PT - JOURNAL ARTICLE AU - Brett N. Augsburger TI - Nonequilibrium Thermodynamics and Fitness Costs Associated with Information Preservation May Explain Longevity Differences between Species AID - 10.1101/045633 DP - 2016 Jan 01 TA - bioRxiv PG - 045633 4099 - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2016/03/24/045633.short 4100 - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2016/03/24/045633.full AB - The aging process in most organisms is enormously complex, involving a multitude of integrated molecular pathways that define and modulate the gradual cellular, tissue and system-level changes that evoke the aging phenotype. Despite this sophistication, the root causes underlying the susceptibility of an organism to aging may be comparatively straightforward. Here, I posit that organismal aging can be explained using a three-legged framework derived from established principles of physics (nonequilibrium thermodynamics and Newtonian), evolutionary theory, and information theory. I suggest that this logic also demonstrates that aging is biologically inevitable. It is argued here that stipulations derived from the second law of thermodynamics and Newtonian mechanics may be critical in defining evolutionary fitness landscapes that vary according to the ability of the organism to resist the loss of data in information-encoding biomolecules (DNA), and in some organisms possibly other biocomponents subject to irreversible fidelity loss, and that this may largely explain the differences in longevity amongst many organisms.