James Lovelock - Sterling Memorial Library

James Lovelock, An Homage to Gaia, 1985 One of the most recent extrapolations of the concept of the “cycle of life” is the Gaia, or Living Earth theory. Beginning in 1970, James Lovelock and Lynn Margulis developed a scientific understanding of how the earth operates as a self-regulating living system. Lovelock contributed his research on the earth’s atmosphere, in which he developed the holistic view that microbes, plants, and animals constantly metabolize matter into energy, converting sunlight into nutrients, and emitting and absorbing gas. To the theory, Margulis contributed her deep understanding of microbial ecology, and especially of the role that microbial communities play in the Gaian ecosystem. Although the two disagree somewhat as the relative importance of Vernadsky and Hutchinson in the history of science, both studied their work carefully.