Oliver Morton: Not-So-Lonely Planet | NYT

The science of thermodynamics tells us that closed systems tend toward equilibrium, toward dullness, toward entropy. If the Earth were truly as isolated as it looks, that unavoidable tendency would be the lot of life. But the Earth is as open as the sky. Energy from elsewhere floods through it, creating endless chances for complexity and improbability, washing the world's entropy back into space. The flow of energy that unites almost every living creature on the planet is the same flow that connects our environment to the universe beyond.