«Up to then, all these ideas
in quantum biology sounded good, but they lacked experimental evidence,» he recalls.
He was able to include so many quantum - oriented conference sessions, he says,
because quantum biology is a growing field.
This is what the science
of quantum biology has been teaching us over the last hundred years.
A whole new field known
as quantum biology has sprung up, based on a true breakthrough - the idea that the total split between the micro world of the quantum and the macro world of everyday things may be a false split.
In your editorial
on quantum biology, you write that «the pigments used in photosynthesis use quantum calculations» (6 February, p...
Being a physicist by formation, I am especially attracted by two aspects in these fields: exploring the overlap between neuroscience and physics, where functional processes can be tested regarding possible underlying fundamental mechanisms (
e.g. quantum biology) and the application of experimental techniques which go beyond standard neuroscience approaches (nonlinear microscopy, optogenetics).
I am currently working on potential quantum effects in organic solar cells where coherent vibronic effects, which have been widely studied in
quantum biology community, seem to play an important role.
An interview with the Berkeley chemist K. Birgitta Whaley on the promise and challenge of
translating quantum biology into practical quantum devices.
These improvements in experimental techniques, combined with the advances made by others
in quantum biology, have inspired McFadden and Al - Khalili to leave the sidelines and rejoin the game.
Though Al - Khalili and McFadden did not label it as such at the time, their paper was one of the first in the now burgeoning field
of quantum biology.
However, University of Oxford researchers report October 3 in Biophysical Journal that the current form of this «radical - pair mechanism» is not sensitive enough to explain the disruption of the avian magnetic compass by certain radiofrequency magnetic fields, raising new questions about this popular example of
quantum biology.
• Vanillin and iso - vanillin are not molecular rearrangements of benzaldehyde, as stated in
our quantum biology feature (1 October, p...
Surveying the lasers and mirrors laid out on Farrow's laboratory table in Oxford, he notes that the road to definitive experimental proof of
quantum biology will be a long one — and there is a very real chance they will never prove quantum effects lurk within living beings.
Whaley has high hopes that continuing discoveries in the burgeoning field of
quantum biology will result in a breakthrough design for novel quantum devices.
In my Stopping Cancer Before it Starts DVD, I go into detail about
the quantum biology of oxidative phosphorylation.