The Birth of Quantum Biology

Roland Piquepaille writes "Just when you finally have grasped the concept of quantum mechanics, it's time to wake up and to see the arrival of a nascent field named quantum biology. This is the scientific study of biological processes in terms of quantum mechanics and it uses today's high-performance computers to precisely model these processes. And this is what researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) are doing, using powerful computer models to reveal biological mechanisms. Right now, they're working on a "nanoswitch" that might be used for a variety of applications, such as targeted drug delivery to sensors."

Comments

Roland Piquepaille

[Anonymous Coward]

STOP SUCKING US DRY!!!

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Quantam bleep

[sporkme]

Sense of Smell Tied To Quantum Physics?

Animal, vegetable, mineral -- we are all made of matter.

How is this any different?

[dorpus]

Scientists have been building 3-D computer models of organic molecules since at least the 1980s, using the same equations to predict likely reactions. It sounds like plain biochemistry given a new window dressing.

Re:How is this any different?

[exp(pi*sqrt(163))]

Most of those models have used classical mechanics with really primitive ball and spring models and a bunch of ad hoc rules for bonding.

Re:How is this any different?

[wass]

Scientists have been modelling chemical systems within the quantum realm for almost a century now. The problem is that there are very few problems which can be exactly solved. Eg, the hydrogen atom is one of the few solvable ones, but in reality that's only solvable when ignoring all the fine structure corrections (no spin-orbit, relativistic, or spin-spin perturbations). Once you get to the 'difficult' problem of only a mere helium atom, which in its simplest form neglecting fine structure is 'only' two interacting electrons orbiting a nucleus that you model as just a point mass with charge +2e, things get very complicated very quickly. Now imagine modelling something more complicated like a benzen ring, then imagine an actual protein.

This isn't anything new per se, just that the complexity of the modelled systems is getting larger, and due to the numercal estimation processes needed to get anything remotely usable these realms haven't been accessible until lately with the increase of computing power. So where does one draw the line between physics, chemistry, biochemistry, and biology? In these cases, what's being modelled are primarily systems consisting of electrons, neutrons, and protons, interacting with Coulomb force (like-charges repel), spin-orbit interactions, spin-spin interactions, Pauli-exclusion principle, etc. Add more atoms, system gets more complicated, and needs bigger computers.

So it's an age-old problem, using almost age-old numerical techniques, running on new shiny computing clusters

Re:How is this any different?

[avelldiroll]

It sounds like plain biochemistry given a new window dressing. Not exactly ... there's actually something new here (2-3 years old in fact). There are 3 "levels" of Computational chemistry : - ab-initio method : a resolution of the Schrödinger equation for the studied system with only a few approximations mandatory to solve problem more complex than the hydrogen atom. This method is fairly demanding on number crunching power and is applied on models of hundreds of atoms. - semi-empirical method : this method is based on the Hartree-Fock method used in ab-initio with the inclusion of approximation issued from experimental data. This method is applied on models of thousands of atoms. - molecular mechanics : this method uses drastic approximations in order to obtain a Newtonian system (linear system of equations). The major drawback of this method is that it does not allow chemical reactions, but conformational changes may be studied in solvated systems. This method may be used to model system of 100.000s atoms. This method was mainly developed to study biological systems (a middle sized solvated protein gives a system of 100.000 atoms) because a lot of biological phenomenons may be explained conformational changes (life use the "soft" chemistry beautifully). However some biological mechanisms still involve some chemical reactions, and to describe those using today's computing power some techniques were developed in order to mix molecular mechanics and semi-empirical methods. In order to observe a localized reaction, only a small subset of the system is solved using the semi-empirical method, the remaining is solved using molecular mechanics. This is what is presented in the article ... This technique (QM/MM : quantum mechanics / molecular mechanics) was described and used as soon as 1995 but its use increased during the last 3 years due to the availability of the mandatory computing power ( http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=qmmm&hl=en&lr= &btnG=Search ). QMMM is not new, but its application field is widening ...

Re:How is this any different?

[jotok]

Not at all. Biology has the same structure-function paradox as every other discipline...so x-ray crystallographs won't tell you how the active site works, and chemical models don't tell you much about structure. This sounds a lot more like Bioinformatics, which is about modeling information flow in biological systems.

Re:How is this any different?

[jotok]

I've read that physics in general is a discipline in which you can figure out the way systems work relatively easily, but have a hard time accounting for specific forms or structures...so you have freshman ballistics problems that begin "Imagine a spherical or point-shaped cow launched from a catapult..." Is this why so few problem can be exactly solved? The more intricate the structure, the less the generalized functional model describes it?

Re:How is this any different?

[MoxFulder]

Being able to solve physics problems analytically depends a lot on what "symmetry". It's kind of a misleading term... basically what we physicists mean by symmetry is that a system is unchanged by changing the value of some property. So a square cut down the middle is symmetric in that both halves have the same shape. As a result we can solve problems involving the square without worrying about which half we're dealing with.

