the species that have been here the longest, the bacteria. 'Even nuclear war would not be total apocalypse, since the hardy bacteria underlying life on the planetary scale would doubtless survive it.'

Margulis and Sagan relegate Darwin to a secondary place within the order of things: the most powerful and important changes in evolution happen not through mutation - as Darwin would have it - but through symbiosis, '...the merging of organisms into new collectives, proves to be a major power of change on Earth.' In particular oxygen-breathing bacteria merged with other organisms to enable oxygen-based life on the once alien surface of this hydrogen filled planet. 'The symbiotic process goes on unceasingly.' 'Fully ten percent of our own dry body weight consists of bacteria - some of which.... we cannot live without.' That's an estimation of ten thousand billion bacteria each!

Imagine a droplet of water with a membrane holding the water in place and allowing certain nutrients in. This is a simplified description of how it is imagined the first becteria came into being. The book offers a fascinating history of the evolution of life on our planet. This is a wonderful story full of fantastic developments spanning thousands of millions of years. Every now and then we are reminded by the authors that none of it could have taken place or could be happening now were it not for the metabolic abilities of bacteria. It gives a really eye-opening account of bacterial sex with the insight that all bacteria, all over the planet, are really part of one organism because they are all able to exchange genetic information. For instance it's thought that bacteria obtained their now well-known resistence to penicillen from their bacterial cousins in the soil. But also, you begin to get the impression that perhaps it's the bacteria which have used every means possible and are now using us too to spread onto the land and all over the planet and beyond from their original wet home in the ocean. Humans are defintely relegated to a secondary place within something much, much bigger that is (consciously?) evolving.

This is a fascinating book which has radically changed the way I perceive life and the universe. I read it with great excitement and completed it with a new awe for those minute beings, the bacteria, which have, until now, had a very bad press. The best non-fiction book I've read this year.

that that last reviewer did not know what the bleep they were talking about. Yes, this is a very good book but, listen, my mum, Lynn was the one who put the idea of "seme" in Microcosmos! Where people (and Richard Dawkins was one!) get off "mind-reading" who writes which part of a co-authored book is beyond me. The writer was correct, however, that this is a very good book, perhaps the best, for a nuts-and-bolts overview of early life. Now for some fluff: Check out our new book Acquiring Genomes: A Theory of the Origins of Species--if you like it, Frank (or whatever your name is) be sure to credit the good parts to me! Also check out Up From Dragons: The Evolution of Human Intelligence and Into the Cool: The Thermodynamics of Life (forthcoming) if you are curious...

I wish this book were available as a normal paperback. I really like everything about it, especially compared with more recent books like "Microcosmos." Microcosmos cries out for the sort of illustration that is found in Early Life. Understanding Margulis on the origin of Meiosis is so much easier with line drawings! I'm afraid I also feel that Dorion Sagan had a negative effect on Microcosmos. Even though the chapters are not identified, Sagan's flip sarcasm and willingness to embrace odd terminology ("Seme?") damage Microcosmos. And he had nothing to do with this fine book! Anyway. If you are interested in Margulis's ideas about serial endosymbiont theory and how the eucaryotic cell arose, it's hard to do better than "Early Life." Maybe if a few people buy it a new edition will come out?

I can appreciate that this book was meant to be an introduction to the subject, but I found it rather unsatisfying. It simply doesn't go into enough detail. Margulis' writing is also rather stilted, and it's never a good sign when a scientist constantly refers to a theory as "my theory". Of course, it IS her theory, but then again, scientific thought never occurs in a vacuum. It sounds petty and unprofessional to constantly call something "my SET theory". The theory itself seems sound and may very well rock your world if you've always thought mutation and natural selection were the only forces behind evolution. It's obviously the product of a brilliant and unconventional mind, and I do agree with it as far as I understand it. Unfortunately, in this book you don't get enough detail to make a truly informed decision. I will be looking for one of her other, more detailed books, as she has several collaborative works available.

