LYNN MARGULIS CELEBRATED BY HOFSTRA UNIVERSITY

Fine arts major Kelly DeNaples, a sophomore from Newfoundland, has painted 11 portraits of famous biologists and geoscientists to span the west stairwell of the

science building. It is a project that DeNaples has been working on since the spring of her freshman year. She was commissioned by Russell Burke, chair of Hofstra’s Biology Department, and Carol St. Angelo, the director of laboratories. It was their idea to turn the stairwell into a tribute to the scientists who have had the most impact on the study of biology and geology.

“I took a survey among the faculty,” Dr. St. Angelo explained. “There were actually some heated arguments about who should and shouldn’t be included.”

Margulis would be worthy of this honor as both a biologist and geoscientist.

Symbiosis at the Heart of Change is the title of an article in the January 5, 2016 Boston Review by Anne Fausto-Sterling, Professor Emerita at Brown University and a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Draft drawings of Gregor Mendel, Charles Lyell, Lynn Margulis for murals in Gittleson Hall on the Hofstra University campus in NY. The portraits, starting with Charles Darwin, the “Father of Evolution,” climb three floors, ending with marine biologist Sylvia Earle at the top. In between are also likenesses of Francis Crick, James Watson, Rosalind Franklin, Maurice Wilkins, Rachel Carson, and Barbara McClintock. Photo by Robin Kolnicki.

Fausto-Sterling is a leading expert in biology and gender development. She uses a groundbreaking new approach to understanding gender differences. ! She writes, “So you meet an accomplished genius who spews out visionary yet seemingly unsupported ideas. You try to grasp them, but they seem too expansive, too glittery, too smooth. Still, even as others are muttering that this time she has gone too far, you suspect she might be right. This happened to me when, in the early 1990s, the biologist Lynn Margulis elaborated a sweeping claim: symbiosis lies at the explanatory heart of evolution. Now I know she was right. Mainstream scientists are starting to accept her insights, although they don’t always give her credit.”! Dr. Fausto-Sterling is shifting old assumptions

about how humans develop particular traits. Dynamic systems theory permits one to understand how cultural difference becomes bodily difference. By applying a dynamic systems approach to the study of human development, her work exposes the flawed premise of the nature versus nurture debate. ! Her article continues, “In a formal debate in the journal Nature, the new new synthesizers argued the urgency of including the latest understandings of ecology, development, multi-genomic inheritance, and more in a transformed account of evolution. In opposition, mainstream evolutionary biologists, while not denying the new information, held that the evolutionary synthesis developed in the 1930s and ‘40s can accommodate the evidence brought forth by the challengers. We may be witnessing a moment in science that philosopher Thomas Kuhn called a paradigm shift. This is very exciting, and yet I note with dismay the near lack of reference to Margulis’s work in these papers. One doesn’t mention her at all, and the other refers only to her early award-winning work on cellular evolution. These two papers erase the fact that since the early 1990s she has made detailed and compelling arguments supporting the symbiogenetic basis for the origin of species.”

! I too have noted this argument that all this confirmatory evidence for Margulis’s vision should “just be added to the standard model.” But what is there to add to? As Denis Noble has pointed out, all of the rules and assumptions of the Modern Synthesis and the “gene-centered view” have been broken. What remains is woefully incomplete and must be rethought outside the context of a failed hypothesis. There is ample evidence that many molecular biologists and medical researchers have no clue about the history of the field of symbiosis research into which they have stumbled. Those that felt physics held the key to biology took forty years to recognize the discoveries of Barbara McClintock with a Noble prize, yet they continued to ignore the fact that the nucleus was a dynamic organelle capable of engineering its genome and clung to the genome as “read-only-memory.”

Dr. Anne Fausto-Sterling

FROM THE INTERNATIONAL BIG HISTORY ASSOCIATION’S ORIGINS! “Using stunning graphic representations, The Biggest Picture shows pivotal moments from our planet’s evolution in a new light. Wendy Curtis sought the advice of experts from a wide variety of fields–including astronomy, geology, and anthropology –and compiled this knowledge into a visual record with concisely written supporting text; creating a rich, all-encompassing tapestry of our planetary history. More on this book.”! One of those experts was Lynn Margulis, who originated the first Big Earth History course, Environmental Evolution - The Origin and Effect of Life on Earth. Unlike other Big History courses that concentrate on mankind’s story (his-story) and consider the evolution of Homo sapiens a “threshold event” in Cosmic history, Margulis’s course took a biospheric perspective that recognized what she termed “our species specific arrogance,” our self-satisfied conceit that we are the point of evolution. In the scientific view, the primary producers-- bacteria and specifically, cyanobacteria--are arguably the “highest” organisms on the planet.

