INTRODUCTION
The Piraeus Foundation is a small, not for profit organisation, the goal of which is to spread scientific
literacy, to publicise the work of Douglas Zook, Lynn Margulis, Jim Lovelock and Carl Sagan. The organisers
of the foundation are futurists who believe it is better to prepare for the future, than simply let it happen
to you. The method by which the foundation operates currently is by placing books in school libraries.
MICROCOSMOS - DOUGLAS ZOOK
Microcosmos is a classroom curriculum guide for teaching microbiology in schools. It is suitable for all ages
(5 - 18 years) and levels of funding. Students are introduced to microbiology through a series of simple
experiments and hands-on activities. Expensive equipment is not required to perform the experiments detailed.
The experiments are designed to produce microbial exhibits where activity is visible to the naked eye.
Scientific jargon is avoided with a descriptive approach being taken to discussing microbes.
Each experiment has a physical output so as the year progresses the classroom fills with "exhibits", and by the
end of the course the room looks like a museum of microbiology.
Some experiments use a Radio Shack 10 x microviewer. These can be purchased as class sets, or individual
viewers can be fixed to a board, and students can take turns using the viewer. The magnification chosen
is sufficient to take the student out of the realm of the familiar, without resorting to expensive technical
equipment.
New Zealand teachers have commented that this material will fit straight in to the year 11 NCEA unit on
microbiology.
Further Reading:
Copies of the course book and microviewers are available through scientific supply companies.
Google these, or try:
Wards Natural Science.
Example of a scientific supply company
Microcosmos.
The course was developed by Professor Douglas Zook of Boston University
ENDOSYMBIOSIS - LYNN MARGULIS
According to modern research, almost as soon as the Earth cooled from its formation sufficiently to have a crust,
life was teaming on its surface. Current estimates place the age of the Earth at 3.8 billion years old, and the
origin of life on this planet to 3.5 billion years. For most of the history of the Earth, the only things living
were single celled organisms (the bacteria). Even today, the only organism capable of living in many
environments, from boiling hot acid pools to inside rocks in the antarctic dry valleys, are bacteria. Bacteria
are also capable of a wider range of chemical reactions, and reproduce very quickly.
However (with only a few interesting exceptions), bacteria cannot form large complex organisms such as plants
and animals. Some cells eat others by enclosing them in a pocket (phagocytosis) and then digesting them. Other
cells have evolved to be able to be phagocytosed, but continue living happily inside the other cell (for example
Mycoplasma bacteria).
Lynn Margulis championed the idea that eukaryotic cells (the cells of plants, animals, fungi and cilates) were
formed when a bacterial cell was swallowed by another, and the two formed a mutually advantagous (symbiotic)
relationship. Ultimately Lynn was proved right - with the organelle known as a mitochondria (the equivalent of
the ekaryotic cells power generation plant) and that known as a chloroplast (a cell's greenhouse) now known to
be closely related to the mycoplasmas and the cyanobacteria respectively.
With the added genetic complexity (a bacteria has 20 - 30 thousand genes, a human cell has about 50 thousand in
the nucleus alone), the added internal structure (organelles), and increased size (a bacterial cell is perhaps 2
micometres long, a human red blood cell about 10 micrometres in diameter), came another change. These cells
could now collect into very complex structures - organisms made up of many different cells, each cell having its
own specialised function. These multicelled organisms, the metazoans, are the plants, fungi and animals we know
today.
In addition to being the mother of the Endosymbiosis Theory, Professor Margulis has made two other startling
contributions to modern scientific thinking. Firstly, she has provided many ideas on what role symbiosis may
have had in evolution (the jump from prokaryotes to eukaryotes is the one mentioned above, and there are other
examples). Secondly, Lynn has championed the cause of Jim Lovelock's Gaia Hypothesis, and performed a number of
theoretical experiments in support of the idea (for example, the daisyworld model). More on Gaia below.
In this brief discussion I have not touched on the procaryotic origins of eukaryotic cilia (suspected but not
proven to be descended from spirochaete bacteria) and the role of the archea (an ancient ancestral group
of bacteria-like organisms). These are worthy stories, but will not be covered here.
Further Reading:
Symbiotic Planet : A New Look at Evolution.
(2000) Lynn Margulis; Basic Books. ISBN: 0465072720
What Is Life?.