The "spherical cow" case is similar. A uniform-density sphere is great for ballistics problems because you can characterize it with only 2 parameters: its radius and its mass. If it's a realistic cow, it becomes a lot more complicated... its mass is distributed non-uniformly, and it's got a complicated shape (and it can move!!).

The real art in physics is figuring out when you can use approximations! If a cow is orbiting the moon, it's probably an excellent approximation to treat it as a sphere in order to determine its orbit. But if a cow is dropped off a cliff, it's not such a good approximation... since its air resistance will depend a lot on its shape.

Re:How is this any different?

[me_mi_mo]

Parent makes good points. However, most /. readers may not realise that there are a number of ways to approximately solve many of these problems. One of the most powerful is the so-called density functional theory. This is (in principle) a way of computing physical properties for (bio)chemical systems. It scales as the cube of the number of electrons in the system.

Using todays supercomputers, we can deal with about ten thousand atoms. So by Moores law, it takes eight years to double the number of atoms.

where does one draw the line between physics, chemistry, biochemistry, and biology?

Traditionally,

Physics: Solids, periodic systems.

Chemistry: A molecule or two.

Biochemistry: A few organic molecules.

Biology: Many organic molecules.

Re:How is this any different?

[wass]

Well, physics is much more than freshman ballistics problems, but you're correct in that the complexity becomes significantly more difficult. Eg, in elementary quantum mechanics one can build a 'Hamiltonian' for any system, and usually you approximate things such as excluding the Coulomb force between every set of electrons, and that neutrons, electrons, and protons act as tiny magnets so they interact that way, and that there are spin-relational effcts, etc. Each of these adds terms to the Hamiltonian, but usually there's a convergence as the correction terms are smaller and smaller and can be neglected. Actually, that's why QED is so easy but QCD gets harder, because secondary and higher interactions in QED have decreasing significance but no so much in QCD where things diverge.

So in some sense you know the basic 'laws' of the universe, and right now we have pretty reasonable understanding of most things, neglecting large scales (dark matter, dark energy) and large energies (Higgs boson, gravitons, etc). But for stuff within our local spheres of observation, we have basic laws that account for most things we can see, so we should theoretically be able to model anything in this frame. The problem is that it becomes super complex very quickly.

Okay, so why there are so few solvable problems is mathematical. Eg, in the hydrogen atom, we can easily solve the differential equation that comes from the Schrodinger equation. Ie, you write the kinetic energy as T=p^2/2m, you write the potential energy as U=-e^2/r, giving a total energy of E=p^2/2m - e^2/r. You should recognize this as the standard kinetic energy written using momentum instead of velocity, and the Coulomb potential energy between the electron and proton. The system is an electron orbiting a proton, and in the center-of-mass units r is the distance between the two, and m is the reduced mass, which is fairly close to the electron. This is all well and good, and when put into the realm of quantum mechanics, r and p go from being canonical coordinates to being canonical operators. When put into the position basis, the p operator acts as a derivative of the r coordinate, and this yields a differential equation that must be solved to give the eigenstates of the solution. The system is spherically-symmetric which makes things much easier, and after solving the three-dimensional 2nd-order differential equations you get the solutions of atomic orbitals that you probably studied about in high-school chemistry class.

Now this is the 'simple' system. When you start adding relativistic corrections to that kinetic energy and when you add the interaction of the electron's magnetic moment interacting with the magnetic field creating as it orbits the proton, this yields the fine structure. You can also add in the spin-spin interaction between the magnetic moment of the electron and the proton, which gives the hyperfine interaction. Each of these things makes the differential equations MUCH harder to solve, and at some point we just don't mathematically know how to solve these complex systems of equations. Helium atom gets much harder because there are now two position coordinates of each atom, and an extra Coulomb interaction term. This is a quantum three-body problem, and even in classical mechanics the three-body problem cannot be solved in general. Ie, there is no KNOWN exact solution for any three bodies.

Anyway, you can see where this is going. But while we cannot know exact solutions, we can approximate them numerically to arbitrarily-small precision (at least with classical mechanics where there is no uncertainty principle). This is where the shiny computers come in. We can model easily how 10 bodies orbit around the sun AND interact with each other, but to get a general algebraic solution of them for any point in time, we cannot do.

Re:How is this any different?

[jotok]

Wow, I'm surprised both by the depth of the answer and my own ability to understand it :)

So in essence we can get "good enough" approximations. Is there evidence that you can get significantly more explanatory power by trying to take into account all the additonal factors? Is it a problem of observation (data acq) or of processing power?

When I ask this I'm thinking of a note in Brian Goodwin's book How the Leopard Changed Its Spots, in which the author (very gently IMO) takes proponents of the Modern Evolutionary Synthesis (such as Dawkins) to task for ignoring additional factors that lend theories of evolution vastly increased explanatory power. Is this also going on in physics?

Re:How is this any different?