BACTERIA, THE NEW BLACK, HAS A NEW LOOK

! AOBiome, the company that makes the spray-on, ammonia-oxidizing bacteria that you use in place of soaps, shampoos, bath gels, shave creams, deodorants and other microbiome-unfriendly products to help restore your skin and scalp’s natural microbiota has launched Mother Dirt as its consumer product division. The parent company explores inflammatory skin diseases.! I used the AOBiome spray for a year and found that it worked as advertised--no need for shampoo, soap or deodorant. I stopped mainly because it was pricey. To hear more about Mother Dirt and AOBiome listen to WGBH radio Listen Live podcast from February 26, 2016.

The cover of her ebook and the author, Wendy Curtis

NEW STUDY LOOKS AT SPIROCHETE “PERSISTERS” ! Critical review of studies trying to evaluate the treatment of chronic Lyme disease Presse Med. 2015; 44: 828–831 by Christian Perronne discusses what Lynn Margulis, an expert on spirochetes called “round bodies”. ! The introduction to the paper reads, “Although antibiotic treatment for Lyme disease is effective in some patients, especially during the early phase of the disease, many patients suffer from chronic disease with persisting and evolving signs and symptoms. The role of persistent microorganisms in the patho-physiology of chronic syndromes following Lyme disease treated according to the current recommendations is still being debated. The clinician has no diagnostic test to use in routine practice to check for the persistence of live Borreliae. [emphasis added] Several publications show contradictory results regarding the treatment of chronic Lyme disease.” The same statements could be made for Treponema pallidum, the sphirochete responsible for syphilis. ! It was the ignorance of “round bodies” which led Lynn Margulis and her colleague Prof. Dr. Wolfgang E. Krumbein to organize the small meeting, Spirochaete Co-evolution in the Protero-zoic Eon: Ecology, symbiosis, and patho-genesis (an excursion into environmental immunology), held in the Museum fu ̈r Naturkunde in Berlin, May 1-2, 2008 (shown right). ! An international group of scientists made presentations on spirochetes, spirochetoses and the possibility of syphilis as a co-factor in Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS). One of the questions that came out of the meeting formed the title of a position paper co-authored by Margulis and seven of the participants, “Spirochete round bodies--

Syphilis, Lyme disease & AIDS: Resurgence of ‘the great imitator’?” Symbiosis (2009) 47, 51–58. The paper looked at the evidence for the viability and persistence of spirochete round bodies from various researchers and the results of these symbioses, syphilis, chronic Lyme and immunological impairment. ! John Scythes from Toronto reported that the North American epidemic of syphilis had gone underground coincident with the appearance of the syndrome that became AIDS. Physicians had reported that the initial symptoms of syphilis (the chancre and secondary rash) were no longer being seen--possibly due to the excessive use of antibiotics. Scythes and colleagues have continued to report on this issue in “Syphilis in the AIDS Era: Diagnostic Dilemma and Therapeutic Challenge” Acta

Canadian syphilis expert, John Scythes, with Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Krumbein

Microbiologica et Immunologica Hungarica, 60 (2), pp. 93–116 (2013).! Lynn Margulis’s doubts as to whether HIV was the cause or the sole cause of Acquired Immune Deficiency without scientific evidence of causality being available in the primary science literature was scientifically conservative. When proponents of the HIV hypothesis claimed that links to syphilis or other spirochetoses had been “thoroughly investigated,” she only had to look at the statements of the CDC that claimed that antibiotics cured syphilis and Lyme disease to see that these statements were hollow. In Russia, scientists and physicians did not accept that syphilis was cured with penicillin. The Infectious Disease Society’s belief that round bodies were not viable was at odds with Margulis’s own extensive observations through the microscope, as well as her reading of international literature on spirochetes and the viability of spirochete round bodies. ! At the time, descriptions of HIV in the literature varied greatly on the number of its genes. The repeated failures of vaccine trials were said to be due to fact that the virus “mutated” so quickly that vaccines were not able to recognize its viral particles. During a trip to a meeting celebrating Elie Metchnikoff at the Institut Pasteur where she spoke, Simon Wain-Hobson asked to educate Margulis about HIV as the singular cause of immune collapse. Margulis’s concern with cofactors was in agreement with Luc Montagnier, one of the Institut Pasteur discoverers of the virus, who also expressed his opinion that a healthy immune system could fight off HIV infection. As we understood it, Wain-Hobson had sequenced HIV at the Institut Pasteur which had discovered the virus in a patient suffering from syphilis, not AIDS. ! Her encounter with Wain-Hobson was short. Margulis asked how something so ever-shifting could have an identity? It was the kind of keenly incisive question that separated Margulis from the vast majority of less critical thinkers in science to whom such a question would not have occurred. It reminded me of a time during the

first Gulf War. General Norman Schwarzkopf, Jr., would hold daily briefings where he would show the surgical precision with which bunkers, bridges, etc. were being blasted by “smart bombs.” One morning, as I watched yet another of these, I got a call from my friend Ernie, a former high-energy particle physicist. “How many reporters do you think are in that tent?” he asked referring to Schwarzkopf’s briefing.

