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Quantum Entanglement and Photosynthesis

Posted by Soulskill on from the it's-not-easy-being-green dept.

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.'"

34 of 129 comments (clear)

  1. No details but interesting by mangu · · Score: 2, Interesting

    TFA is very sparse on details, but has interesting implications.

    The difficulty in achieving entanglement comes from the system being perturbed at random from thermal vibrations. It's not clear in the articlehow this is achieved in photosynthesis, but if quantum entanglement can be preserved at ambient temperatures this could have awesome implications for quantum computers.

    Not needing cryogenic conditions would be a huge step towards a desktop quantum computer.

    1. Re:No details but interesting by jmizrahi · · Score: 3, Interesting

      The difficulty in achieving entanglement comes from the system being perturbed at random from thermal vibrations.

      That's not quite accurate. The difficulty in achieving entanglement comes from the inherent difficulty in isolating a quantum system from its environment. In the case of ion trap quantum computing, for example, this isolation is achieved through an ultra high vacuum. Ultra high vacuum has its own difficulties, but does not require cryogenics.

    2. Re:No details but interesting by smaddox · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Actually, depending on how you achieve ultrahigh vacuum, it might. Cryopumps are pretty standard for maintaining ultrahigh vacuum, and can be used to get there from the milliTorr regime.

  2. Biodiversity Is Priceless by Doc+Ruby · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.

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    make install -not war

    1. Re:Biodiversity Is Priceless by gregor-e · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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?

    2. Re:Biodiversity Is Priceless by Doc+Ruby · · Score: 2, Insightful

      There will be variations in how photosynthesis is encoded in different species, and some species will be better models for mimicking with artificial devices. When we make those species extinct, we're losing the benefit they would bring if we had them to study.

      Drugs are a good example, but they're just the most obvious ones. Humans have been using plants and animals as sources for medicine since time immemorial, probably since before we were even human, so more advanced techniques for exploiting them are second nature to us. Indeed, many medicinal species were co-evolved with humans, who survived more when cultivating them (whether or not by planning, or just eating them and excreting seeds). Humans' more abstract needs for biochemical processes are much more recent, and often too subtle for us to even notice they're available. Entanglement in photosynthesis is a good example. But photosynthesis is one of the best known plant behaviors, and one of the closest to basic modern human needs. There will surely be many others.

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      make install -not war

    3. Re:Biodiversity Is Priceless by rickb928 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      "Not enough coping mechanisms to keep it fit to survive in the world we've made, but many mechanisms that go down with it."

      We've made?

      We made water? Oxygen? Carbon? We made the Earth, or the Sun? We 'made' amino acids? DNA?

      If we you mean humans, we've 'made' precious little. We've changed systems and processes to some extent, but 'made'?

      Once again, blame the humans, they've made a wreck of everything. Pathetic.

      --
      deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
    4. Re:Biodiversity Is Priceless by Hal_Porter · · Score: 4, Funny

      If Shrodinger's cat were the last cat then cats would be in a superposed state of extinct and not extinct so long as no additional biodiversity research was done.

      I think he's trying to say we shouldn't do the research, but maybe I've misunderstood.

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      echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
    5. Re:Biodiversity Is Priceless by maxwell+demon · · Score: 2, Insightful

      And given that it's the only source of biological power (except for some exotic life forms in the deep sea), if it goes before we do, it will not be long before we go, too.

      --
      The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
    6. Re:Biodiversity Is Priceless by Hal_Porter · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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

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      echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
    7. Re:Biodiversity Is Priceless by Alef · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

    8. Re:Biodiversity Is Priceless by Doc+Ruby · · Score: 2, Informative

      We've made big changes to the world we evolved into. The number of species going extinct during the last few generations of humans is now among the biggest dieoffs the planet has ever seen.

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      make install -not war

    9. Re:Biodiversity Is Priceless by Doc+Ruby · · Score: 2, Insightful

      We like the mess photosynthetic plants made, into which we evolved.

