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Cool is not enoughThere’s more to life than the second law of thermodynamics.

Into the Cool: Energy Flow,Thermodynamics and Life by Eric D. Schneider & Dorion SaganUniversity of Chicago Press: 2005. 362 pp.$30, £21

J. Doyne FarmerThe level of organization in even the simplestliving systems is so remarkable that many, ifnot most, non-scientists believe that we needto go outside science to explain it. This belief is subtly reinforced by the fact that many sci-entists still think the emergence of life was afortuitous accident that required a good roll ofthe molecular dice, in a place where the condi-tions are just so, in a Universe where the lawsof physics are just right.

The opposing view is that matter tends toorganize itself according to general principles,making the eventual emergence of lifeinevitable. Such principles would not requireany modifications of the laws of physics, butwould come from a better understanding ofhow complex behaviour arises from the inter-action of simple components.

Complex organization is not unique to livingsystems: it can be generated by very simplemathematical models, and is observed in manynon-living physical systems, ranging fromfluid flows to chemistry. Self-organization in non-living systems must have played a keyrole in setting the stage for the emergence of life. Many scientists have argued that certainprinciples of complex systems could explainthe emergence of life and the universal prop-erties of form and function in biology, andperhaps even provide insights for social sci-ence. The problem is that these principles haveso far remained undiscovered.

In their book Into the Cool, Eric Schneiderand Dorion Sagan claim that non-equilibriumthermodynamics provides the key principlethat has been lacking. They review its applica-tion to topics ranging from fluid dynamics and meteorology to the origin of life, ecology,plant physiology, and evolutionary biology,and even speculate about its relevance tohealth, economics and metaphysics. The bookcontains a wealth of good references and isworth buying for this reason alone.

When the discussion sticks to applicationswhere thermodynamics is the leading actor,such as the energy and entropy flows of theEarth, or the thermodynamics of ecological

systems, it is informative and worthwhile, butit is repetitive and seems disorganized in places.

The book is less successful as an expositionof a grand theory. It gets off to a bad start onthe dust-jacket, which says: “If Charles Darwinshook the world by showing the commonancestry of all life, so Into the Cool has a simi-lar power to disturb — and delight.” While itmay be wise to stand on the shoulders ofgiants, it is not advisable to stand back to backwith one and call for a tape measure.

The authors’ central thesis is that the broadprinciple needed to understand self-organiza-tion is already implicit in the second law ofthermodynamics, and so has been right underour noses for a century and a half. Althoughthe second law is a statement about increasingdisorder, they argue that recent generalizationsin non-equilibrium thermodynamics make itclear that it also plays a central role in creatingorder. The catchphrase they use to summarizethis idea is “nature abhors a gradient”. Beingout of equilibrium automatically implies a gra-dient in the flow of energy from free energy toheat. For example, an organism takes in food,which provides the free energy needed to dowork to perform its activities, maintain itsform and reproduce. The conversion of freeenergy to entropy goes hand in hand with themaintenance of organization in living systems.

The twist is to claim that the need to reduceenergy gradients drives a tendency towards

increasing complexity in both living and non-living systems. In their words: “Even beforenatural selection, the second law ‘selects’, fromthe kinetic, thermodynamic, and chemicaloptions available, those systems best able toreduce gradients under given constraints.” Forexample, they argue that the reason a climaxforest replaces an earlier transition forest isthat it is more efficient at fixing energy fromthe Sun, which also reduces the temperaturegradient. They claim that the competition toreduce gradients introduces a force for selec-tion, in which less effective mechanisms toreduce gradients are replaced by more effectiveones. They argue that this is the fundamentalreason why both living and non-living systemstend to display higher levels of organizationover time.

This is an intriguing idea but I am not con-vinced that it makes sense. The selectionprocess that the authors posit is never clearlydefined, and they never explain why, or in whatsense, it necessarily leads to increasing com-plexity. No one would dispute that the secondlaw of thermodynamics is important for under-standing the functioning of complex systems.Being out of equilibrium is a necessary condi-tion for a physical phenomenon to displayinteresting complex behaviour, even if ‘interest-ing’ remains difficult to define. But the authors’claim that non-equilibrium thermodynamicsexplains just about everything falls flat. For

A complex problem: can a need to reduce energy gradients help to drive the evolution of forests?

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example, consider a computer. No one woulddispute that a power supply is essential. Even fora perfectly efficient computer, thermodynamicstells us that it takes at least kT ln2 energy unitsto erase a bit, where T is the temperature and k is the Boltzmann constant. But the need forpower tells us nothing about what makes a laptop different from a washing machine. Tounderstand how a computer works, and what itcan and cannot do, requires the theory of com-putation, which is a logical theory that is dis-connected from thermodynamics. The powersupply can be designed by the same personwho designs them for washing machines.

The key point is that, although the secondlaw is necessary for the emergence of complexorder, it is far from sufficient. Life is inherentlyan out-of-equilibrium phenomenon, but thenso is an explosion. Something other than non-equilibrium thermodynamics is needed toexplain why these are fundamentally different.Life relies on the ability of matter to store infor-mation and to implement functional relation-

ships, which allow organisms to maintain theirform and execute purposeful behaviours thatenhance their survival. Such complex orderdepends on the rules by which matter interacts.It may well be that many of the details are notimportant, and that there are general principlesthat might allow us to determine when theresult will be organization and when it will bechaos. But this cannot be understood in termsof thermodynamics alone.