I um'd and ah'd about how many stars to give this book. If I was just assessing the importance of Lynn Margulis's scientific work it would definitely receive five stars. Margulis is an underrated genius. Her work on symbiosis and evolution is extremely important. It reminds us that evolution is far more complex than a simple choice between neo-Darwinism and Lamarckism. Her connecting of her ideas to the Gaia hypothesis of James Lovelock is inspired. Unfortunately, this book shows why she might be getting less exposure than she deserves - it is not terribly well written. In fact, it reads as though it was produced in a hurry with almost no editing. Further, there are diagrams in the book which have no stated connection to the text (OK, you can work it out for yourself, but it still comes across as shoddy). Having said that, the style perhaps gives an insight into the person - clearly Margulis is a battler for her ideas. Its good to have something to read by her that is less weighty than her other seminal but hefty works. Sometimes here she can be very funny. I particularly liked her comments on James Lovelock's dislike of the patenting process. So in all, four stars - a very good book that with a little tightening up could be great.

Lynn Margulis takes a decidedly personal approach in explaining her view on how the two theories she has been most devoted to in her career, serial endosymbiotic theory (SET) and GAIA, the interrelation of all things, are linked.

Beginning with the smallest organisms, bacteria, all the way to the largest, the planet Earth, Margulis charts the way from the beginnings of life to current day thinking in symbiotic biology. Symbiosis, which is the biological term for the intimate and mutually rewarding pairing of two kinds of organisms, is critical to evolution. A reknowned expert in both SET and Gaia theories, Lynn Margulis writes with authority and persuasion on the subjects she knows best. Interspersed in her account is the evolution of her own professional life which allows the reader a glimpse into her mind. Called "one of the most successful synthetic thinkers in modern biology", (E.O. Wilson) Margulis invites the reader to think about the world and our place in it in a totally new way.

Acquiring Gnomes is an attempt to support the theory of symbiogenesis, the idea that organisms evolve by exchanging genes and as a result of symbiosis relationships, such as lichen. The authors are the leading experts in the field of symbiosis, and this shows in this well done work. The major strong point of the work is it explains in detail what biologists have known for years but often do not admit publicly, namely that evolution by the accumulation of small mutations has not been supported by either laboratory or field research. The authors also show that Darwin has been almost a god for over a century, yet his work was neither original (and he failed to credit those he plagiarized his ideas from - see p. 27) and his classic 1859 book The Origin of Species is "laced with hesitancies, contradictions, and possible prevarication" (p. 26). Having shown neo-Darwinism is now effectively dead, the authors make an excellent case for their own theory of the origin of species. The only problem is they demonstrate that many lower level organisms have probably exchanged genetic material throughout history, yet this does not explain its origin, only its spread. We are still left with the question "where did the genome information come from in the first place?" It may be best to admit that we do not know (and present theories do not explain this problem) so that future scientists are encouraged to look for the source instead of discouraging research by teaching students that we know the source when we do not. As a college teacher for over 35 years now, in my classes I stress what we do not know in my field (molecular biology) with the hope that my students may be inspired to find some of the answers. This book is a good place to begin. The authors also show that anyone who questions Darwin "are often dismissed as if they were Christian fundamentalist zealots or racial bigots" (p. 19). This is tragic.

Lynn Margulis has been a maverick all her life. Early in her career she shocked her biological colleagues by arguing that the mitochondria that power our cells and the chloroplasts that let plants transform solar into chemical energy once were free-living bacteria. As soon as scientists could isolate and decode the scraps of DNA in those vital organelles, they found that she was right. Margulis went on to develop her Serial Endosymbiosis Theory, which attempted to trace the development of all creatures with nucleated cells, from yeasts to humans, to a series of genetic mergers between different kinds of organisms. According to Margulis, all the familiar family trees of life, which show only diverging branches, are wrong. Ancient roots and current branches cross and merge to produce new species. To Margulis, nature is far more promiscuous and much more creative than most biologists dream.

