Matter, energy… knowledge: How to harness physics’ demonic power | New Scientist

Bookmarked Matter, energy… knowledge: How to harness physics' demonic power (New Scientist)

Running a brain-twisting thought experiment for real shows that information is a physical thing – so can we now harness the most elusive entity in the cosmos?

This is a nice little overview article of some of the history of thermodynamics relating to information in physics and includes some recent physics advances as well. There are a few references to applications in biology at the micro level as well.

References

Second Law of Thermodynamics with Discrete Quantum Feedback Control by Takahiro Sagawa and Masahito Ueda; Phys. Rev. Lett. 100, 080403 – Published 26 February 2008

Work and information processing in a solvable model of Maxwell’s demon by Dibyendu Mandal and Christopher Jarzynski; PNAS vol. 109 no. 29, July 17, 2012

Thermodynamic Costs of Information Processing in Sensory Adaptation by Pablo Sartori, Léo Granger, Chiu Fan Lee, and Jordan M. Horowitz; PLOS December 11, 2014
Intermittent transcription dynamics for the rapid production of long transcripts of high fidelity by Depken M1, Parrondo JM, Grill SW; Cell Rep. 2013 Oct 31;5(2):521-30. doi: 10.1016/j.celrep.2013.09.007

The stepping motor protein as a feedback control ratchet by Martin Bier; BioSystems 88 (2007) 301–307