A recently discovered law of physics could help predict genetic mutations

Posted: October 11, 2022 at 12:23 am

"The Covid data confirms the second law of infodynamics, and the research opens up unlimited possibilities. Imagine looking at a particular genome and judging whether a mutation is beneficial before it happens. This could be game-changing technology which could be used in genetic therapies, the pharmaceutical industry, evolutionary biology, and pandemic research," the researcher explained.

Vopson and Lepadatu's study claims that the observations directly contradict the second rule of thermodynamics' description of the evolution of physical entropy. This conclusion has far-reaching ramifications for many other branches of science.

"In physics, there are laws that govern everything that happens in the universe, for example, how objects move, how energy flows, and so on. Everything is based on the laws of physics," said Dr. Vopson.

"One of the most powerful laws is the second law of thermodynamics, which establishes that entropy a measure of disorder in an isolated system can only increase or stay the same, but it will never decrease."

This is an undisputed law linked to the arrow of time, demonstrating that time only moves in one direction. The lead author adds it can only flow in one direction and cannot go backward.

The study was first published in AIP Advances, a not-for-profit subsidiary of the American Institute of Physics (AIP).

One of the most powerful laws in physics is the second law of thermodynamics, which states that the entropy of any system remains constant or increases over time. In fact, the second law is applicable to the evolution of the entire universe and Clausius stated, The entropy of the universe tends to a maximum. Here, we examine the time evolution of information systems, defined as physical systems containing information states within Shannons information theory framework. Our observations allow the introduction of the second law of information dynamics (infodynamics). Using two different information systems, digital data storage and a biological RNA genome, we demonstrate that the second law of infodynamics requires the information entropy to remain constant or to decrease over time. This is exactly the opposite to the evolution of the physical entropy, as dictated by the second law of thermodynamics. The surprising result obtained here has massive implications for future developments in genomic research, evolutionary biology, computing, big data, physics, and cosmology.

Read this article:
A recently discovered law of physics could help predict genetic mutations

Related Posts