"The Second Law of Thermodynamics—the Law of Entropy—is one of the most successful general laws in all science.
Entropy must increase in a closed system, the law dictates. Any local
decrease in entropy (unavailable energy) must be paid for in greater increases of entropy elsewhere. This is why tornadoes do not run backward and build cities, and heat flows to cold in a room, spreading out the temperature toward equilibrium.
No violations of this law are known.
Philosophers speculate that the law (2TD) is our “arrow of time,” allowing us to arrange events in a sequence. If we see a movie of a balloon un-popping or an egg un-breaking, we know it is being run backwards.
In 1867, James Clerk Maxwell, the great physicist of the 19th century, imagined a way the 2TD could be violated. If a switch were installed in a wall between a hot and cold room, it could allow hot molecules to pass into the hot side, making it hotter, and the cold side colder. This imaginary switch has been dubbed “Maxwell’s demon.”
Maxwell’s demon imagined by physicists really exists inside our cells (New Scientist, 28 Aug 2023). Alex Wilkins says that a real case of Maxwell’s demon has been found inside living cells!
In nature, there are many “non-equilibrium systems” similar to the hot and cold boxes, such as the different concentrations of various molecules inside and outside living cells. Physicists have long suspected that something like Maxwell’s demon might be at play with these — but they couldn’t mathematically prove it.
Now, Paolo De Los Rios at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne, and his colleagues have shown that ABC transporters – tiny proteins that can shuttle molecules across a cell membrane – act exactly like the demons proposed in Maxwell’s original paradox.
ABC transporters shuttle molecules from areas of low concentration
to areas of high concentration. They use ATP energy to do this, but Los Rios’s team measured the energy of the work done by the transporters and concluded it works like a Maxwell demon.
“They make very concrete connections between the rigorous idea of Maxwell’s demon as it is now understood in statistical physics and the way these ABC transporters work,” says Nahuel Freitas.
Model of ABC transporter action. A binding protein opens the gate and drops the substrate into the machine.
In 1867, James Clerk Maxwell, the great physicist of the 19th century, imagined a way the 2TD could be violated. If a switch were installed in a wall between a hot and cold room, it could allow hot molecules to pass into the hot side, making it hotter, and the cold side colder. This imaginary switch has been dubbed “Maxwell’s demon.”
Maxwell’s demon imagined by physicists really exists inside our cells (New Scientist, 28 Aug 2023). Alex Wilkins says that a real case of Maxwell’s demon has been found inside living cells!
In nature, there are many “non-equilibrium systems” similar to the hot and cold boxes, such as the different concentrations of various molecules inside and outside living cells. Physicists have long suspected that something like Maxwell’s demon might be at play with these — but they couldn’t mathematically prove it.
Now, Paolo De Los Rios at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne, and his colleagues have shown that ABC transporters – tiny proteins that can shuttle molecules across a cell membrane – act exactly like the demons proposed in Maxwell’s original paradox.
How it Works
ABC transporters shuttle molecules from areas of low concentration
“They make very concrete connections between the rigorous idea of Maxwell’s demon as it is now understood in statistical physics and the way these ABC transporters work,” says Nahuel Freitas.
Model of ABC transporter action. A binding protein opens the gate and drops the substrate into the machine.
---After validation, using 2 ATP, the transporter opens, allowing the molecule inside. Then it snaps shut for the next operation.
The proteins act like a logical ‘AND’ gate, Freitas says—like a computational device as seen in computer chips. And here’s the kicker: the researchers found it in bacteria.
Los Rios said, “given the similar functions and roles that many molecular machines play, it is likely that Maxwell’s demon is widespread in nature.”
But lest one begin to attribute this phenomenon to an intelligent Creator, Los Rios rushes to credit evolution, or at least a personification of Nature, being sure to conjure up images of billions of Darwin Years.
“Nature already understood the rules billions of years ago,” says De Los Rios. “ABC transporters are present in all bacteria. They are really, really ancient. They go back to the last universal common ancestor of all life on Earth.”
Ribbon diagram of an ABC transporter involved in Vitamin B12 uptake.
ABC stands for “ATP binding cassette”—a large family of protein
machines that perform important roles in both prokaryotes and eukaryotes (plants, animals, and humans). A 2009 paper in Human Genomics summarizes these amazing machines:
Humans have 47 genes for ABC transporters, it goes on to say.
The proteins act like a logical ‘AND’ gate, Freitas says—like a computational device as seen in computer chips. And here’s the kicker: the researchers found it in bacteria.
Los Rios said, “given the similar functions and roles that many molecular machines play, it is likely that Maxwell’s demon is widespread in nature.”
Darwin Takes Credit
But lest one begin to attribute this phenomenon to an intelligent Creator, Los Rios rushes to credit evolution, or at least a personification of Nature, being sure to conjure up images of billions of Darwin Years.
“Nature already understood the rules billions of years ago,” says De Los Rios. “ABC transporters are present in all bacteria. They are really, really ancient. They go back to the last universal common ancestor of all life on Earth.”
About Those Proteins
Ribbon diagram of an ABC transporter involved in Vitamin B12 uptake.
ABC stands for “ATP binding cassette”—a large family of protein
"There exist four fundamentally different classes of membrane-bound transport proteins: ion channels; transporters; aquaporins; and ATP-powered pumps. ATP-binding cassette (ABC) transporters are an example of ATP-dependent pumps. ABC transporters are ubiquitous membrane-bound proteins, present in all prokaryotes, as well as plants, fungi, yeast and animals. These pumps can move substrates in (influx) or out (efflux) of cells. In mammals, ABC transporters are expressed predominantly in the liver, intestine, blood-brain barrier, blood-testis barrier, placenta and kidney. ABC proteins transport a number of endogenous substrates, including inorganic anions, metal ions, peptides, amino acids, sugars and a large number of hydrophobic compounds and metabolites across the plasma membrane, and also across intracellular membranes."
Humans have 47 genes for ABC transporters, it goes on to say.
That means that the basis for building these machines comes from complex specified information encoded in the genome.
Q: If we know that logic devices in computers have been made by engineers and programmers, who in their right mind would say that superior ‘AND’ logic gates in living cells just happened?
A: Darwinians would.
Wouldn’t Maxwell have been astonished to learn that his little “demons” were actually like beneficial angels?
Wouldn’t Maxwell have been astonished to learn that his little “demons” were actually like beneficial angels?
---These machines fill the biosphere with the possibility of life, breath, and thought, sustaining every cell of every plant and animal.
Speaking figuratively (as physicists do with the term “Maxwell demon”), Maxwell’s own body was filled with Maxwell angels!"
CEH