Lynn Margulis

Lynn Margulis ( born: Lynn Alexander, born March 5, 1938 in Chicago, Illinois, † November 22, 2011 in Amherst, Massachusetts) was an American biologist and university lecturer at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

Life

Margulis ' most famous scientific achievement is the rediscovery and further development of the already in 1883 by Andreas Franz Wilhelm Schimper and postulated in 1905 by Konstantin Sergeyevich Merejkowski again proposed endosymbiont theory of the origin of plastids and mitochondria than originally independent prokaryotic organisms. This much popular place theory, those went to a evolutionarily early stage into a symbiotic relationship with other prokaryotic cells, which developed the latter to eukaryotic cells. This thesis also explains the special properties of mitochondria and plastids as organelles and the emergence of other eukaryotic cell characteristics such as the nucleus.

Lynn Margulis was also known as a strong representative of the Gaia hypothesis, which was originally developed by James Lovelock.

1999 Margulis was awarded the National Medal of Science.

She was married from 1957 to about 1963, the astrophysicist Carl Sagan and mother of their common Dorion Sagan and Jeremy sons Ethan Sagan. From 1967 to 1980 she was married to Thomas Margulis. The couple had a son and a daughter.

Works

• Lynn Sagan, On the origin of mitosing cells. In: Journal of Theoretical Biology. Volume 14, No. 3, 1967, p 255-274. PMID 11541392, doi: 10.1016/0022-5193 (67 ) 90079-3
• Lynn Margulis: Origin of Eukaryotic Cells. Yale University Press, New Haven 1970.
• Lynn Margulis, Karlene V. Schwartz: The five kingdoms of organisms: a guide. From the American translated by Bruno P. Kremer. Spektrum der Wissenschaft Verlagsgesellschaft, Heidelberg, 1989 ( ISBN 3-89330-694-3 ).
• Lynn Margulis: The other evolution. Spektrum Akademischer Verlag, Heidelberg and Berlin, 1999.