Quantum Entanglement and Photosynthesis

medcalf writes "Scientists at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and UC Berkeley have experimentally shown that plants use quantum entanglement in photosynthesis. Researcher Mohan Sarovar said, 'The lessons we’re learning about the quantum aspects of light harvesting in natural systems can be applied to the design of artificial photosynthetic systems that are even better. The organic structures in light harvesting complexes and their synthetic mimics could also serve as useful components of quantum computers or other quantum-enhanced devices, such as wires for the transfer of information.' According to the article, 'What may prove to be this study's most significant revelation is that contrary to the popular scientific notion that entanglement is a fragile and exotic property, difficult to engineer and maintain, the Berkeley researchers have demonstrated that entanglement can exist and persist in the chaotic chemical complexity of a biological system.'"

Comments

Biodiversity Is Priceless

[Doc Ruby]

This research shows a broader point we should learn: every species that we extinct takes with it to oblivion some mechanisms for coping with the world that we could use ourselves. Not enough coping mechanisms to keep it fit to survive in the world we've made, but many mechanisms that go down with it.

Of course many species go extinct independent of human action (though with human action so pervasive, what species is entirely untouched by it?), but there's little we can do about them. The ones we make extinct through carelessness, wrong priorities and other waste are lost to us in our efforts to remain fit ourselves in the environment we're making.

Re:Biodiversity Is Priceless

[gregor-e]

99.999% of all species that ever existed are now extinct. Do you believe that 99.999% of all useful coping mechanisms are gone? And what does any of this have to do with the finding of quantum entanglement in photosynthetic systems?

Re:Biodiversity Is Priceless

[Hal_Porter]

Humans haven't yet made as big a mess as photosynthetic plants did 2.4 billion years ago.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Oxygenation_Event

Re:Biodiversity Is Priceless

[Alef]

I guess if you were living your entire life inside the Library of Alexandria, you would be burning books for fuel. Especially the "useless" ones written in a foreign language that you don't understand.

I think humans are blinded by the extraordinary diversity around us to the degree that we fail to realize how unique it is. And our life spans are too short for us to grasp what we are doing. We destroy things that have taken hundreds of millions of years to form in a generation without even reflecting on it. From a geological perspective, we are likely at par with some of the large impact events.

Re:Biodiversity Is Priceless

[jelizondo]

Please, please. I hate to see people one would suppose have a better understanding of mathematics that the average Joe Sixpack make stupid statements.

Saying X percentage of species have died because of human action assumes that we know how many total species there were at a given point in time, which is false. Even today we don’t know. Very frequently new species are found and some thought extinct are rediscovered.

What do we know of the big extinction events? Only what we can find on the fossil record. Given the constant churning of the Earth’s surface, that most of the crust is under water, that most of the crust is not conducive to fossilizing plant or animal remains, we can’t even begin to know how many species there were or how many went extinct.

Yeah, we may guess. But that’s all it is: a guess. Remember how many stars we thought there were one hundred years ago? Well, there you go, off by several orders of magnitude.

Re:Yet another nail in the coffin of vegetarianism

[maxwell demon]

Actually you can also eat fruits: While the fruits are from plants, they are explicitly produced by the plants to be eaten (because that way they spread). Just don't eat or destroy the seed. Throw them on earth, so they have a chance to grow.

The ubiquity of lab phenomena

[Lorien_the_first_one]

What happens in the lab is a very special situation that allows us to observe naturally occuring phenomena. What rarely is mentioned in the articles about particle physics discoveries, quantum entangled photosynthesis being the exception, is that the phenomena that has been discovered is happening all over the place, all the time. The lab allows us to see what has already been going on for a long time. A great example is the discovery of the neutrino. Giant pools of water buried deep in a mountain laced with scintillators, allow us to detect the neutrinos. Yet, neutrinos are passing straight through us and the earth all the time from the fusion process in the sun.

I think that this discovery is the first in a long series to show that quantum entanglement has common uses by life, and that life can use it to its advantage.