Entropy: the chemistry of chaos

Entropy was an idea first conceived by Ludwig Boltzmann, an Austrian physicist credited as the father of statistical mathematics: which explains and predicts how the properties of atoms, like mass or charge, determine the physical properties of matter, like viscosity or diffusion rate. He called it the H-theorem (S=K logW - the inscription on his gravestone too interestingly), which basically boils down to the 2nd law of thermodynamics; the entropy of a closed system always tends towards a maximum. So the universe essentially wants to be as chaotic and disordered as possible, at least, that's how I understand it. That's why a dissolved substance remains in suspension I guess, because a liquid has more entropy than a solid, as it's particles are sort of random and can flow-they don't just vibrate around fixed points like in a solid, and the closest the dissolved solid can come to maximum entropy is being in an aqueous solution. That's all well and good, but how does that link to biology?, I don't hear anyone scream. Good question, and here's where entropy gets interesting (for me at least). 


As Erwin Schrödinger so eloquently put it, living creatures 'drink orderliness' from their environment. Take any tree-dwelling Arboreal Gecko for example, they eat insects, and those insects are broken down into their constituent elements by enzymes and acids etc in digestion, and mostly assimilated into the Gecko's flesh. In a world that tends toward disorder, these Gecko's are performing an amazing feat. A gecko may be an open system, with inputs and outputs, which means it does not violate the 2nd law of thermodynamics, which assumes a closed system, but what they actual do seems so obvious on the surface, but is still truly incredible if you open your eyes. They have bodies. These bodies are vessels for order, allowing the Geckos, or any other organism for that matter, to become more complex, without the disorder of the universe driving them backwards, and they expend a lot of energy doing so. So there you have it; never take your body for granted, as not only is it a biological wonder the like of which earth has never seen before, it is a rare piece of tranquility in the calamity that is the universe.