&host=www.rt.com&uri=/news/sci-tech/life-derived-quantum-effects/&via=1.1 8.254.9.153:80 (Footprint 4.8/FPMCP)&ua=CCBot/1.0 (+http://www.commoncrawl.org/bot.html))
All life may be derived from quantum effects
Published: 28 June, 2010, 14:56
Edited: 11 August, 2010, 04:49
TAGS: SciTech, Biology, Physics
A model suggests that the twin helix DNA macromolecule, the cornerstone of a great portion of life on Earth, may employ quantum entanglement to become stable.
The famous “Schrodinger’s cat” mind experiment demonstrates how the weird world of quantum mechanics can have a profound effect on the macroworld. Recently, a number of studies suggested that the quantum effect may be essential for biological processes, like photosynthesis, or the work of enzymes.
Now quantum physicists from Singapore and the US have come up with an idea which, if proven true, will make us see life from a different perspective. They believe that DNA, the medium used to store and replicate genetic information by all but the simplest life forms, is bound together by a quantum effect.
In a five-page letter published at arXiv.org website, the team devised a simplified model with DNA nucleotides presented as oscillating systems of positively charged cores and negatively charged electron clouds.
Due to the size and structure of the double helix molecule, these harmonic oscillators become entangled, and this effect remains significant even at normal temperatures. Moreover, without this quantum interaction the whole system would become unstable and rip itself apart, researchers believe.
The theory is yet to be proved by experimentation. Authors of the paper have also come up with the question of how the entanglement may affect information processing in living cells and how it could be harnessed.
24.06.2010, 12:01
Tsar’s illustrated history textbook available onlineResearchers in Russia are uploading scans of the so-called Illustrated Chronicle of Ivan the Terrible. The 10,000-page handwritten history book had been commissioned by the legendary Tsar for his children. |
29.06.2010, 13:08
Intel grasps processor-integrated randomnessA major computer chip manufacturer has devised a chip that can generate random numbers at high speed while being small enough to be integrated into computer’s CPU. |
i wouldent consider myself smart.. nor dumb, but in all of science's experiments and answers we have never ever gotton something from nothing ? the question infact is were did these little systems come from ? random quantum fluctation
(quantum effects) or God ? that is the real contriversial issue. i personaly belive that it was quantum effects but who put it there in the first place ? i belive it is something science simply cannot explain, God.
It is just that as I look around, Bru, that I see life and intelligence everywhere, here on this planet anyway - the plants, bugs and furry little creatures have motion, intelligence and reproduction of like kind. I also wonder about 'systems theory' in that the smallest property within a system must be a property of the whole larger system. I think that the whole universe may be alive and that man is no 'special creation', but a part of the whole living system which we see as the universe.
Just to clarify that this article is saying nothing new. We wouldn't be here or existence wouldn't be here if all the molecules and smaller molecules didn't combine after the mass expansion. Or if star dust didn't combine and form a star under its own gravity. Quantum is just another word for the study of the molecular world.