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Biotech / Medical : Biotech News
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From: nigel bates2/10/2010 10:52:00 AM
   of 7143
 
Quantum coherence at room temperature (in algal photosynthesis):
newscientist.com

The discovery overturns some long-held beliefs about quantum mechanics, which held that quantum coherence cannot occur at anything other than cryogenic temperatures because a hot environment would destroy the effect. However, the Chroomonas algae perform their work at 21 °C.

"Scholes's work is fantastic," says Gregory Engel at the University of Chicago. "The difficulty of this experiment is extraordinary." Engel demonstrated the same principle in 2007 at the University of California, Berkeley, though at a frigid -196 °C. His team examined a bacteriochlorophyll complex found in green sulphur bacteria and discovered that the pigment molecules were similarly wired together in a quantum mechanical network. His experiment showed that the quantum superposition allows the energy to explore all possible routes and settle on the most efficient one (DOI: 10.1038/nature05678). In a sense, he says, the antenna performs a quantum computation to determine the best way to transfer energy.
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