The Realm of Quantum Biology
On the face of it, quantum effects and living organisms seem to occupy utterly different realms. But in actuality they are overshadowed by each other. Quantum physics is this cascade of sophisticated mathematical equations which help us understand the universe of the Nano world and the different magical things that happen in that world. On the other hand, biology helps us understand the complex world inside every living being. Several phenomena in the quantum world such as quantum coherence, in which the wave patterns of every part of a system stay in step, wouldn’t last a microsecond in the disordered realm of a cell.
But discoveries in recent years suggest that nature knows a few tricks that physicists don’t: coherent quantum processes may well be ubiquitous in the natural world. Known or suspected examples range from the ability of birds to navigate using Earth’s magnetic field to the inner workings of photosynthesis — the process by which plants and bacteria turn sunlight, carbon dioxide and water into organic matter, or hypotheses which suggest explanation of origin and growth of carcinogenic cells with the help of quantum effects.
Quantum Photosynthesis-
Quantum coherence is a process that particles in the Nano world undergo. It explains how a particle’s wave property diversifies and these spread-out waves coherently interfere with each other. This phenomenon of quantum coherence is explained in the process of photoactivation in photosynthesis. Research into Photosynthesis has shown that it consists of two very different processes. One which uses light and the other that proceeds independent of light. The process of light dependent reaction will be further discussed to understand how a certain quantum phenomena manifests in the plant world. Light energy from the sun in the form of photons arrive randomly at the chlorophyll molecules and other light-absorbing ‘antenna’ pigments that cluster inside the cells of every leaf, and within every photosynthetic bacterium. The light dependent reaction takes place in the grana of the chloroplast. The grana is a collection of single membraned structures called thylakoids. These thylakoids contain light harvesting arrays called photosystems.
In addition to these light harvesting arrays the photosystems have reaction centers. There are two types of photosystems- photosystem 1 and photosystem 2. Both of these photosystems contain chlorophyll molecules which absorb light energy and pass it down to the two specialized chlorophyll molecules in the reaction center. But once the photons’ energy is deposited, it doesn’t stay random. Somehow, it gets channeled into a steady flow towards the cell’s photosynthetic reaction center, which can then use it at maximum efficiency to convert carbon dioxide into sugars.
This process takes place as the two specialized chlorophyll molecules have the capability of getting excited by absorbing energy from photons and produce free electrons which can then further be donated to an electron acceptor ( plastoquinone). This process by which the different chlorophyll molecules pass this energy absorbed from light to the two specialized chlorophyll molecules in the reaction center is hypothesized to be done using quantum coherence, which holds that particles such as electrons will often act like waves. Photons hitting an antenna molecule will kick up ripples of energized electrons — excitons. These excitons then pass from one molecule to the next until they reach the reaction center. But the path followed by these excitons is filled with hurdles and is highly disorganized. Thus, the main question that arises is, how can such quantum phenomenon survive for long enough to pass these excitons down to the reaction center. Computer simulations carried out by Lloyd and some of his colleagues suggest an answer: random noise in the environment might actually enhance the efficiency of the energy transfer in photosynthesis rather than degrade it. It turns out that an exciton can sometimes get trapped on particular sites in the photosynthetic chain, but simulations suggest that environmental noise has the capability of increasing the kinetic energy of the particles, excite them, and can shake it loose gently enough to avoid destroying its coherence. In effect, the environment frees up the exciton and allows it to get to where it’s going. Quantum coherence is said to increase the efficiency of passing down this excitonic energy to the reaction center. Several speculations regarding the theory of quantum coherence in photosynthesis have been risen. Quantum coherence in photosynthesis appears to be beneficial to the organisms that use it, but has their ability to exploit quantum effects evolved through natural selection? Or is quantum coherence just a coincidental side effect of the structure of certain molecules? Speculations about the question of evolution and many misunderstandings still persist. We cannot tell if this effect in photosynthesis is selected for, nor if there is the option not to use coherence to move the electronic energy. He points out that it is not obvious why selection would favor coherence. “Almost all photosynthetic organisms spend most of the day trying to moderate light-harvesting. It is rare to be light-limited. So why would there be evolutionary pressure to tweak light-harvesting efficiency?” Fleming suspects that quantum coherence is not adaptive but is simply “a by-product of the dense packing of chromophores necessary to optimize solar absorption”. But even if quantum coherence in biological systems is a fortuitous effect, Fleming adds, its consequences are extraordinary, as they make systems insensitive to disorder in energy distribution. “It enables unidirectional energy transfer, generates the fastest [energy transfer] rate, is insensitive to temperature and may possibly open many more possibilities unthought of.
Quantum Navigation-
A long-standing biological mystery that could be explained by exotic quantum effects is how some birds can navigate by sensing the Earth’s magnetic field.
The avian magnetic sensor is known to activate when light hits the bird’s retina. The researchers’ best guess about a mechanism is that the energy given off by each incident photon creates a pair of free radicals, highly reactive molecules, each with an intrinsic angular momentum, or spin, that each of these unpaired electrons can be reoriented by a magnetic field. As the radicals separate, the unpaired electron on one is mainly influenced by the magnetism of a nearby atomic nucleus, while the unpaired electron on the other is further away from the nucleus and is only influenced by the earth’s magnetic field. The difference in the fields shifts the radical pair between two quantum states with different chemical reactivity.
“One version of the idea would be that when the system is in one state but not another, a chemical is synthesized in the cells of the retina of birds,” says Simon Benjamin, a physicist at Oxford University, UK . “It’s concentration reflects the orientation of the earth’s field.” The feasibility of this idea was demonstrated in 2008 in an artificial photochemical reaction in which magnetic fields influenced the lifetime of a radical pair.
Benjamin and co-workers suggested that the two unpaired electrons created by the absorption of a single photon exist in a state of quantum entanglement: a form of coherence in which the orientation of one spin remains correlated with that of the other, no matter how far the radicals move. The entanglement is usually quite delicate at room temperature, but the researchers calculate that it persists in the avian compass for at least tens of microseconds, much longer than is currently possible in any artificial molecular system.
This quantum-assisted magnetic detection could be widespread. Not only birds, but also some insects and even plants show physiological reactions to magnetic fields, for example the growth-inhibiting influence of blue light on the flowering plant Arabidopsis thaliana is mitigated by magnetic fields in a way that they might also use the radical pair mechanism. But to actually confirm evidence that this is how it works, says Benjamin, “we need to understand the basic molecules involved and then study them in the laboratory.”
Pranic Healing
I have always been fascinated by the concept of energy. The question that our life itself is a form of energy has boggled me to no end. Pranic healing is a form of science that is capable of healing people without even touching them! The science has actually been effective in healing and treating many diseases like diabetes, anemia, multiple sclerosis, even cancer. The main concept behind pranic healing is the principle of existence of an energy body around us. Pranic healers are able to scan the congestions and depletions in our energy body which facilitates them to understand either the development of diseases or how to cure them. Practicing pranic healing myself I can understand that it is no myth or magic, but a sheer science of something currently unexplainable.
Our energy body is made of prana. Have you ever seen out of the window, or closely observed a bulb with half closed eyes? Were you able to see small bead like substances floating in the air. That is prana. It is called air prana. In pranic healing there are three kinds of prana- Sun prana, air prana, and ground prana. Prana are small microscopic “Imaginary Particles” that are in fact the basis of energy in our body. Since pranic healing is all about microscopic beads of energy and as prana forms our energy body ( any effect on the energy body reflects on our physical body), then can there be a relationship between pranic healing and quantum biology? Are prana nothing but the “virtual particles” recently claimed to exist? Many questions are yet to be answered.