[wass]

in classical physics, which we know isn't fully valid, given a position and momentum at one instant of time for every particle in the system, and an understanding of the equations of motion of how those particles act with each other, you can figure out where the particles will be at any time in the future. well, you'll need numerical techniques to approximate, but you can get arbitrarily accurate. quantum is now differnt, you can only know position adn momentum within some finite uncertainty so it limits your ability to predict. interestingly enough, even for 10^23 molecules in classical realm, you cannot adequately predict them, too much processing power, especially for 100-200 years ago, that's what thermodynamics and statistical mechanics is about, to look at average ensemble characteristics of the system. eg, pressure, which makes no sense when talking about a single particle, but makes perfect sense in an ensemble average. I have no idea about what you're getting at regarding the Leopard/Spots book, although I vaguely recall something that it was characteristic of some kind of emergent behavior for the patterns of an underlying organizational layout on the skin. For topics on emergence, see Nobel laureate Laughlin's book. Or for what I'm talking about re spots, I believe this is covered to some degree in Wolfram's A New Kind of Science.

Re:How is this any different?

[Manchot]

I think I should clarify something in the parent's post. In a lot of situations, it's not just that we don't know the solution to a mathematical problem, it's that no general solution exists. (See the n-body problem for an example.) This is not the same thing as saying that a solution doesn't exist, it just means that no mathematical statement can fully solve the equations.

Re:How is this any different?

[amRadioHed]

But if a cow is dropped off a cliff, it's not such a good approximation... since its air resistance will depend a lot on its shape. Not that it makes any difference to the cow :)

Uncertainty principle and medicine

[Anonymous Coward]

So, when I am seriously ill and get quantum biology based medication, will I be in a superposition state of 'getting better' and 'dead'?

Re:Uncertainty principle and medicine

[cching]

Yes, until a someone diagnoses you :-P

Re:Uncertainty principle and medicine

[3waygeek]

Being in that state is nothing new.

The Birth of Quantum Biology

[Anonymous Coward]

Illiteracy was the root cause.

So Schrodinger's Cat...

[bluemonq]

...might or might not be dead; it also might or might not even exist???

Re:So Schrodinger's Cat...

[CommunistHamster]

Well, no. It may or may not have evolved, or it may have been Created(TM). Since we do not know, we must consider both to be true. Finally, a solution to that debate.

DISCLAIMER: No, I am not a creationist.

Curious

[Normal Dan]

If they can simulate proteins by simulating individual atoms in the protein, I wonder if they have the computing power to simulate a basic cell using the same process. And/Or, I wonder if they can simulate a large random chunk of atoms to see if they can create simple amino acids and other biological molecules. That would be an interesting step toward learning about the origins of life.

Re:Curious

[jotok]

It's not really an issue of computing power. Analyzing the structure and function (behavior) of a system are two radically different things, sadly, and while a complete understanding of one really doesn't help you a whole hell of a lot with the other, you need both to really grasp the nature of the system. One great example of this is ant colony behavior: the ants interact in ways that are not readily apparent simply from studying isolated ants, leading to patterns in movement (in time as well as in space because they rest and work on the same schedule).

Doesn't work

[Intron]

I tried firing hundreds of cats through two narrow slits and I didn't get interference patterns.

Re:Doesn't work

[snarfbot]

lol that was the best comment ever

Re:Doesn't work

[spun]

Check your data and methodology. I've found that when the distance seperating the two slits is less than one cat-length, a single cat fired at the slits can interfere with itself, as evidenced by the distinctive banding in the blood spatters. Of course, if the slits are further than one cat-length apart, no interference patterns appear. Then all you get is a cat-ass-trophy.

Re:Doesn't work

[Sponge Bath]

What is the wave function for a meowon under these conditions?

Re:Doesn't work

[Abcd1234]

You, sir, should be ashamed of yourself!

Re:Doesn't work

[Tablizer]

I tried firing hundreds of cats through two narrow slits and I didn't get interference patterns.

But the cat fries it generates are deeelicious! My dog especially loves 'em.

Re:Doesn't work

[Original Replica]

wave=goodbye meowon:impact

Re:Doesn't work

[kmac06]

We aren't quite up to interfering cats yet, but a relatively large biological molecule (porphyrin) has been successfully made to interfere with itself.

Re:Doesn't work

[Anonymous Coward]

There is a rat in separate.

Very funny...

[xENoLocO]

Isn't this just a geeky way of saying "small anatomy" ?

If that's the case, I invented this 26 years ago!

Re:Did someone say Quantum Biology?

[JeanPaulBob]

Just doesn't carry the same sex-appeal as Quantum Physics.

Same-sex appeal? I didn't know quantum physicists were mostly gay...

i'm not sure what you mean by 'small anatomy'...

[stormeru]

but I can assure you that at least one part of my anatomy is above the average!

Small Anatomy

[Anonymous Coward]

You walked right into that one.

Re:Small Anatomy

[xENoLocO]

That was kind of the point... lol

1966

[Bowling Moses]

A quick search turned up an article from 1966 which suggests quantum tunneling in a protein, so the idea of quantum mechanics in biology isn't all that new (and probably predates the article). Disclaimer: I've only read the abstract, I don't do research in that area, those without a university hookup might not get to read it even if they really wanted to.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Required training for Schrodinger's vet

[Eternal Vigilance]

"Mommmm! There are two particles in the front yard...and they look like they're quantum entangled."

