Technically a cell does reduce entropy in some cases (many subsystems do this), whereas the life form typically on the hole increases entropy in the environment, by creating heat. In building itself, a lifeforms stores energy in the chemical bonds making up fats and proteins etc, seemingly violating thermodynamics. In fact, as an animal cell metabolizes (burns) things to create these complex molecules, it creates heat in its surrounding environment, increasing entropy in the environmental system (while entropy decreases, or stays largely the same in the life form itself). I had the same question about this as well. Personally, I do not think the universe, as a system, has increasing entropy within it either, where mosts systems appear to, such as the earth, the amount of information to describe the earth at any given moment increases due to increasing populations. Without humans I am unsure whether the entropy of the earth would increase or fluctuate, since it can be argued that the universe is timeless, since the core recycles magma, the oldest rock theory is questionable.
Side Note:
With the age / size of the universe we appear to be in a sphere 14.6 billion light years across, Since pictures from stars (judged by redshift) to be about this age look like the beginning of the universe (forces unified, big bang). Personally, I think that redshift has been misinterpreted to signify velocity, where it actually only signifies distance, and the expansion theory is largely bunk. What actually is happening is that the radiation reaching us from 4.6 billion light years is phase shifted to a lower frequency in its travels, and sources further than that would only show up as random EM. Similarly, particles smaller than Planck's length will be immeasurable in our universe (EM cannot exist at wavelengths smaller than a nucleus.)
Side Note:
With the age / size of the universe we appear to be in a sphere 14.6 billion light years across, Since pictures from stars (judged by redshift) to be about this age look like the beginning of the universe (forces unified, big bang). Personally, I think that redshift has been misinterpreted to signify velocity, where it actually only signifies distance, and the expansion theory is largely bunk. What actually is happening is that the radiation reaching us from 4.6 billion light years is phase shifted to a lower frequency in its travels, and sources further than that would only show up as random EM. Similarly, particles smaller than Planck's length will be immeasurable in our universe (EM cannot exist at wavelengths smaller than a nucleus.)
More recently NASA physicists submitted an updated version of Steady State Theory which takes into account that black holes can eat matter, creating radiation. Radiation effects electron orbits, and the structure of space time. Between Black holes, and the spontaneous formation of hydrogen nuclei due to said radiation, a universe model is proposed that has infinite size, fluctuating local entropy, and fits all modern theoretical models. I am confused at the attractiveness of expansion theory.