Quantum Entangled Living Bacteria

[Auto-Didact]

"Schrödinger's Bacterium" Could Be a Quantum Biology Milestone

A recent experiment may have placed living organisms in a state of quantum entanglement

The quantum world is a weird one. In theory and to some extent in practice its tenets demand that a particle can appear to be in two places at once—a paradoxical phenomenon known as superposition—and that two particles can become “entangled,” sharing information across arbitrarily large distances through some still-unknown mechanism.

Perhaps the most famous example of quantum weirdness is Schrödinger’s cat, a thought experiment devised by Erwin Schrödinger in 1935. The Austrian physicist imagined how a cat placed in a box with a potentially lethal radioactive substance could, per the odd laws of quantum mechanics, exist in a superposition of being both dead and alive—at least until the box is opened and its contents observed.

I can't believe I'm only seeing this article now. Achieving quantum mechanical effects with large systems, especially complicated ones such as bacteria - let alone one in vivo - has been a longstanding goal in experimental QM.

To think that only recently quantum biology (QB) was universally taught to be prohibited by both both biologists and physicists, based on the extreme experimental conditions needed for doing QM experiments... an in vivo result such as this one wasn't considered viable, not even in principle!

I think the time for healthy skepticism regarding this topic has to be carefully defused. The implications of this research for genetics and biological evolution are at this point truly enormous. This just goes to show that QB is slowly but surely coming into its own.

 

[Drakkith]

Your link is dead, so I can't get to the article in question.

 

[phinds]

Your link is dead, so I can't get to the article in question.

It isn't even an actual link. It's

http://"Schrödinger's Bacterium" Could Be a Quantum Biology Milestone

That is, the URL is the same as the text

 

[Auto-Didact]

Your link is dead, so I can't get to the article in question.

Apologies, forgot to copy the URL. It's fixed now. Moreover, here is a link to the actual paper.

 

[StevieTNZ]

it doesn't surprise me that experiments are seeing quantum effects on the macroscopic scale. After all, quantum mechanics predicts it.

I await an experiment that tests the Leggart-Garg inequality, ensuring the clumsiness loophole is closed.

 

[Nugatory]

I think the time for healthy skepticism regarding this topic has to be carefully defused. The implications of this research for genetics and biological evolution are at this point truly enormous.

As with your other thread, this is a much stronger claim than the authors of the paper make. Given that quantum effects can be observed in bacterium-sized systems, why is it surprising/revolutionary that quantum effects are observed in bacteria?

 

[LURCH]

two particles can become “entangled,” sharing information across arbitrarily large distances through some still-unknown mechanism.

Am I correct in understanding that this idea was debunked nearly 100 years ago?

 

[Auto-Didact]

As with your other thread, this is a much stronger claim than the authors of the paper make. Given that quantum effects can be observed in bacterium-sized systems, why is it surprising/revolutionary that quantum effects are observed in bacteria?

It was generally considered in the scientific community that quantum phenomena could not play a non-trivial role in biological phenomena and/or processes (see this post). This is another such experiment going against the conventional view in biology.

It opens the floodgates of hypotheses in the life sciences:
If such things can occur in vivo, who is to say such a thing has not occurred before?
Rates and types of occurrence would have to be studied. Then one would have to answer naturally occurring hypotheses such as:
How does this influence abiogenetic scenarios?
How does this influence the RNA hypothesis?
How does this influence (early) evolution?

Even stronger, assuming for a moment the existence of high occurrence rates, who is to say such things are not constantly occurring in some life forms?
Because biological regulatory pathways and communicative processes tend to be so intricate, where despite much study, very much remains unknown. It is possible such things would need to be taken into account now; make no mistake, everything non-classical or trivially quantum has generally been completely disregarded. This means, depending on the outcomes of future experiments, there is a possibility that much of biological theory would need to be rewritten.

 

[PeterDonis]

This is another such experiment going against the conventional view in biology.