Re:Required training for Schrodinger's vet

[$RANDOMLUSER]

OMFG!!!

What a brilliant idea - "Schrodinger's vet (bill)" - finally - a way to combine Schrodinger's cat and Bistromathematics:
to whit:

"What will Schrodinger's vetrinarian charge you, depending on whether the cat is dead or alive".

The field is at least thirty years old

[Anonymous Coward]

Quantum chemistry has been applied to biological problems for decades. Thitry years ago, while in graduate school. I had two colleagues involved in such projects, their PhD theses dealt with quantum biochemistry. Sure, today there are better computers, etc. There is a quantitative difference, not a qualitative improvement.

Mod parent up

[3vi1]

He may have seen the dash between the wrong two words, but that is +5 hela-funny.

Modeling PROTON tunneling?

[Ungrounded Lightning]

Sounds like RPI has made a bigger breakthrough than claimed.

Overhyped

[AFairlyNormalPerson]

"This is the scientific study of biological processes in terms of quantum mechanics and it uses today's high-performance computers to precisely model these processes."

Precisely modeling these processes? Biggest overstatement EVER. Total hype.
When looking at large systems you are screwed and you can generally screw yourself in 1 of 2 ways:
1) Preciesly model few configurations, in which case, your results are not comparable to reality, which is an ensamble average over billions of configurations
2) Model things in an emprirical/semi-empirical, yet surprisingly CRUDE way: allowing one to sufficiently sample phase space, but not in an analytically useful way.

Quantum mechanics in biological systems are typically done with QM/MM, where the "QM" is semi-EMPIRICAL, i.e., it takes parameters. These methods and parameters were NOT designed with biological systems in mind. They were chosen to reproduce small molecule heats of formation. People have found that they work poorly for biological studies unless they are reparametrized (quite frankly, you need to know "the answer" in order to get "the answer" "right") or unless other post-priori, ad hoc corrections are applied. Only a small portion of people who use QM/MM actually reparatrize the semiempirical method and those who do find the new parameters are not very transferable for use between different types of biological systems. For crying out loud, most semiempirical hamiltonians don't even provide the functional forms needed for some of the most basic molecular interactions, e.g., London dispersion, proper polarization to external fields, hydrogen bonding, orthogonalization errors in torsional barriers, etc..

This stuff isn't really new and it's extremely overhyped.

Re:Overhyped

[the_psilo]

This stuff isn't really new and it's extremely overhyped.

I agree on the overhype. What the article fails to properly elucidate is that this is a common expansion of existing molecular modeling techniques. All modern molecular modeling simulations are based on equations of force and motion experienced by the individual atoms. Even with "simple" interactions such as electrostatics, the equations are often rendered into power series approximations of the more complicated higher order equations. This makes it easier to do computationally intensive calculations by dropping the latter parts of the power series. In addition, some forces just are not modeled. These decisions are based on the computational expense of evaluating each of the force equations. As computers get more powerful, more of these dropped factors can be added back into the set of field equations.

Certainly there are difficulties in optimizing the mathematics to add new equations to the field set, as would be the case for modeling proton tunneling or sharing. A field that takes these factors into account is a great step forward. One of the biggest problems with modeling of biochemical systems is the lack of accurate accounting of hydrogen bond interactions. Some molecular fields are better than others, but most rely on a fudging of partial charge electrostatics by weighting interactions that have the features of a hydrogen bond (angle, distance, components). Hydrogen bonds are not easy to model, because they are a strange partial bond between covalent and ionic bonds.

That the researchers of this linked article have begun to include factors that could account for more computationally intensive quantum mechanic evaluations in their molecular modeling field is an exciting step for biophysical computation. It is not, however, a groundbreaking combination of quantum physics and biology like the article and slashdot abstract/title suggest. These fields already lie within a shared spectrum, and the connections outlined in this article are not a novel discovery of connection, but a novel utility of an already established connection.

aloha
psilo

Re:Overhyped

[Anonymous Coward]

I totally agree. I am a computational chemist who uses QM/MM modelling of biological systems and the field is definitely not new. It is an exciting field of scientific study with a lot of promise, and I do commend the scientists involved for popularising their research. The best thing about this type of science is that it combines the best parts of chemistry, physics, maths and computer science. In my opinion, the biggest challenge at the moment is how do we (a) increase the detail (expense) of the QM calculation, so that the energy of the biological molecule is calculated accurately, while (b) reducing the computational expense of the calculation so that billions of configurations of the molecule can be evaluated so that we can get a handle on the entropy. Given that we are dealing with tightly coupled equations that scale with N^5 and above, just buying more and bigger computers is not a solution... ;-)

Re:Overhyped

[Anonymous Coward]

post-priori? That means after-before. The opposite of a priori is a posteriori

Re:Overhyped

[jotok]

Isn't there some value in trying to apply the methods? Most of the advances in analytical technique in biology in the past 100 years seem to have been applications of techniques that originated in physics and engineering circles.

