[Research suggests that quantum effects influence biological
functions. If true, this means that we could possibly control
physiological processes by using the quantum properties of biological
matter.]
[[link removed]]

SUNDAY SCIENCE: QUANTUM PHYSICS PROPOSES A NEW WAY TO STUDY BIOLOGY
– AND THE RESULTS COULD REVOLUTIONIZE OUR UNDERSTANDING OF HOW LIFE
WORKS  
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Clarice D. Aiello
May 15, 2023
The Conversation
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_ Research suggests that quantum effects influence biological
functions. If true, this means that we could possibly control
physiological processes by using the quantum properties of biological
matter. _

Looking at life at the atomic scale offers a more comprehensive
understanding of the macroscopic world., theasis/E+ via Getty Images

 

Imagine using your cellphone to control the activity of your own cells
to treat injuries and disease. It sounds like something from the
imagination of an overly optimistic science fiction writer. But this
may one day be a possibility through the emerging field of quantum
biology.

Over the past few decades, scientists have made incredible progress in
understanding and manipulating biological systems at increasingly
small scales, from protein folding
[[link removed]]
to genetic engineering
[[link removed]]. And
yet, the extent to which quantum effects influence living systems
remains barely understood.

Quantum effects are phenomena that occur between atoms and molecules
that can’t be explained by classical physics. It has been known for
more than a century that the rules of classical mechanics, like
Newton’s laws of motion, break down at atomic scales
[[link removed]].
Instead, tiny objects behave according to a different set of laws
known as quantum mechanics
[[link removed]].

Quantum mechanics describes the properties of atoms and molecules.

For humans, who can only perceive the macroscopic world, or what’s
visible to the naked eye, quantum mechanics can seem counterintuitive
and somewhat magical. Things you might not expect happen in the
quantum world, like electrons “tunneling” through
[[link removed]]
tiny energy barriers and appearing on the other side unscathed, or
being in two different places at the same time in a phenomenon called
superposition
[[link removed]].

I am trained as a quantum engineer
[[link removed]].
Research in quantum mechanics is usually geared toward technology.
However, and somewhat surprisingly, there is increasing evidence that
nature – an engineer with billions of years of practice – has
learned how to use quantum mechanics to function optimally
[[link removed]].
If this is indeed true, it means that our understanding of biology is
radically incomplete. It also means that we could possibly control
physiological processes by using the quantum properties of biological
matter.

Quantumness in biology is probably real

Researchers can manipulate quantum phenomena to build better
technology. In fact, you already live in a quantum-powered world
[[link removed]]:
from laser pointers to GPS, magnetic resonance imaging and the
transistors in your computer – all these technologies rely on
quantum effects.

In general, quantum effects only manifest at very small length and
mass scales, or when temperatures approach absolute zero. This is
because quantum objects like atoms and molecules lose their
“quantumness”
[[link removed]]
when they uncontrollably interact with each other and their
environment. In other words, a macroscopic collection of quantum
objects is better described by the laws of classical mechanics.
Everything that starts quantum dies classical. For example, an
electron can be manipulated to be in two places at the same time, but
it will end up in only one place after a short while – exactly what
would be expected classically.

Electrons can be in two places at the same time, but will end up in
one location eventually.

In a complicated, noisy biological system, it is thus expected that
most quantum effects will rapidly disappear, washed out in what the
physicist Erwin Schrödinger called the “warm, wet environment of
the cell [[link removed]].” To most
physicists, the fact that the living world operates at elevated
temperatures and in complex environments implies that biology can be
adequately and fully described by classical physics: no funky barrier
crossing, no being in multiple locations simultaneously.

Chemists, however, have for a long time begged to differ. Research on
basic chemical reactions at room temperature unambiguously shows that
processes occurring within biomolecules
[[link removed]] like proteins and genetic material
are the result of quantum effects. Importantly, such nanoscopic,
short-lived quantum effects are consistent with driving some
macroscopic physiological processes that biologists have measured in
living cells and organisms. Research suggests that quantum effects
influence biological functions, including regulating enzyme activity
[[link removed]], sensing
magnetic fields
[[link removed]], cell
metabolism [[link removed]] and electron transport
in biomolecules [[link removed]].