I don't see how. Showing that you can have quantum entangled bacteria in a highly artificial laboratory setting, where the quantum entanglement plays no role in the functioning of the bacteria, is not evidence that quantum entanglement, or any quantum phenomenon, plays a role in the actual functioning of the bacteria. I don't see how this experiment weakens the obvious argument against quantum phenomena playing a significant functional role in biological systems, which is that thermal noise in biological systems is expected to destroy quantum coherence on timescales much shorter than the timescale of biological functioning. There have been previous experimental attempts to show quantum coherence in biological systems (for example, the Penrose-inspired attempts to show quantum coherence in microtubules in the brain), and they have all failed.

 

[Auto-Didact]

Showing that you can have quantum entangled bacteria in a highly artificial laboratory setting, where the quantum entanglement plays no role in the functioning of the bacteria, is not evidence that quantum entanglement, or any quantum phenomenon, plays a role in the actual functioning of the bacteria.

Neither did I directly claim that it did, instead focusing in first instance on the implications at the species level or higher, not on a physiological or cell biological level.

As I said, rates and types of occurrence of entanglement between living systems and natural entangling sources would have to be studied. Then one would have to begin answering theoretical biology hypotheses such as:
How does this influence abiogenetic scenarios?
How does this influence the RNA world hypothesis?
How does this influence (early) evolution?

These are distinctly mainstream theoretical biophysics issues which are at the moment completely open questions. The mathematical framework to properly frame such physical models (non-equilibrium open system thermodynamics) is still very much a work in progress. Experiments such as these give nudges in the correct direction.

There have been previous experimental attempts to show quantum coherence in biological systems (for example, the Penrose-inspired attempts to show quantum coherence in microtubules in the brain), and they have all failed.

It is simply not true that they have all failed, it is more accurate to say that there is no consensus, see this recent review by Philip Ball: Still seeking coherence.

Moreover, explicitly coherent effects, namely ballistic conduction, has actually been demonstrated in microtubules experimentally at room temperature in an in vitro setting. This research is ongoing under the teams of Bandyopadhyay et al. over at MIT and at the NIMS in Tsukuba, Japan.

In any case, this thread is explicitly not about quantum effects related to consciousness, please stay on topic.

 

[PeterDonis]

focusing in first instance on the implications at the species level or higher, not on a physiological or cell biological level.

You do mention some "species level or higher" questions, but questions like that seem highly premature if we haven't even got clear evidence that quantum effects play any functional role at "a physiological or cell biological level". And the experiment you quote in your OP does not even give evidence for the latter.

see this recent review

This is behind a paywall so I can't access it. Is there a preprint somewhere? There doesn't seem to be one on arxiv.org, but biology papers don't show up there as often as physics and math ones do.

explicitly coherent effects, namely ballistic conduction, has actually been demonstrated in microtubules experimentally at room temperature in an in vitro setting. This research is ongoing under the teams of Bandyopadhyay et al. over at MIT and at the NIMS in Tsukuba, Japan.

Do you have any specific references?

this thread is explicitly not about quantum effects related to consciousness, please stay on topic.

Who said anything about consciousness? Microtubules in the brain are biological structures; if there is any evidence for quantum coherence effects in them, it would seem just as relevant to your claims as quantum coherence effects in any other biological structure. So I don't see why you would want to rule out discussion of them as quantum coherence effects in biological structures. Ruling out discussion of consciousness itself in this thread is fine, but as I noted, I didn't say anything about consciousness.

 

[Auto-Didact]

This is behind a paywall so I can't access it. Is there a preprint somewhere? There doesn't seem to be one on arxiv.org, but biology papers don't show up there as often as physics and math ones do.

I will try to find an open access version, but don't hold your breath.

Do you have any specific references?

Here is their first paper on the topic from back in 2013; there have been a few more since but its been awhile since I read them all and I have to search. Unfortunately, they are all also behind paywalls.

Who said anything about consciousness? Microtubules in the brain are biological structures; if there is any evidence for quantum coherence effects in them, it would seem just as relevant to your claims as quantum coherence effects in any other biological structure. So I don't see why you would want to rule out discussion of them as quantum coherence effects in biological structures. Ruling out discussion of consciousness itself in this thread is fine, but as I noted, I didn't say anything about consciousness.