Her new book, Acquiring Genomes: A Theory of the Origins of Species, extends and deepens that argument. Margulis sets out to prove that new species rarely if ever appear as the result of mutation, isolation, genetic drift, or population bottlenecks--the meat and potatoes of neo-Darwinism. Instead she maintains that the major engine of evolutionary change, the source of most of the new forms that natural selection edits, is symbiogenesis--the acquisition of whole genomes as the result of symbiotic associations between different kinds of organisms. (Knowing that some people will seize on her thesis as an attack on the theory of evolution as a whole, Margulis makes it clear that she fully supports Darwin's great discovery of the mechanism of natural selection. She simply thinks that neo-Darwinists have failed to recognize the enormous creative power of genomic mergers.)

Readers who are familiar with Margulis' earlier works will recognize her vivid, personal and sometimes impressionistic writing style. I found this book, co-authored by her son, Dorion Sagan, to be clear and accessible. Starting with Chapter 9, where Margulis presents her latest ideas on the symbiotic origin of the nucleus itself, things get a bit more technical. Margulis makes every effort to help readers through the thicket of important, but at times tongue-twisting terms, and supplements explanations in the text with an excellent glossary. Margulis also presents the findings of several other researchers whose work supports or relates closely to her own.

Readers may or may not close the book convinced that Margulis is right and the neo-Darwinists are wrong. But they will come away with a vastly deeper understanding of the pervasive nature and power of the microbial world, and of symbiosis. Margulis reveals a hidden side of nature, in which microbes have generated most if not all of life's metabolic machinery, in which vastly different life-forms consort in a myriad of ways, and in which the acquisition of entire genomes provides the raw material for great evolutionary leaps. Anyone with a deep interest in biology will gain important insights from "Acquiring Genomes."

Robert Adler, author of Science Firsts: From the Creation of Science to the Science of Creation (Wiley & Sons, 2002).

Lynn Margulis and Dorion Sagan continue their series of books on highlighting Margulis's evolving and elaborative theory on evolution. Margulis, with her symbiosis concept, is science's only significant spearhead on the creation of Darwinian evolutionary theory not strictly within the vague limits of Darwinian framework. This book gives us hints on her progress to moving closer to understanding the origin and evolution of eucaryotic mitosis and meiosis mechanisms.

In the book, Sagan and Margulis outline their major objections with neo-darwinian orthodoxy: the notion of mutation and its inherent implications, and argue that its current role in theory is misguided and overemphasized. They argue, rightfully so, the concepts of symbiogenesis and Gaia give much better traction to explaining change from a procaryotic world to the current world of the living than the doctrines of neo-darwinian selection via mutation.

Margulis and Sagan give a interesting account, and more importantly, several detailed examples of symbiosis, where the genome has clearly changed. Whether or not one is familar with Margulis's work, the accounts are enlightening, although I wouldn't recommend this book as an introduction to Margulis's symbiosis and Gaia metaphors, it gives enough to wet the appetite for more. I would recommend Microcosmos as better introductory book to get a better glimpse of the scope and revolutionary nature of Margulis's ideas. If one is interested in other details, her other books, such as the Symbiotic Planet are worth reading.

Clearly the most important part of the book, besides a few more of her and Dorion's insights into Gaia, is the report on her latest publishable material on evidence of the steps from procaryotic to eucaryotic organisms. She concentrates more on her evidence for the first major symbiotic pairing (amitochondriates) which eventually leads to the mitosis and meiosis mechanisms. Her detailing of karyomastigont and akaryomastigont mechanisms and their relations, gives one a better understanding of some of the major steps that most likely occurred from the transition from gross bacterial genetic mechanisms (e.g., plasmids, bacteriophages, and conjugation) to the full blown eucaryotic mitosis and meiosis mechanisms. Obviously, despite their compelling evidence, there looks to be a great deal of work to done to fill in gaps between the connected dots. But Margulis and Sagan provide an entertaining and informative overview on some of the issues entailed in determining the details.

The book is a tantalizing look at the edge of science, for if one is informed, one can see some interesting signposts ahead. The only problem I have with the book is once you start looking beyond the edge, you realize indeed Margulis has only a few explorers with her, and they haven't gotten very far. But that's the nature of science, isn't it.