Biochemical controls: intracellular quantum actions (Introduction)

by David Turell , Saturday, September 09, 2023, 21:25 (439 days ago) @ David Turell

Molecules have quantum reactions:

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2390076-why-nature-is-the-ultimate-quantum-engineer/

"I started haphazardly reading about a protein that senses magnetic fields in a way I thought was only possible with high-tech quantum experiments. But there was no doubt: This was bona fide “quantum sensing”.

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"In biology, researchers historically took for granted that quantum effects must disappear, washed out in what Erwin Schrödinger called the “warm, wet environment of the cell”. Most scientists still believe biology can be adequately described by classical physics: No funky barrier crossings, no being in multiple locations simultaneously. (my bold)

"However, there is increasing evidence that biology uses quantum properties to function and optimally respond to external stimuli, as is the case with the protein that senses magnetic fields.

"The protein in question, like many, many others, senses magnetic fields because of something called a spin-dependent chemical reaction, involving both my favourite quantum object – the electron – and my favourite quantum property – spin.

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"Spin is distinctly quantum in nature, with particular magnetic fields being able to put a particle’s spin in a quantum state that encompasses both up and down simultaneously. This phenomenon is known as superposition.

"Some chemical reactions are influenced by the superposition states of specific electron spins. Since magnetic fields can affect these states, they can also impact the macroscopic outcomes of these reactions. And this is exactly how the protein works: It interacts with, or “senses”, very tiny magnetic fields using electron spin as a quantum detector. And it can do this all at room temperature, in a messy solution with millions of molecules; in other words, within an environment where quantumness is not expected to survive for long, let alone to be used as a resource.

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"Still, even though there is not yet a smoking gun proving that cells work this way, there is correlative evidence that electron spin-dependent chemical reactions do alter the function of living cells. Birds can sense Earth’s tiny magnetic field as a migratory cue. They seem to do so via a magnetosensitive protein called a cryptochrome – the very same protein that caught my attention all those years ago.

"There is also evidence that weak magnetic fields lead to physiological responses across the tree of life, in vertebrates, invertebrates, plants and bacteria. These effects range from changes in DNA repair rates and the production of cellular oxidants to neurological function and cell metabolism, to name a few. So much of the machinery of how cells work appears to be tweakable by weak magnetic fields in a quantum manner.

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"What is currently missing is a comprehensive understanding of exactly how different electron spin superposition states correspond to different physiological outcomes within a cell or tissue. But if we develop a quantum biology “codebook”, it could give us deterministic control over many of our physiological responses.

"In my lab, we are working on this codebook. We hope that it will eventually lead to simple electronic devices that could produce electromagnetic interventions for disease prevention and more.

"Humankind is only at the start of its journey to understand quantum mechanics. Over billions of years, nature has already become the ultimate quantum engineer."

Comment: the key to her article is that it tells us protein folding and reactions are accomplished by guidance from electromagnetic field influences. Biochemicals in cell fluids are not really free-floating but tightly controlled by these influences. And all of this is under direct genetic control monitoring automatic activity.