Of course, you are correct. The problem is that discussions and threads tend to degenerate quite quickly once this is brought up because of the inextricable link of the words 'quantum' and 'microtubule' to Orch-OR theory; I would like to prevent that from happening here.

 

[Auto-Didact]

You do mention some "species level or higher" questions, but questions like that seem highly premature if we haven't even got clear evidence that quantum effects play any functional role at "a physiological or cell biological level". And the experiment you quote in your OP does not even give evidence for the latter.

The article explicitly speculates:

And it hints at another potential instance of naturally emerging quantum biology: Green sulfur bacteria reside in the deep ocean where the scarcity of life-giving light might even spur quantum-mechanical evolutionary adaptations to boost photosynthesis.

There are many caveats to such controversial claims, however. [...]

Such obviously speculative claims regarding deep see life and life in other extreme conditions are controversial no doubt, but more importantly they are potentially directly verifiable/falsifiable:

If deep sea bacteria have specific genes programming for proteins which have been selected for to take advantage of entanglement, these genes can be identified.

Since there are other bacteria and archaea living in extreme areas on Earth which have had essentially no contact with deep sea bacteria, the question immediately arises if they could also have evolved analogous classes of genes.

All of this is directly answerable by careful genetic and biological experimentation, and perhaps more importantly, well worth studying whether physicists and theoreticians tell them it is or isn't. Moreover, the implications of the outcome of such research on the questions regarding the evolution of early life on Earth is automatically there.

Even more unsettling would be the link to extraterrestrial single celled organisms who are able to survive in the most extreme circumstances, perhaps even hitching a ride on meteorites or from Earth on the astronauts/Mars Rovers.

 

[Drakkith]

All of this is directly answerable by careful genetic and biological experimentation, and perhaps more importantly, well worth studying whether physicists and theoreticians tell them it is or isn't.

I don't think many would seriously argue that it is not worth testing to see if quantum effects can occur in living organisms. Plenty of things have been discovered after being thought to be essentially impossible. If testing supports the idea, then great! If not, then also great! Either way science gets done.

 

[Auto-Didact]

Do you have any specific references?

Here are a few more articles (the first is open access) from Bandyopadhyay's team:

Sahu et al. 2014, Live visualizations of single isolated tubulin protein self-assembly via tunneling current: effect of electromagnetic pumping during spontaneous growth of microtubule

As we bring tubulin protein molecules one by one into the vicinity, they self-assemble and entire event we capture live via quantum tunneling. We observe how these molecules form a linear chain and then chains self-assemble into 2D sheet, an essential for microtubule, —fundamental nano-tube in a cellular life form. Even without using GTP, or any chemical reaction, but applying particular ac signal using specially designed antenna around atomic sharp tip we could carry out the self-assembly; however, if there is no electromagnetic pumping, no self-assembly is observed. In order to verify this atomic scale observation, we have built an artificial cell-like environment with nano-scale engineering and repeated spontaneous growth of tubulin protein to its complex with and without electromagnetic signal. We used 64 combinations of plant, animal and fungi tubulins and several doping molecules used as drug, and repeatedly observed that the long reported common frequency region where protein folds mechanically and its structures vibrate electromagnetically. Under pumping, the growth process exhibits a unique organized behavior unprecedented otherwise. Thus, “common frequency point” is proposed as a tool to regulate protein complex related diseases in the future.

Ghosh et al. 2016, Inventing a co-axial atomic resolution patch clamp to study a single resonating protein complex and ultra-low power communication deep inside a living neuron cell

