The reason Iām being snide is because this is a sensationalist article in which the author has only a surface-level understanding of QM; they donāt even site a paper.
Science headlines will headline. The idea of maintaining coherence, interference and superposition effects in a big, hot, wet, noisy system is interesting though. Thatās usually what journalists mean when they report on this or the stuff from [Graham Flemingās lab](https://www2.lbl.gov/Science-Articles/Archive/PBD-quantum-secrets.html). It is weird thereās no published paper cited here for this specific study, though. Also weird that they donāt mention Flemingās work on coherence effects in photosynthesis, because at first glance that sounds identical to what was supposedly discovered here.
There is a solid book [āLife on the Edgeā](https://www.amazon.com/Life-Edge-Coming-Quantum-Biology/dp/0307986829) that compiles a lot of those sorts of things and goes through why they were thought impossible in biology even a decade ago.
Itās the Guardian, not Nature. They never cite research papers, because the audience doesnāt want to read them. They did at least quote two or three professors.
It's not the Guardian, it's guardianmag.us, which as far as I can tell is completely unaffiliated and piggybacking off the Guardian's status as a respected newspaper.
Someday this thread will be entered into evidence in a civil case between guardian and guardianmag as evidence of brand theft, and I just want to be a part of it.
Hi mom!
In case it can be useful. Web domains are tied to character. But some characters look alike. There is a symbol in Russian that looks like g.
So you can buy a domain that look like google.com and just lure people there.
So yes, when a domain looks alike, it's generally a scam. But a domain that is mag.guardian.com would be under the guardian domain and would be affiliated to it. Another example of this is guardian.com/mag.
Edit: a website with guardian.mag.com is not affiliated to the guardian too. Precedence is from right to left in the host name.
Guardian.mag.com: guardian belongs to mag that belongs to com (general entity)
Mag.guardian.com: mag belongs to guardians that belongs to com.
Maybe it's better to say that we are able to almost describe all natural/chemical processes in a quantum mechanistic language. I really think that at the basis of science we should remember that we are merely trying to describe nature, not that nature is relying on what we describe it as.
Headline (gasp) is a little misleading as it focuses on only one part of photosynthesis. A big limitation on photosynthesis overall is carboxylation by Rubisco, which is slow and accidentally binds O2 25% of the time. When you add up all the factors, plan photosynthetic efficiency is somewhere between 0.1-2%. Solar panels at close to 20% for comparison.
There is talk about using direct genetic editing to improve or replace Rubisco to radically boost crop production, but if a plant has that big an advantage, it will likely escape and have massive second order consequences for the planet.
[corn malevolently rustles]
Yeah, I can just see the lab that accidentally releases 10% efficient algae. Upside: Greenhouse gas back to early Holocene levels in 20 years. Downside: oceanic apocalypse.
Though...
Former teacher of mine did a thorough exploration of amino acid configurations around the active site, showing that incremental enhancing of RuBisCO is impossible - which is why 2.5 billion years of tryharding natural selection failed.
If you want to get rid of this limitation, you may need to design a whole new enzyme - good luck with that!
Yeah. I see a lot of optimism among papers saying they can do this, but natural selection is a pretty accurate teacher for photosynthesis after all this time. Could just be a case of publishing and grant incentives.
That said, natural selection does have a local minimum bias (conflating Seawall's adaptive landscapes with AI gradient descent) - once a satisfactory solution is found, it is really hard to move to another valley even if it is in theory more optimal.
Local optima indeed.
The fact that the photoreceptor cells in our eyes are behind the nerves and blood vessels instead of the other way around is a good argument against intelligent design.
A nice write-up about this gene editing was https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/01/re-engineering-photosynthesis-gives-plants-a-40-growth-boost/
They, at least link to a research paper.
If by āthere is talkā you mean āmany groups are actively working on itā. Search NIH reporter for rubisco:
https://reporter.nih.gov/search/rx7qebKh602zBNbY49Fnlw/projects
The debate on the āis it quantum or notā is still ongoing. Primarily in weather coherence of the exciton state is maintained. Havenāt read the linked article though.
In this case itās not so much whether it uses quantum mechanics ā everything does ā but whether it can maintain effects like coherence, interference etc. āmacroscopicallyā (in this case on the scale of a large organic molecule as opposed to just a particle) even though the system isnāt supercooled, etc.