      We won't like the mess we're making, because evolution will see us less fit to inhabit the world we've changed.

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      make install -not war

    10. Re:Biodiversity Is Priceless by Hurricane78 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      And another species will like the mess we made, into which it will evolve.

      Call me a misanthrope, but: So what?
      The only reason we now start to care about nature, is because we start to indirectly wipe ourselves out.
      I say: Let us. It’s proven to be better for the planet, in the long run. ;))

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      Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
    11. Re:Biodiversity Is Priceless by jelizondo · · Score: 3, Insightful

      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.

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      Be very, very careful what you put into that head, because you will never, ever get it out. - Cardinal Wolsey
  3. And here's the link by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    http://www.physorg.com/news184423418.html

  4. Newtons Cradle by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    Think of the light harvesting molecule as the first steel ball. Think of the molecule in the reaction center as the last ball.

  5. Yet another nail in the coffin of vegetarianism by Draek · · Score: 4, Funny

    Do cows use quantum entanglement? no. Do sheep? no. Plants do. Why would I eat the *smarter* lifeform?

    In fact, I'd celebrate with a burger if it weren't for the fact that lettuces are a plant. Anybody know of a meat-based replacement for a plant-friendly person such as myself?

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    No problem is insoluble in all conceivable circumstances.
    1. Re:Yet another nail in the coffin of vegetarianism by Bigjeff5 · · Score: 3, Funny

      Anybody know of a meat-based replacement for a plant-friendly person such as myself?

      Just follow the meatitarian's motto: When in doubt, add bacon.

      The tricky bit here is the bread. That's plant based. Perhaps you could use large cut deep-fried pork or beef skin as a suitable substitute?

      If you want to get philosophical, though, you run into a much bigger problem: All meat comes from dead plants first. Cow's are built on massive quantities of grass, pigs are built on oats and anything else edible (which all come from plants at some point). It's a losing proposition.

      Your only real option is to live on honey and honeybees. Plants offer the bees nectar in exchange for assisting their reproduction, so no plant is ever harmed in the production of honey. Since bees are fed on honey, they are fair game too. There are some birds that have this type of symbiotic relationship with plants, which would make them ok to eat, but you can't farm raise them because they must be a part of the cycle to make them plant friendly!

      You could also live on maggots and flies, which only consume meat (and indirectly plants) after that meat has died from natural processes. Honey, maggots, maybe a hummingbird every once in a while, supplemented with a lot of fungus - yeah, I think you could really make a go of it!

      --
      Security is mostly a superstition... Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. - Helen Keller
    2. Re:Yet another nail in the coffin of vegetarianism by maxwell+demon · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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 Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
    3. Re:Yet another nail in the coffin of vegetarianism by DeadDecoy · · Score: 2, Funny

      That's like eating the plant's babies. You animal!

    4. Re:Yet another nail in the coffin of vegetarianism by ShakaUVM · · Score: 2, Interesting

      >>Do cows use quantum entanglement? no. Do sheep? no. Plants do. Why would I eat the *smarter* lifeform?

      Depending on your theory of quantum mechanics, you might believe that all systems are entangled. So yeah, they all do.

  6. Re:Again? by DinZy · · Score: 2, Informative

    No

    The article you cite describes how photosynthesis relies on quantum physics in general, not quantum entanglement which is a very specific type of quantum phenomenon.

  7. Nothing new here. by Khyber · · Score: 2, Informative

    Well, not to me. I've known about this action for a couple of years. It's highly linked to visible-wavelength irradiation at 420nm and 460nm, it's like an Emerson Effect for the blue wavelengths.

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    Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
    1. Re:Nothing new here. by Khyber · · Score: 2, Interesting

      It's actually quantum reactions between different wavelengths of light to trigger certain things inside of the plants. The actual Emerson Effect happens when 660-670nm light is paired with 700-720nm light, however due to figuring out there is some entanglement involved, we've also found a new pair of wavelengths that do this as well, in the blue range. What we've noticed is with these specific pairings, certain photosynthetic and photomorphogenic processes increase DRAMATICALLY.