Re:Overhyped

[DerangedAlchemist]

Quantum mechanics in biological systems are typically done with QM/MM, where the "QM" is semi-EMPIRICAL, i.e., it takes parameters. These methods and parameters were NOT designed with biological systems in mind. They were chosen to reproduce small molecule heats of formation. People have found that they work poorly for biological studies unless they are reparametrized (quite frankly, you need to know "the answer" in order to get "the answer" "right") or unless other post-priori, ad hoc corrections are applied.
By the sounds of it, you are just parameterizing yourself practically back to MM with fudged factors to allow bond-breaking etc. Are you saying QM/MM cannot be used to predict an enzyme mechanism? Is this a limit of current quantum theory or a limit because of calculation times? I'd appreciate any good recent references.

Re:Overhyped

[Anonymous Coward]

The beauty of QM/MM simulations is that you can use MM to find the relatively few conformations that are worthy of full QM analysis. MM simulations do a pretty good job of predicting biologically relevant conformers. With that information you can then do full blown QM simulations on selected conformers to predict/model covalent chemistry. This approach has been particularly successful at modeling hydrogen tunneling (see the works of Prof. Truhlar at the U. of Minnesota). Suggesting that current efforts are irrelevant because you can't model all possible conformers in QM detail is just plain inaccurate.

Re:Overhyped

[AFairlyNormalPerson]

It's more accurate than what most people believe because they spend so much time jerking each other off.

That's the big variational transistion state theory guy, right? Pay special attention to the details of how those potential energy surfaces are contructed - especially from the groups at that university. All of their QM/MM results match experiment almost perfectly (because after doing a QM/MM simulation they either "correct" the resulting "potential of mean force" curves or "correct" the effective PES obtained from simulation such the corrections cause the correct answer to be obtained.) In other cases, they parameterize the models until they get the answer that they wanted to get.

Wanted to get X, but get Y. OK. Let Z=(X-Y) and call Z a correction. In most any context, it's called cheating, but for QM/MM, it's the norm.

Re:Overhyped

[heinousjay]

Doesn't everything happen after before?

Re:Overhyped

[Anonymous Coward]

"Time is nature's way of making sure everything doesn't happen all at once."

Wasn't this an Episode...

[ubuwalker31]

Wasn't this an episode of Star Trek???

Teh awesome

[scwizard]

The direction that the parent should be modded is up.

Cool

[Timesprout]

I was never totally sure I was a sprout.

just quoting the article

[kirils]

I think that "in terms of quantum mechanics" we do not have any "high-performance computers" yet.

hot for teacher

[Anonymous Coward]

My biology teacher demonstrated biological entanglement on me in her apartment. It was spooky.

Great work but not quite Quantum Biology

[jackelfish]

I think that the term Quantum Biology is somewhat misleading in this instance. I do not think that we are anywhere close to being able to simulate anything at the biological level Quantum Mechanically (QM). Well simulate it and obtain reliable data anyways. In the field of Molecular Modeling, we have a pretty good grasp of how to simulate an entire protein at the atomistic level (MM). Right now Quantum Mechanical simulations can provide us with reasonable answers for systems of something like 400 to 4000 atoms, such as the switch described in the article, but not the whole protein. So for the time being QM is really only effective for small specialized systems involving chemical reactions, such as this.

Puhleease: Put Roland Piquepaille blog elsewhere

[viking80]

would like to just suggest a link to Roland Piquepailles blog somewhere where those who are interested can click. And *no more articles please*

I read /. to get real news and facts, and see discussions from people with insight.
Roland Piquepailles submissions has not met this criterium. At least filter away the combination "Piquepailles", "nano" and "quantum".

Take a bottle of nano-beer (yes the water molecules are nano particles), eat some nano-pretzels (the baking soda produced a nano-gas that puffed them up), and run this script.

Here is one of many greasemonkey script to remove piquepaille stories
http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/5735/

You should mod this up if you agree or mod away as flamebait/offtopic/troll if you dont agree, but at least mod it.

Relation with condensed matter physics

[Anonymous Coward]

Condensed matter quantum mechanics and quantum chemistry and biochemistry are related fields. Condensed matter theory is much cleaner, chemical and biochemical theorists use many empirical approaches, and physicists are very critical about whatever they are doing.

Instead of attempting 'ab initio' computations it is better to combine theory with experiment, for example use sppectroscopical data as a starting point. This approach works fairy well for small molecules; unfortunately is not appropriate for large molecules.

Hmmm...

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you have to seal them inside some sort of box with cyanide and a radioactive particle first. Better ask Schroedinger? :-)

Misleading article summary

[MillionthMonkey]

Just when you finally have grasped the concept of quantum mechanics

My physics professors always made fun of people who talked like this. Nobody has ever "finally grasped the concept of quantum mechanics".

Anesthesia

[Anne_Nonymous]

>> The Birth of Quantum Biology

Won't need an epidural for that.

Re:Puhleease: Put Roland Piquepaille blog elsewher

[fossa]

"Here is one of many greasemonkey script to remove piquepaille stories." Apparently it doesn't work very well...?

So... How much processing power do you want?