To read the signals of single molecules in vitro on a surface, or inside a living cell or organ, we introduce a coaxial atom tip (coat) and a coaxial atomic patch clamp (COAPAP). The metal-insulator-metal cavity of these probes extends to the atomic scale (0.1nm), it eliminates the cellular or environmental noise with a S/N ratio 10^5. Five ac signals are simultaneously applied during a measurement by COAT and COAPAP to shield a true signal under environmental noise in five unique ways. The electromagnetic drive in the triaxial atomic tips is specifically designed to sense anharmonic vibrational and transmission signals for any system between 0.1nm and 50nm where the smallest nanopatch clamp cannot reach. COAT and COAPAP reliably pick up the atomic scale vibrations under the extreme noise of a living cell. Each protein’s distinct electromagnetic, mechanical, electrical and ionic vibrational signature studied in vitro in a protected environment is found to match with the ones studied inside a live neuron. Thus, we could confirm that by using our probe blindly we could hold on to a single molecule or its complex in the invisible domain of a living cell. Our decade long investigations on perfecting the tools to measure bio-resonance of all forms and simultaneously in all frequency domains are summarized. It shows that the ratio of emission to absorption resonance frequencies of a biomaterial is around π, only a few in the entire em spectrum are active that regulates all other resonances, like mechanical, ionic, etc.

Agrawal et al. 2016, Inventing atomic resolution scanning dielectric microscopy to see a single protein complex operation live at resonance in a neuron without touching or adulterating the cell

A substantial ion flow in a normally wet protein masks any other forms of signal transmission. We use hysteresis and linear conduction (both are artifacts) as a marker to precisely wet a protein, which restricts the ionic conduction (hysteresis disappears), and at the same time, it is not denatured (quantized conductance and Raman spectra are intact). Pure electric visualization of proteins at work by eliminating the screening of ions, electrons, would change the way we study biology. Here we discuss the technical challenges resolved for imaging a protein or live cell using nonlinear dielectric response (spatial distribution of conductance, capacitance and phase, GCP trio). We electromagnetically triggered electrical, mechanical, thermal and ionic resonant vibrations in a protein. During resonant oscillations, we imaged the protein using resonant scanning tunneling microscopy of biomaterials (Brestum) and during ionic firing we imaged live what happens inside an axon core of a neuron by using our atomic scale scanning dielectric microscopy (Asadim). Both Asadim and Brestum are housed in a homebuilt scanning tunneling microscope (bio-STM) and a special micro-grid developed by us (patent JP-5187804) for fractal supercomputing. We found the trick to turn a membrane transparent and see inside without making any physical contact. We image live that a protein molecule adopts a unique configuration for each resonance frequency, — thus far unknown to biology. “Membrane alone fires” is found to be wrong after a century, micro-neuro-filaments communicate prior to firing to decide its necessity and then regulate it suitably. We introduce a series of technologies e.g., fractal grid, point contact, micro THz antenna, to discover that from atomic structure to a living cell, the biomaterials vibrate collectively.

Especially the last one is an interesting read: the team seems to have created a bio-SDM capable of imaging intact protein complex networks in vivo straight through neurons without using any staining agents or fluorescent dyes. This is state of the art experimentation, pretty much the holy grail in (cell) biology; they clearly realize this since they are literally patenting their instruments while carrying out fundamental biological research.

In stark contrast to the accepted wisdom in neuroscience, physiology and biology - i.e. that neurons only transmit signals through ionic conduction and chemical synapses - the team provocatively reports wildly novel findings:

Conclusion:
Bio-STM holds the tunneling mode for 10–12s even after switching off the feedback circuit. Now, we have advanced this Bio-STM feature to image a protein complex network and see its operation live in the living cell from outside, without making any physical contact with the membrane, even without adulterating the cells using unwanted fluorescence molecules.

Fractal grid, point contact with proteins, six regulatory frequencies, three kinds of EM traps to pure signals, coaxial wiring, proper wetting of sample, use of EM drive, setting multiple reference frequencies at once, the use of nested frequencies to make membrane transparent are some concepts that have been used for the first time in imaging.

We have studied the mechanical, ionic, electrical and electromagnetic resonance in neural firing and it is found that they all are connected together. Neural firing's 100-year old myth that ionic conduction does everything is shattered with a series of experiments.

Two observations, first, dielectric coupling from the cavities of a monomer of a protein to the neural network [see Fig. 6(a)], second, direct evidence of effective logical signal transmission in the MHz frequency range at least $20–30 \mu s$ earlier than the emergence of a nerve impulse [Fig. 7(c)]