      These guys are pretty much confirming something we've already figured out, though it's only been a couple of years since we've figured this out, and the technology to make it worthwhile is so expensive thanks to, well, Sony. 400-420nm diodes of any sort are hard to find because everyone's focused on Blu-Ray production. A 420nm diode is twice as expensive as any other diode right now because of this, thus making efficient LED horticultural panels very expensive to produce.

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      Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
  8. I'm a meat-eater, but. . . by Fantastic+Lad · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Animals have brains, right?

    If quantum entanglement doesn't turn out to be a vital component in neurological science, then I'll be a fish on a loaf.

    -FL

  9. Gives new meaning to green computing. by bdwoolman · · Score: 2, Funny

    Sorry, gotta run. My data is ripe.

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    "No fear. No envy. No meanness." Liam Clancy
  10. Re:Again? by John+Hasler · · Score: 2, Insightful

    > The article you cite describes how photosynthesis relies on quantum physics
    > in general...

    In other words, chemistry.

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    Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
  11. Hameroff/Penrose model of quantum consciousness by Dr_Banzai · · Score: 3, Interesting

    This finding seems to give support to the Orch-OR (orchestrated objective reduction) theory of quantum consciousness proposed by Stuart Hameroff and Roger Penrose. One of the main objections to the theory is that quantum coherence could not be sustained in the warm biological environment for sufficient duration. If quantum entaglement is a normal feature of photosynthesis, it's less of a stretch to believe that quantum coherence could be one of the mechanisms to give rise to consciousness in higher lifeforms.

    1. Re:Hameroff/Penrose model of quantum consciousness by JoshuaZ · · Score: 2, Informative

      This finding seems to give support to the Orch-OR (orchestrated objective reduction) theory of quantum consciousness proposed by Stuart Hameroff and Roger Penrose. One of the main objections to the theory is that quantum coherence could not be sustained in the warm biological environment for sufficient duration. If quantum entaglement is a normal feature of photosynthesis, it's less of a stretch to believe that quantum coherence could be one of the mechanisms to give rise to consciousness in higher lifeforms

      This might give support but only to a very tiny extent. The entanglement in the plant case we're talking here about quantum entanglement on a very small scale. Most versions of quantum consciousness hypothesis are positing entanglement on much larger scales. The Orch-OR theory requires entanglement occurring at the level of microtubules which are orders of magnitude larger objects.

    2. Re:Hameroff/Penrose model of quantum consciousness by SQL+Error · · Score: 2, Informative

      This changes nothing. The numbers remain the same; the timescale for photosynthesis is not comparable to that for neural activity.

      Hameroff/Penrose quantum consciousness remains impossible (as well as unscientific, unnecessary and useless).

  12. Umm, actually... by nashv · · Score: 2, Insightful

    ...have experimentally shown that plants use quantum entanglement in photosynthesis.

    Another Slashdot summary fail. The paper shows that entanglement can exist in photosystems of plants at high temperatures and a fundamentally noisy system, and is very exciting to note that.

    It however, does not show that plants actually use the quantum entanglement in anyway. It may just be that the phenomenon is incidental and a result of the high-level organisation of the proteins in the photosystem without any implications for a plant or evolutionary pressure to select for it.

    --
    Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem.
  13. Actually, grass grows very fast by Chicken_Kickers · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Specifically, bamboo http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bamboo which can grow 60cm in a day. The summary seems to imply that biological systems are simple compared to high tech artificial systems. I might be biased because I am a microbiologist, but nothing humans have ever constructed have even remotely approached the complexity and efficiency of biological systems. For example, have a look at the bacterial outboard motor (flagellum) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flagellum. Just look at it. Isn't it beautiful, complex yet efficient at what it does. Considering that at bacterial scale, the liquid medium surrounding it is like molasses, makes it more incredible.

  14. The ubiquity of lab phenomena by Lorien_the_first_one · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.

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    The diversity and expression of human opinion is essential to human survival.