[Colin Smith]

This isn't anything new per se, just that the complexity of the modelled systems is getting larger, and due to the numercal estimation processes needed to get anything remotely usable these realms haven't been accessible until lately with the increase of computing power http://boinc.berkeley.edu/

Re:Did someone say Quantum Biology?

[metlin]

Same-sex appeal? I didn't know quantum physicists were mostly gay...

Oh, they are just not sure - nobody's opened the closet yet to find out. =)

HyperNanoQuantumium

[bananaendian]

1. Find a way to prefix the terminology in your research with Hyper-, Nano-, or Quantum-..
   
2. ??? (not necessary)
   
3. Profit!!!
   

I think Hyper- has gone out of fashion recently just like Super- went out of fashion long time ago. Our university still has a department called Hypermedialab - now it just sounds so 90's and cheese...

Incidently I'm looking for a grant for my biology research on Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious-cells...

Sincerely
Dr. Johann Gambolputty de von Ausfernschplendenschlittercrasscrenbonfrieddiggerd ingledangledongledunglebursteinvonknackerthrashera pplebangerhorowitzticolensicgranderknottyspelltink legrandlichgrumblemeyerspelterwasserkurstlichhimbl eeisenbahnwagengutenabendbitteeinnürnburgerbratwus tlegerspurtenmitzweimacheluberhundsfutgumberabersh önedankerkalbsfleischmittleraucher von Hautkopft of Ulm?

Re:Puhleease: Put Roland Piquepaille blog elsewher

[forkazoo]

It flags the submissions so you don't accidentally click on the links and support his advertising, and it strips the text so you don't have to bother reading it. I use it on most of my systems and heartily reccomend it.

I've always wondered about this

[Xest]

I'm certainly no biologist or quantum physicist for that matter, but I have this habit of pondering about things and trying to find explanations for the weird and wonderful in our lives. I generally don't beleive in ghosts, aliens, god, psychic powers and so forth but I do try to debate with myself as to how these things could be possible because well, to me that seems the best way of deciding whether I do or don't beleive in something.

One of the things I've wondered about in the past is that of supposed psychic powers and that of twins supposedly being able to tell when each other is in pain or some other state even when thousands of miles apart. Could it be that we as humans can communicate at a quantum level however far apart we are, much like the whole "spooky action at a distance" thing? Is this the kind of thing that quantum biology might cover?

As I say, please don't flame me as a complete nut job, this is a random uneducated idea, and well this topic seemed a pretty relevant one to put forward my pondering to see if anyone can totally debunk it or say whether this sort of thing could potentially be possible! ;)

Re:I've always wondered about this

[exp(pi*sqrt(163))]

The theory that predicts the existence of "spooky action at a distance" is the same theory that predicts you can't use it to communicate - in the sense that there is no instantaneous transmission of usable information.

But suppose there were some fancy physics that could form the basis for direct brain-to-brain communication. What would have happened during natural selection? If such a mechanism were available, surely it would have been selected for over speech. Speech requires years before users master it and is limited by the transmission of sound. If you could short circuit that then you'd have a considerable advantage. Telepaths would have wiped the floor with us normals millions of years ago.

Re:I've always wondered about this

[susano_otter]

Maybe the telepaths have wiped the floor with us normals, and we just haven't noticed because we have no way of snooping their planning meetings.

Maybe the curent world situation is a mess of the telepaths' making, to keep us normals distracted while they hang out in their clubhouse with their cigars and champagne and telepathic passwords.

Re:I've always wondered about this

[Anonymous Coward]

Posting this AC for obvious reasons, but I personally know that people /can/ have subconscious 'psychic' links. What I've personally experienced is nothing like what you'll generally see in sci-fi novels, and I don't personally know how to control it, but I'll try to describe my experiences. Sometimes my mother speaks my thoughts. I don't mean that we both observe something and she makes a comment that I happened to be thinking; I mean sometimes I almost interrupt her to say something tangential, then don't, then the next word out of her mouth is a sort of Freudian slip in which she transplants the first word I was thinking in place of the next logical word in her sentence (because of the context, this sometimes is an understandable slip [like saying "brother" instead of "son"], but other times, really not. The most memorable [and funny] example is when I accidentally made her say "communist" instead of "raccoon".) Something I have noticed about almost all of the times these slips happen is that I was almost always absolutely on the cusp of saying something, then decided not to (usually out of politeness). Also, she is either speaking or at a small pause where she's trying to gather words. I have the perception that something about these mental states triggers whatever transfer takes place, but it's too subtle and I'm not sure how to recreate it deliberately, if it's even possible. It always seems like a subconscioius, generally automatic part of her mind is flipping through her mental rolodex of words to use, then whatever came out of my brain hit off something that sounded very much like decisiveness, and then puts it to action as speech before she gets the chance to go over it consciously. I've supposed sometimes that one might hypothetically learn to consciously bring about or extend these sorts of mental phases through something like biofeedback, but I've personally never had the time, patience, or resources to try. I feel I should note that this also happens with people who aren't my mother. My brother is the second-most frequent accidental speaker, though I've had this effect on people I've only known briefly as well. I have, rarely, spoken my mother's thoughts as well, but it's far less frequent (partly, I think, because I almost never speak on impulse). Aside from these obvious word transpositions, I've also had the experience (which I've also heard of others having) in which I'm sitting in utter silence with someone and they bring up something related to what I was just thinking about, without any evident outside stimulus to incite the subject. It feels like it operates the same way the other does, but I find it interesting that I've heard other people mention experiencing the same. As far as people knowing when people close to them are pain, isn't that generally accepted as normal anymore? There seems to be plentiful anecdotal evidence of it, and not just from new age whackjobs either. All in all, I'm not sure if these occurances are to do with quantum biology or something else, and I'm afraid I'm no more qualified than you in my speculation. Still, it is fun to think about!