(2000) Lynn Margulis, D. Sagan, N. Eldredge; U. of California Press. ISBN: 0520220218
Five Kingdoms.
(1998) Lynn Margulis, W H Freeman & Co. ISBN: 0805072527
Microcosmos.
(1977) Lynn Margulis, D.Sagan, L.Thomas; U. of California Press. ISBN: 0520210646
Acquiring Genomes.
(2002) Lynn Margulis, D. Sagan, E. Mayr; Basic Books. ISBN: 0465043917
GAEA HYPOTHESIS - JIM LOVELOCK
In the 1960's Dr Jim Lovelock was asked if he thought there was life on Mars. His response was unequivocable.
There was none. Lovelock was to be proved right. His thinking revolved round the observation that the
atmosphere of Mars contains carbon dioxide, the surface of iron oxide. By contrast, the Earth's atmosphere has
oxygen, water vapour, and methane - all highly unstable compounds. Why are these compounds in Earth's atmosphere?
Because of life. Oxygen produced by plants, water vapour breathed out by organisms, and methane produced by
methanogens (strict anaerobes which live in swamps and animals guts, and who are members of the archea).
Further thought led Lovelock to think about the Earth as being strangely suited to life. For example oxygen is
released by plants and consumed by animals, but the level of oxygen in the atmosphere remains at 20% - optimal
for life. If oxygen climbs above 20%, a single lightning strike would cause a huge forest fire (the trees burning
easily in the enriched oxygen atmosphere), thereby turning oxygen to carbon dioxide, and incidentally, removing
some of the oxygen producing trees. Conversely, if oxygen levels become low, animals become less in number and
consume less of the plants that produce the oxygen, allowing more plants, hence more oxygen. In this way, oxygen
on the Earth may be regulated round 20%. This type of control mechanism is called a negative feedback loop. A
quick glance at the chemistry of the Earth shows similar mechanisms occur in the cycling of sulphur, carbon,
phosphorous and water through the ecosystem. Additionally, the surface temperature of the Earth is regulated by
a similar mechanism. Even thought in the past 4.8 billion years, the sun has got 25% hotter, the surface of the
earth has remained the same temperature. As the sun heats the Earth, 70% of which is covered by water, water
vapour is produced. This vapour forms clouds, which are white and reflect the suns light away from the Earth,
cooling it. As the Earth cools, the clouds become rain, clearing the air of clouds, and allowing the sun to beat
down on the surface of the Earth once again.
In an animal, the tight control of physiological functions (body core temperature, blood oxygen and carbon
dioxide levels, salt concentration and so on) is called homeostasis. So this begs the question - if the Earth
exhibits homeostasis, is it 'alive'? And this is the central question that Lovelock has posed in his Gaia
Hypothesis ('Gaia' was the Ancient Greek Earth Goddess, and can also be spelt 'Gaea').
Further Reading:
Gaia: A New Look at Life on Earth.
(2000) James Lovelock; Oxford University Press. ISBN: 0192862189
The Ages of Gaia.
(1995) James Lovelock; W.W. Norton & Company. ISBN: 0393312399
Homage to Gaia.
(2001) James Lovelock; Oxford Press. ISBN: 0198604297
Gaia: Practical Science of Planetary Medicine.
(2001) J. Lovelock; Oxford U. Press. ISBN: 0195216741
SETI - CARL SAGAN
Originated by the late Dr Carl Sagan, one time husband of Lynn Margulis, the Search for Extraterrsestrial Life
(SETI) is using a variety of methods to find evidence of the existance of intelligent life on other worlds.
The main project curently in hand is SETI-At-Home, wherein data collected by the Aricebo Radio Telescope is
analysed on peoples home computers to find evidence of the radio signature of life on other worlds.
Further Reading:
Seti @ Home.
A project analyses signals collected by the Aricebo Radio Telescope for signs of intelligent life.
IMPLICATIONS
There are several implications of the Gaia Hypothesis. First, to be a living being, the Earth must satisfy
several traditional measures of 'life':
- They must be complex and organised, with a boundary.
- They must be able to absorb energy and transform it for growth and reproduction.
- They must tend toward homeostasis, an equilibrium of parameters that define their internal environment.
- They must respond, exhibiting reaction-like motion, recoil, and perhaps learning.
- They must be able to reproduce, copying themselves, forming a population of genetically variable individuals.
