99- The Laws of Thermodynamics in Evolution

Don't worry, you have not in fact stumbled onto a physics podcast. However, the Laws of Thermodynamics do have a rather significant connection to evolutionary biology. This is because, at first glance, they appear to lead to a rather startling conclusion- life should not be able to evolve at all...

Sources for this episode:

• Berg, J. M., Tymoczko, J. L. and Stryer, L. (2007), Biochemistry (6th edition). New York: W. H. Freeman and Company.


• Herron, J. C., and Freeman, S. (2015), Evolutionary Analysis. Harlow: Pearson Education Ltd.


• Masanes, L. and Oppenheim, J. (2017), A general derivation and quantification of the third law of thermodynamics. Nature Communications 8: 14538.


• Ritchie, R. and Ghent, D. (2015), A Level Chemistry for OCR A. Oxford: Oxford University Press.