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> I wasn't aware that people considered there to be a symmetry between heating and cooling

Same here. By analogy, while any chemical reaction is in principle reversible, the kinetics "forward" and "backward" are unlikely to be equally favorable.

Likewise, with atomic nuclei, fission and fusion tend to be favored under distinctly different conditions.

The article does mention "far from equilibrium." Could this be a caveat similar to "in mice"?

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No. This research is all about far from equilibrium systems, which also happens to be the realm of life. There IS symmetry near equilibrium, and I think a high school level of thermodynamics would expect it to be symmetric. In comparison with the high school chemistry which already considers enough phenomena to get meaningful asymmetry easily. I’m surprised at the level of surprise here, it seems motivated by some kind of certainty that I can’t tell the origin of.

My last sentence there, about a caveat, was silly of me, beyond mere HN affectation.

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