- They must grow and develop, act as consumers, changing biomass, creating new individuals and shedding waste.
The Earth meets many of these criterion - being bounded by the atmosphere, containing a bewildering array of
organised components, absorbing sunlight and radiating heat.
Endosymbiosis has a contribution to make to this theory also. Human beings think of themselves as a single
individual. However, there are a million million benign bacteria on the surface of their skin, preventing the
arrival of more pathogenic bacteria. The body itself is made of ten million million cells, making up the tissues
(each with one or more mitochondria, themselves trapped bacteria). And the gut harbours a further hundred million
million bacteria, involved with the breakdown and absorbtion of food, without which the human in question would
most likely die. In fact, when a person is hungry and goes in search of food, are they feeding themselves, or
are they obeying the request of their gut population to go out and seek more material for their gut flora?
Likewise, while a human being regards themselves as 'alive' not all of them is. For example, their bones are not
made up of cells, but are inorganic mineral structures, laid down by cells, and shot through by blood vessels and
fibres.
So in the same way a human being (that is alive) is in reality a walking apartment block for bacteria, the Earth
might also be alive as it provides an environment for living things to live their lives and personal dramas on,
above, and under her surface. Likewise, when we think of rocks, we think of them as being lifeless, but large
stretches of the Earth's landmass are made of limestone - a mineral laid down by living things, in a manner not
so different from a human's bones.
In all of this, there is a glaring problem with the idea of the Earth being alive. As far as we know, she is
unique. We do not yet know if there are other 'living worlds' in the universe. SETI is in the process of looking
for them, and the Drake Equation suggests there must be others. And the Earth has never spawned another Earth.
She has never reproduced. The existance of Mars rocks on Earth (meterorites) suggests Earth rocks have travelled
to Mars. These rocks have been blown off the respective worlds early in the solar system's existance, but after
life had formed on the Earth. At least one scientist has offered evidence that life could survive in a
meteorite, and survive landing on another world. If so, Earth has had the opportunity to 'seed' Mars, and yet we
see no life there.
Human beings are a recent addition to the Earth. In the 3.8 thousand million years of life on the planet,
humans as a species have existed for only 25 thousand years. And we have been industrialised for less than two
hundred years. But in that time, we have build probes that have left the solar system, walked on the surface of
the moon, and radically reshaped the surface of our Earth.
What if human beings had a higher purpose in the scheme of life on Earth? What if the will to conserve life among
humans (conservationists, greenies), and the technology created by humans (by technologists, technocrats,
scientists, industrialists) has the purpose of moving life from Earth to other worlds? Would that not then
finally prove the Earth is alive - reproducing, moving, responding to outside stimuli? Would this then help
explain humanity's desire to understand, travel, explore and emigrate?
I believe it does.
And one last thought. Conservation and industrialisation are two concepts that are highly political and currently
considered to be in opposition. But if the Gaea Hypothesis is correct, these two ideas become complimentary. The
conservationists wish to preserve the health of the earth, and the industrialists can provide the technology and
the expertise to protect the earth, allow humans to live in comfort, and perhaps allow the life conserved on
earth to be distributed elsewhere. The key is education - to allow life and humans, conservation and
industrialisation to prosper side by side.
Further Reading:
The Physics of Immortality.
(1994) Frank Tipler,Bantam Doubleday Dell, New York. ISBN: 0-330-34672-5
Man, Science and
God.
(1972) John Morton,Collins, London. ISBN: 0-00-215510-9
A Step Further Out by Jerry Pournelle - Out of print book on the necessity of space travel
Space Ship One.
Bert Rutan, of Scaled Composites, wins the X-Prize
Bigelow Aerospace.
The first privately owned space stations may be in orbit by 2008
RECENT PROJECTS
- Distribution of Microcosmos Text Books to New Zealand Schools
- Tutoring Science to Afghan "Tampa" refugees
SELECTED LINKS
Endosymbiosis:
Kimball Biology Pages.
Lynn Margulis.
International Symbiosis Society.
Phylospecies and Phenospecies:
Carl Woese and New Perspectives on Evolution.
Carl Woese wins National Medal of Science.
Carl Woese wins Crafoord Prize.
Bergey's Manual of ... Bacteriology.
Sneath paper abstracts.
Methods of Classification.
Gaea Hypothesis:
Jim Lovelock.
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