! I guessed, “Maybe a hundred or more?”! “Do you think one of them might ask to see what a miss looks like?”! Ernie, like Lynn Margulis, had asked the stunningly obvious question that was not asked. At the close of Operation Desert Storm, it was reported that 98% of our ordinance had missed its targets.

Margulis at the Institut Pasteur

! As I recall, Lynn did not get a clear and concise answer and she continued to ask for clarification of how precisely the virus was identified. Then, rather out-of-the-blue, came a threat that her continued questioning of the HIV hypothesis would result in her losing her funding. At which point, Lynn walked away. I offered Wain-Hobson my opinion that this tactic was unlikely to work on Lynn Margulis. She had no funding and had demonstrated throughout her career that she could not be intimidated.! The well-oiled McCarthyesque-blacklisting that seeks to silence all question-

ing of the HIV hypothesis--no matter how reasonable--with the ad hominem label of “AIDS denialist” is not science. It is the worst sort of anti-science. No one denies the existence of the syndrome, rather it is the evidence of the presumed singular causal agent, HIV, that is questioned. Margulis pointed to the absence of any paper in the primary science literature that described how HIV caused immune collapse. The validity of Gallo’s papers was doubtful and the results have never been replicated. Proponents pointed to the “weight of the evidence,” but one must consider that Margulis’s visionary biology and evolution--which is now an

integral part of the rethinking of the life sciences--had been opposed by the “weight of evidence” in support of the 70-year reign of the Modern Synthesis. It is very telling that those who want to disparage Margulis’s position on HIV, do so without expertise in or a discussion of spirochete round bodies and other forms of persistent (symbiotic) bacteria. They also fail to acknowledge the ongoing debate around their role in human disease, such as Lyme.! Christian Perronne’s review of studies of treatment of chronic Lyme disease states, “B. burgdorferi has a complex genetic structure. It has more than 132 function genes. In contrast, Treponema pallidum, another spirochete, only has 22 function genes. [Margulis would point out that fewer genes points to a lengthy symbiotic relationship.] B. burgdorferi has one linear chromosome and 21 plasmids. Chlamydophila only has 7 plasmids. This genetic complexity suggests that B. burgdorferi is a highly adaptable organism capable of evading the human

Russian biologist, Galina Dubinina presents at the Spirochaete Co-evolution in the Proterozoic Eon meeting in Berlin.

Margulis diagram of spirochete morphology

immune response. It can do so through different processes such as immunosuppression, antigenic variation, mutation and gene recombination. It can survive extracellularly as well as intracellularly; it releases factors for cell adherence and some studies have shown that it can persist in atypical

dormant state forms through cyst formation. The cyclic conversion of cystic forms into free spirochetes releases new Borreliae in tissues. [emphasis added] Animal models in mice, dogs and monkeys clearly demonstrate that B. burgdorferi may persist in tissues even after several months of treatment with antibiotics that are effective in vitro. Persistence of B. burgdorferi after antibiotic treatment has also been reported in some studies done on humans. Dormant persister cells of bacteria from different genera can escape the bactericidal effect of

antibiotics and be responsible for latent infections.”! There is also what Margulis called “test-itis,” the idea that single answers are only likely on tests. It is often evident in medicine as “genes for” or silver bullet cures. In spirochetes, test-itis is evidenced when pleomorphism is ignored. In tick-trans-mitted illnesses, the assumption that Lyme symptoms are the result of a single agent, B. burdorferi, is the result of test-itis. !! Perronne discusses the role of co-infections in the persistence of signs and symptoms. “The limited efficacy of antibiotic treatments observed in some patients could also be due to co-infections with other micro-organisms. Acute or chronic syndromes occurring after tick bite may be due, in part or in total, to pathogens other than Borrelia sp., some of them tick-transmitted, others transmitted through different mechanisms. Other well-known tick-transmitted infections are human granulocytic anaplasmosis and babesiosis, a frequent parasitic infection of animals. Other bacterial species are also able to persist: Chlamydophila, Mycoplasma, Bartonella, Coxiella burnetii, and a new tick-borne bacterial pathogen, Candidatus Neoehrlichia mikurensis. In addition to bacteria and parasites, viruses such as HHV-6, or fungi such as Leishmania, could be involved.”

! On The Media podcast on “foxes,” “hedgehogs” and “black swans” in the political arena, but applicable to science. Worth a listen.

Margulis spirochete slide rb=round body

Detail from Margulis diagram of the serial endosymbioses showing the fusion of spiro-chete and archeabacterium to form the first chimeric eukaryotic cell. Gray triangle = merger.