Re:I've always wondered about this

[bh_doc]

The theory that predicts the existence of "spooky action at a distance" is the same theory that predicts you can't use it to communicate - in the sense that there is no instantaneous transmission of usable information.

Entanglement (this "spooky action at a distance") can, however, be used to increase (double, in fact) the bandwidth of classical communication. See superdense coding. It can be argued that since we can communicate classical information at the speed of light without entanglement, superdense coding allows us to communicate the same information at (effectively) twice lightspeed. This seems to violate relativity but, of course, there must be an entanglement established first.

Re:I've always wondered about this

[bemoosed]

But suppose there were some fancy physics that could form the basis for direct brain-to-brain communication. What would have happened during natural selection? If such a mechanism were available, surely it would have been selected for over speech. Speech requires years before users master it and is limited by the transmission of sound. If you could short circuit that then you'd have a considerable advantage. Telepaths would have wiped the floor with us normals millions of years ago.

Supposing there were such fancy physics, suppose it's an extremely weak effect, or extremely weak in terms of the systems in question. If such were the case, perhaps it's already been selected for as an extremely mild enhancement of perceptual and communication mechanisms.

Re:I've always wondered about this

[exp(pi*sqrt(163))]

Quantum teleportation allows you to piggy-back qubits on bits. But you're conflating two different senses of speed. Quantum teleportation might, in some sense, be used to increase information rate, but that is entirely different from the speed of a message. (Think of trucks full of hard drives. High data rate, low signal speed.) So there's no sense in which anything is being sent at twice lightspeed.

Re:Puhleease: Put Roland Piquepaille blog elsewher

[aztektum]

Surely the new tagging system could be used to let people filter stories rather than relying on the /. crew to find time between posting dupes, slashvertisements and poorly edited hyperbole, to add new categories. For a site that is all about technology it sure feels archaic and behind the times anymore.

Re:Puhleease: Put Roland Piquepaille blog elsewher

[emurphy42]

First, unlike most RP submissions, this one doesn't have a link to his blog. Second, this article uses "nano" and "quantum" in the appropriate sense of "treating the materials as relatively large homogenous blocks is not a good-enough estimate for the non-trivial purpose at hand".

There's a place for your rant, but this submission is not it.

Re:Did someone say Quantum Biology?

[PitaBred]

If they did open the closet, did it stop existing? Or did they just find out it was really dead all along?

Penrose

[Deviant Q]

Roger Penrose has been advocating quantum mechanics (or rather, quantum gravity) as the key to understanding the brain for some time. It's pretty hard to believe, and a lot of people dismiss him out of hand. However, if you read his entire book Shadows of the Mind, you might agree with me that he could be correct.

Another book I read on the subject a long time ago was The Quantum Brain, by Jeffrey Satinover.

HOW IS THIS A TROLL??

[MoxFulder]

Mods, are you on crack? The parent has made a perfectly valid point about the limited physical sophistication of many models of biochemical processes. Definitely not a troll...

Re:HOW IS THIS A TROLL??

[exp(pi*sqrt(163))]

I think many people really don't appreciate how difficult quantum simulations are. I was pretty surprised when I worked in pharmaceuticals for a bit and saw how much CPU time was being expended on fundamentally simple ball-and-stick simulations. (Ball-and-stick seemed to be standard terminology, even though it looks like a derogatory term.) I was also pretty shocked by how many tunable parameters there were - mainly because things like bonds were added ad hoc rather than emerging naturally from the simulation. Bonding is fundamentally a quantum phenomenon so it can never emerge from a classical simulation without being explicitly added as a kind of spring. And because bonding doesn't really make sense in a classical context, it actually behaves very differently from any kind of spring, and that's why you have to keep tuning the spring parameters to make things look reasonable.

But when I realised how hard quantum simulations could be it started seeming reasonable again. Quantum simulations aren't just an order of magnitude more difficult. The order of magnitude of difficulty can itself be an order of magnitude bigger!

Re:Did someone say Quantum Biology?

[JabberWokky]

As a quantum chemist, my wife (and all associates) tend to prefer the term "quantum mechanics" rather than "quantum physics". I've noticed that seems to be the term used in papers anyway.

.

