The Cronin group have developed a new approach to complexity, which could help determine if objects such as molecules or artefacts were created by living systems. By this new approach, that we call ‘pathway-complexity’, it is possible to measure the complexity of an object by determining the minimum number of steps it would take to create the object from its simplest components, in which duplication of intermediate structures is permitted. By using this approach, we aim to set a threshold above which the number of steps required at a minimum would be so high that it would be unlikely or impossible for the object to form in abundance without the assistance of biological functions. The publication can be found on the Arxiv pre-print server