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        <title> Ici THK — Les Forces Francaises de l'Interieur parlent aux francais </title>
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        <header>
            <h1> <a href="index.html">Ici THK</a> </h1>
            <h2> Lynn MARGULIS </h2>
            <h3> Symbiogenesis </h3>
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          <article>
              <section id="natural-theology">
                  <h4>Natural Theology</h4>
                  <p>To me, the Gaia hypothesis, or theory as some would have
                      it, owes its origin to a dual set of sources: the immense
                      success of the international space program that began with
                      the launch of Sputnik by the Soviet Union in 1957 and the
                      lively but lonely scientific imagination, inspiration, and
                      persistence of Jim Lovelock. Part of the contentiousness
                      and ambiguity attendant on most current descriptions of
                      the Gaia hypothesis stems from confused definitions,
                      incompatible belief systems of the sci- entific authors,
                      and inconsistent terminology across the many a¤ected
                      disciplines (for example, atmospheric chemistry,
                      environmental studies, geology, microbiology,
                      planetary astronomy, space science, zoology).</p>
                  <p>Anger, dismissive attitude, and miscomprehension also come
                      from the tendency of the human mind toward
                      dichotomization. In this limited summary whose purpose is
                      to draw attention to several recent, excellent books on
                      Gaia science and correlated research trends, I list the
                      major postulates of the original Gaia statement and point
                      to recent avenues of in- vestigation into the verification
                      and extension of Lovelock’s original ideas. I try to
                      minimize emotionally charged rhetoric aptly indulged in
                      and recently reviewed by Kirchner (2002) and to maximize
                      the proximity of the entries on my list to directly
                      observable, rather than computable, natural phenomena. I
                      self-consciously align this contribution to a field ignored
                      by most of today’s scientific establishment and their
                      funding agencies, one considered obsolete, anachronistic,
                      dispensable, and atavistic.</p>
                  <p>To me this field in its original form, ‘‘natural theology’’
                      that became ‘‘natural history,’’ should be revived with
                      the same enthusiasm with which it thrived in the 18th and
                      early 19th centuries.  That age of exploration of the seas
                      and lands generated natural history in the same way that
                      satellite technology and the penetration of space brought
                      forth Gaia theory.  In fact when Lovelock said, ‘‘People
                      untrained ... do not revere ... Geosphere Bio-sphere
                      System, but they can ... see the word Gaia embracing both
                      the intuitive side of science and the wholly rational
                      understanding that comes from Earth System Science’’ he
                      makes a modern plan for the return to the respected
                      natural history, the enterprise from which biology,
                      geology, atmospheric science, and meteorology had not yet
                      irreversibly divorced themselves. Is he not explicit when
                      he writes, ‘‘We have some distance still to travel because
                      a proper understanding of the Earth requires the abolition
                      of disciplinary boundaries’’?  For the science itself,
                      although precluded today by administrative and budgetary
                      constraints, the advisable action would be a return to
                      natural history, the status quo ante, before those
                      disciplines were even established.</p>
              </section>
              <section id="sexualite-et-commerce-genetique-planetaire">
                  <h4>Sexualité et commerce génétique planétaire</h4>
                  <p>Les hommes exploitent l'énergie des combustibles fossiles vieux de millions d'années comme le charbon, le pétrole et le gaz naturel, ils n'ont pas encore puisé dans des gisements d'information vieux de plusieurs milliards d'années. La micro-électronique de la photosynthèse, le génie génétique, le développement de l'embryon et d'autres technologies naturelles sont là qui les attendent. L'accès à de tels stocks d'informations, la maîtrise de leur mystère les conduiront à des changements bien au-delà de ce qu'ils peuvent imaginer aujourd'hui.</p>
              </section>
              <section id="sex-and-reproduction">
                <h4>Sex and reproduction</h4>

                <p>Reproduction is the increase in number of cells or organisms,
                whether unicellular or multicellular. Growth is increase in
                size. All species of organisms grow and reproduce, although the
                details of how they do it vary. Even though fusion of parental
                gametes accompanies reproduction in humans and in the animals we
                best know, biologically, sex is entirely distinguishable from
                reproduction. Sex is defined as the formation of an organism
                whose genes come from more than a single individual. Sex, the
                recombining of genes from two or more individuals, does occur in
                prokaryotes, but prokaryotic sex is not directly required for
                reproduction.</p>
                <p>Prokaryotic cells do not open their membranes and fuse their
                contents.  Rather, genes from the fluid medium, from other
                prokaryotes, from viruses, or from elsewhere unidirectionally
                enter prokaryotic cells. A prokaryote that carries some of its
                original genes and some new genes is called a recom-
                binant. This propensity for gene uptake, along with the lack of
                a nucleus and the other features listed in Table I-2, defines
                one of the two highest taxa, or superkingdoms: Prokarya,
                organisms composed of bacterial cells.  All other organisms are
                Eukarya, organisms composed of nucleated cells, that evolved by
                symbiogenesis (Table I-2).</p>
                <p>Eukaryotic cells reproduce by mitosis. They form
                chromosomes—tightly coiled gene packages bound together by
                proteins and attached to the inner membrane of the nucleus. At
                least two chromosomes are located in the nucleus of every
                eukaryotic cell; some protoctists have more than 16,000
                chromosomes in a single nucleus at certain stages. Although all
                cells and species of organisms made of cells must either
                reproduce or die, the way that eukaryotes make more eukaryotic
                cells or organisms made of cells is highly peculiar to each of
                the eukaryotic kingdoms and forms the basis of our
                classification system.</p>
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