Gaia has multiple meanings and references. In Greek mythology, Gaia is the personification of the Earth and the ancestral mother of all life. In the scientific community, the Gaia hypothesis is the idea that the living and nonliving components of Earth function as a single system in such a way that the planet is a self-regulating organism. In the alternative media industry, Gaia, Inc. is an American video-on-demand streaming service that offers ad-free streaming videos to help people explore the limits of human potential and connect to the global evolution of consciousness.