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BIRD MIGRATION. "How does a robin know to fly south? The answer might be weirder than you think: Quantum physics may be involved. Jim Al-Khalili rounds up the extremely new, extremely strange world of quantum biology, where something Einstein once called “spooky action at a distance” helps birds navigate, and quantum effects might explain the origin of life itself." http://www.ted.com/talks/jim_al_khalili_how_quantum_biology_might_explain_life_s_biggest_questions?language=en View in LinkedIn

"MAGNETORECEPTION is the ability of some migrating species to navigate using the Earth’s magnetic field. The precise mechanism used, and its features, seem to vary greatly from animal to animal." https://lnkd.in/eRUdQZj View in LinkedIn

BIOMAGNETIC COMPASS. "Approximately 50 species, including birds, mammals, reptiles, amphibians, fish, crustaceans and insects, are known to use the Earth’s magnetic field for orientation and navigation. Birds in particular have been intensively studied, but the biophysical mechanisms that underlie the avian magnetic compass are still poorly understood." https://lnkd.in/eyZrP9c View in LinkedIn

QUANTUM CONTROL BY ALGAE. "Algae evolved to switch quantum coherence on and off." This leads to more efficient photosynthesis; this is achieved by a mutated protein changing the structure of a protein complex, turning on and off coherence. Go green slime! https://lnkd.in/e7bYH5r View in LinkedIn

LETTUCE QUANTUM COMPUTERS. "In the 2007 experiment, University of California, Berkeley, chemist Graham Fleming and colleagues ran experiments on green sulfur bacteria that appeared to suggest this quantum approach. These were jaw-dropping experiments...Physicists had been battling for years to build a quantum computer — and now it seemed that all that time they may have been eating quantum computers for lunch, in the leaves in their salad!” http://discovermagazine.com/2014/dec/17-this-quantum-life View in LinkedIn

COHERENCE AND ENTANGLEMENT. "Recent studies have identified quantum coherence and entanglement between the excited states of different pigments in the light-harvesting stage of photosynthesis. Although this stage of photosynthesis is highly efficient, it remains unclear exactly how or if these quantum effects are relevant biologically." https://lnkd.in/epQ9hra View in LinkedIn

LESS IS MORE. "Recent analysis has shown that the efficiency benefits provided by quantum models in comparison to the classical Förster model (which can be seen as a perturbative expansion of the quantum one, with no quantum coherence) may be only a few per cent. However, even a few per cent improvement in efficiency may be vital for a plant or bacteria attempting to survive in low-light conditions." https://lnkd.in/eRUdQZj View in LinkedIn

QB TIME-SCALES. "There are two other important timescales to be considered. One is the rate at which the excitation leaves the target molecule and enters the reaction centre (~ 1 ps). The other is the rate at which the excitation in any of the BChl is lost owing to fluorescence relaxation (~ 1 ns). It is this latter rate that the excitation must beat, in its race to reach the reaction centre. Remarkably, the excitation is almost always transferred to the reaction centre faster than it can be lost to fluorescence relaxation." https://lnkd.in/eRUdQZj View in LinkedIn

QUANTUM VS CLASSICAL. "When coupled to an energy trap such as the reaction center, this process can greatly increase the quantum yield of a system relative to the classical limit" during photosynthesis. https://lnkd.in/eytWxV5 View in LinkedIn

PHOTOSYNTHESIS EFFICIENCY is increased by superposition. "Superposition contributes to more efficient energy transport. An exciton, a quantum quasi-particle carrying energy, can travel faster along the photosynthetic complex due to the fact that it can exist in two states simultaneously. When it comes to a bifurcation it need not choose left or right. It can proceed down both paths simultaneously." https://lnkd.in/e3xDSJC View in LinkedIn