Understanding the logical and physicalprinciples that provide sufficient conditionsfor life is a fascinating and difficult problemthat should keep scientists busy for at least amillennium. Thermodynamics clearly playsan essential part, and it is appropriate that theauthors stress this — many accounts of the origin of life are easily rebutted on this point.But it isn’t the principal actor, just one of many.The others remain unknown. ■

J. Doyne Farmer is at the Santa Fe Institute, 1399 Hyde Park Road, Santa Fe, New Mexico87501, USA.

Biological Espionage: Special Operations ofthe Soviet and Russian Foreign IntelligenceServices in the Westby Alexander KouzminovGreenhill: 2005. 192 pp. £12.99, $19.95

Jens H. Kuhn, Milton Leitenberg & Raymond A. ZilinskasIn 1992, President Boris Yeltsin admitted thatthe former Soviet Union had supported a secretbiological-warfare programme, in violation ofthe Biological Toxin and Weapons Convention,which the Soviet Union ratified in 1975. Someof the researchers and officials who operatedthe programme, such as Ken Alibek, IgorDomaradskii and Serguei Popov, have providedpersonal accounts that shed light on the clan-destine system. However, the compartmental-ization and secrecy so prevalent in the formerSoviet Union mean that such accounts describeonly a fraction of the nation’s bioweapons pro-gramme. Almost nothing is known about thebiological-warfare activities of the Soviet min-istries of defence, health and agriculture, thesecurity agencies and the national academies.

As a result, any new information on the rolesof these agencies in the Soviet bioweaponsprogramme is welcomed by those who areconcerned about whether Russia is continuingwith its bioweapons programme. This is thebackdrop to the publication of a book byAlexander Kouzminov, a former KGB agent,who claims to provide new and importantinformation about the role of the KGB in theSoviet bioweapons programme. So, what dowe learn from it?

Kouzminov describes himself as a formeremployee of the top-secret Department 12 of

Directorate S, the élite inner core of the KGBFirst Chief Directorate, which was responsiblefor operations abroad. One of the responsibili-ties of this department was to oversee ‘illegals’— Russian intelligence operatives masquer-ading as Western nationals. Illegals weredeployed to spy on Western biodefence activi-ties, procure microbiological agents of interestfor Soviet bioweapons research and develop-ment, and to perform acts of bioterrorism andsabotage. Kouzminov was a case handler forseveral illegals, including some that allegedly

worked in a UK institute and at the WorldHealth Organization (WHO). He repeatedlyasserts that these illegals provided the SovietUnion with “significant” information.

Kouzminov does provide some informationon his agency’s work. He describes how West-erners were targeted for recruitment by theKGB, and discusses the recruitment processand the means whereby data collected byagents and illegals were transported from theWest to the Soviet Union. These procedureshave previously been described by defectorsand students of the Soviet intelligence system,and Kouzminov’s book adds little to the storyalready in the public domain. Disappointingly,it provides almost no information on how theKGB transformed the data into intelligence,and how this was then used.

According to Kouzminov, individuals weredeployed in the West and given numerousobjectives related to spying on national pro-grammes. For example, he describes a husband-and-wife team who, while operating a mockmedical practice in Germany, were told by the KGB “to establish the locations of allNATO installations; their command person-nel…air-force bases, and cruise-missile androcket sites”. It is doubtful that two individualscould accomplish all this. And Kouzminov’sexplanation that the KGB placed agents in theWHO to obtain information about the “devel-opment of vaccines against the most danger-ous human and animal viral diseases” seemsrather lame, given that anyone could obtainthis information simply by telephoning WHOrepresentatives.

The author further alleges that around 1980a KGB agent was placed inside the US ArmyMedical Research Institute of Infectious Dis-eases at Fort Detrick, Maryland, and thatanother agent was employed by an unnamedBritish institute (probably the National Institutefor Biological Standards and Control, whichwas not engaged in biodefence). What did theseagents do? Did they provide information aboutUS and UK defensive efforts that might be usedby the Soviet bioweapons programme? Didthey inform their superiors that neither countryactually had an offensive programme? Perhapsthey provided information on the developmentof vaccines that might have been useful to theSoviet defensive programme?

In fact, Kouzminov provides little informa-tion on the accomplishments of these and otheragents in the biological field. Nor does he iden-tify the Soviet research institutes with whichthe KGB allegedly collaborated in an effort tocreate more potent bioweapons, despite the factthat many of them are known today to Westernsecurity and academic communities.

Kouzminov describes himself as a biophysi-cist with a microbiological background, so it is surprising how many technical mistakeshe makes. For example, he misidentifies thebacteria Bacillus anthracis and rickettsiae asviruses, and misspells agents such as Francis-ella tularensis and Yersinia pestis.

Russia’s secret weapons

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In the dark: the bioweapons programme run fromKGB headquarters has remained largely secret.

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