How to study quantum biology

The tantalizing possibility that subtle quantum effects can tweak
biological processes presents both an exciting frontier and a
challenge to scientists. Studying quantum mechanical effects in
biology requires tools that can measure the short time scales, small
length scales and subtle differences in quantum states that give rise
to physiological changes – all integrated within a traditional wet
lab environment.

In my work [[link removed]], I build instruments to
study and control the quantum properties of small things like
electrons. In the same way that electrons have mass and charge, they
also have a quantum property called spin
[[link removed]]. Spin defines
how the electrons interact with a magnetic field, in the same way that
charge defines how electrons interact with an electric field. The
quantum experiments I have been building since graduate school
[[link removed]], and now in my own lab, aim to
apply tailored magnetic fields to change the spins of particular
electrons.

Research has demonstrated that many physiological processes are
influenced by weak magnetic fields. These processes include stem cell
development [[link removed]] and maturation
[[link removed]], cell proliferation rates
[[link removed]], genetic material
repair [[link removed]] and countless
others [[link removed]]. These
physiological responses to magnetic fields are consistent with
chemical reactions that depend on the spin of particular electrons
within molecules. Applying a weak magnetic field to change electron
spins can thus effectively control a chemical reaction’s final
products, with important physiological consequences.

Birds use quantum effects in navigation.

Currently, a lack of understanding of how such processes work at the
nanoscale level prevents researchers from determining exactly what
strength and frequency of magnetic fields cause specific chemical
reactions in cells. Current cellphone, wearable and miniaturization
technologies are already sufficient to produce tailored, weak magnetic
fields that change physiology [[link removed]],
both for good and for bad. The missing piece of the puzzle is, hence,
a “deterministic codebook” of how to map quantum causes to
physiological outcomes.

In the future, fine-tuning nature’s quantum properties could enable
researchers to develop therapeutic devices that are noninvasive,
remotely controlled and accessible with a mobile phone.
Electromagnetic treatments could potentially be used to prevent and
treat disease, such as brain tumors
[[link removed]], as well as in
biomanufacturing, such as increasing lab-grown meat production
[[link removed]].

A whole new way of doing science

Quantum biology is one of the most interdisciplinary fields to ever
emerge. How do you build community and train scientists to work in
this area?

Since the pandemic, my lab at the University of California, Los
Angeles and the University of Surrey’s Quantum Biology Doctoral
Training Centre have organized Big Quantum Biology meetings
[[link removed]] to provide
an informal weekly forum for researchers to meet and share their
expertise in fields like mainstream quantum physics, biophysics,
medicine, chemistry and biology.

Research with potentially transformative implications for biology,
medicine and the physical sciences will require working within an
equally transformative model of collaboration. Working in one unified
lab would allow scientists from disciplines that take very different
approaches to research to conduct experiments that meet the breadth of
quantum biology from the quantum to the molecular, the cellular and
the organismal.

The existence of quantum biology as a discipline implies that
traditional understanding of life processes is incomplete. Further
research will lead to new insights into the age-old question of what
life is, how it can be controlled and how to learn with nature to
build better quantum technologies.[The Conversation]

Clarice D. Aiello
[[link removed]],
Quantum Biology Tech (QuBiT) Lab, Assistant Professor of Electrical
and Computer Engineering, _University of California, Los Angeles
[[link removed]]_

This article is republished from The Conversation
[[link removed]] under a Creative Commons license. Read
the original article
[[link removed]].

A NUMBER SYSTEM INVENTED BY INUIT SCHOOLCHILDREN WILL MAKE ITS SILICON
VALLEY DEBUT
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Math is called the “universal language,” but a unique dialect is
being reborn
By AMORY TILLINGHAST-RABY
April 10, 2023
SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN April 2023 Issue

* Science
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* biology
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* physics
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* quantum mechanics
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* magnetic fields
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* subatomic particles
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*
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