I also wonder how this is at all new... she models inter-molecular protein reactions using high speed computers and the field has been doing so for quite awhile. The code is in Fortran77, as that seems to be the popular language for such research. It's not that it's not an interesting field, it's just not really a "nascent field" (at least as described by the term "using powerful computer models to reveal biological mechanisms"). news.rpi.edu, alas, appears to be suffering right now, and nobody has posted a mirror.

--
Evan

Roland Piquepaille

[Anonymous Coward]

It doesn't have to be new to apply Roland Piquepaille's formula for success:

1.) Search for technical papers using science buzzwords like "quantum" and "chemistry"
2.) Right up a summary full of ambiguous phrases implying this is something radical and new, while to trying to avoid revealing you don't have a clue what the original source actually says.
3.) Post said summary on slashdot, linking to your personal blog
4.) Reap the advertising profits

Note that Rolland's story is long and colorful. He no longer plagiarizes material directly on his site, and he gives credit to the original sources, but his summaries are still useless and typically misleading. I did notice this latest one actually links to the source, leaving only the link on his name to go to his site.

Re:Did someone say Quantum Biology?

[Anonymous Coward]

If someone opened the closet to observe the physicists' sexuality, would that observation change the outcome?

Your so wrong... he obviously never met...

[antirelic]

Dr. Gene Ray, Cubic and Wise Above God.

Wrong Name

[Curunir_wolf]

I can't believe they are calling this "quantum biology". It has nothing whatsoever to do with quantum mechanics. They are not studying sub-atomic particles, and quantum effects to *NOT* apply to reactions between among atoms and molecules. They are looking at classical processes, and possible have moved slightly out of chemistry into physics, but certainly not into quantum physics.

They may be looking at smaller things, but not small enough to consider quantum effects. I wonder if the scientists themselves are calling it that, because if so, it's pretty irresponsible. Or maybe they are just trying to stir up some "buzz" to increase their funding or something. Terrible.

Re:Wrong Name

[GerryHattrick]

Yes, and it's especially dangerous because it will be ignorantly quoted in support of the 'quantum healing' snake-oil ripoffs that are taking over the fey fringes from the galvanic, magnetic and 'radionic' gizmos of an earlier century.

Proteome

[SoVeryTired]

Quantum biology? Are they maybe getting a bit ahead of themselves? Someone give me a shout once they crack the proteome.

Who let Roland the Plogger have a blog link?

[Animats]

It's Roland the Plogger, trolling for his blog again. For a while, Slashdot was careful about not letting him get a link to drive traffic to his blog, but somebody slipped up.

Re:Did someone say Quantum Biology?

[mkarcher]

Man, that's a sweet ass-car you've got there.

Right...

[Quiet_Desperation]

They plan to precisely model quantum mechanical events? Yeah, good luck with that one.

Re:Right...

[flyingfsck]

Hmm, I'd like to see a precise model of the uncertainty principle...

Evolution of Quanty bio

[partowel]

Up has relations with down.

Charm is attracted to strange.

electrons are born with captain proton.

Lepton really likes to boogie with electro man.

Gravity dances with nukeee and has a higg boson.

Then the great barrier of imam happens.

* boom *

MODS

[TapeCutter]

That's not only funny, it's profound.

Re:Did someone say Quantum Biology?

[TapeCutter]

Your wife may enjoy this animation from some talented Harvard microbiologists, peace :)

Re:Did someone say Quantum Biology?

[pakar]

Well, they are both gay and straight, existing in multiple states is natural in the quantum world :)

Whats the difference...

[mlush]

between a car mechanic and a quantium mechanic? one of the two dosn't have to open the garage door (but your still not sure which)

Schrodengers Closet?

[Lord Prox]

If someone opened the closet to observe the physicists' sexuality, would that observation change the outcome?

No, it will not change the outcome. While the biologist is still in the closet unobserved they are both straight and gay at the same time. Note: this is different than bi, this is poly-phasic probabilistic sexuality. Only when the biologist is dragged out of the closet and observed will the quantum wave function collapse into a determined outcome.

This also begs for a joke about "entanglement" that I am going to pass on.

Re:Did someone say Quantum Biology?

[amRadioHed]

That reminds me of the time when seeing a rip in the back of my friends khakis I remarked "Hey, there's a big-ass hole in your pants." The humor of that comment didn't occur to me until everyone in the office started cracking up. =)

Re:Puhleease: Put Roland Piquepaille blog elsewher

[khallow]

For what it's worth, I tag every RP story I come across with the tag "rolandpiquepaille" and I'm not the only one. At least, they're labeled directly.

Re:Puhleease: Put Roland Piquepaille blog elsewher

[Anonymous Coward]

Where his name is listed as the submitter is a link to his blog.

Your point is pretty much valid, but still doesn't account for the fact that his writing is still horrible. Basically he took something that wasn't news, wrote a summary that suggested it was a major development while at the same time revealing his complete lack of understanding on the topic.

No - the Cat's Schrodinger...

[flyingfsck]

...actually, a person doesn't own a cat, the cat honors one with his presence. Therefore, it is more accurately described as the Cat's Schrodinger and the whole conjecture should be reversed.