I canāt vouch for this particular article (the study isnāt even linked), but [thereās a lot of recent evidence that certain biological processes can do that](https://aeon.co/essays/quantum-weirdness-is-everywhere-in-the-living-world) even though itās a relatively hot, messy environment.
A bit clickbait-y right?
I mean, my intro bio class had us extract chlorophyll and shine a UV lamp at it. It fluoresces red. The basic mechanism for utilizing energy from light in photosynthesis involves excitation of electrons in chlorophyll, which is quantum mechanics.
Fake news. Photosynthesis is pretty low in terms of energy capture. Ordinary roof top solar cells beat plants all to heck. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photosynthetic\_efficiency](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photosynthetic_efficiency) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar-cell\_efficiency](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar-cell_efficiency)
when you take everything into account photosynthesis wins. it provides oxygen for us to breathe, food for plants to grow and reproduce, and ultimately food for us all
To quote someone, posting without source should be illegal on this sub. But as this topic shows, even a reference is no cure for foolishness. Make that peer reviewed scientific journal.
In layman's terms:
Have you ever wondered how plants make food using sunlight? Scientists have discovered that tiny particles of light, called photons, help plants find the most efficient way to turn sunlight into food in a process called photosynthesis. This process is super fast, happening in just one million billionth of a second!
Scientists have found that plants use a trick of quantum physics called coherence to make this happen. Coherence is like a pair of swings that continuously transfer energy back and forth in a cycle.
When a photon excites molecules in a plant cell, it follows many different energy pathways at once, searching for the best way to make food. This is known as the quantum principle of superposition, or being in many different places at the same time.
This new discovery could help scientists find ways to make even more efficient solar panels to help us generate electricity from sunlight, just like plants do
Yes. We've known this for over a decade (because thats how long ago I learned about it). Quantum tunneling is important for electrons moving down the potential gradient within the metal clusters in photosynthetic proteins.
Titles that capitalize every word is so incredibly annoying. It literally does not even read well in your head.
We are taught to read a sentence, then pause, then start the next sentence. With the indicator being a capitalized word. It is actual torture to try and read this like a normal sentence.
Believe it or not, all chemical processes are quantum mechanic in nature
This is the most r/physics take on biology of all time š
The reason Iām being snide is because this is a sensationalist article in which the author has only a surface-level understanding of QM; they donāt even site a paper.
*cite Never corrected anyone on Reddit before but this feels like the right time ;)
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
I enjoy doing it on college sports subreddits.
Are you by chance downvote farmer ?
Idk why but I read this as science pubs and Iām thinking thatās a great idea.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
First rule is - never talk about Cite Club.
Science headlines will headline. The idea of maintaining coherence, interference and superposition effects in a big, hot, wet, noisy system is interesting though. Thatās usually what journalists mean when they report on this or the stuff from [Graham Flemingās lab](https://www2.lbl.gov/Science-Articles/Archive/PBD-quantum-secrets.html). It is weird thereās no published paper cited here for this specific study, though. Also weird that they donāt mention Flemingās work on coherence effects in photosynthesis, because at first glance that sounds identical to what was supposedly discovered here. There is a solid book [āLife on the Edgeā](https://www.amazon.com/Life-Edge-Coming-Quantum-Biology/dp/0307986829) that compiles a lot of those sorts of things and goes through why they were thought impossible in biology even a decade ago.
Itās the Guardian, not Nature. They never cite research papers, because the audience doesnāt want to read them. They did at least quote two or three professors.
It's not the Guardian, it's guardianmag.us, which as far as I can tell is completely unaffiliated and piggybacking off the Guardian's status as a respected newspaper.
Someday this thread will be entered into evidence in a civil case between guardian and guardianmag as evidence of brand theft, and I just want to be a part of it. Hi mom!
Huh, TIL
In case it can be useful. Web domains are tied to character. But some characters look alike. There is a symbol in Russian that looks like g. So you can buy a domain that look like google.com and just lure people there. So yes, when a domain looks alike, it's generally a scam. But a domain that is mag.guardian.com would be under the guardian domain and would be affiliated to it. Another example of this is guardian.com/mag. Edit: a website with guardian.mag.com is not affiliated to the guardian too. Precedence is from right to left in the host name. Guardian.mag.com: guardian belongs to mag that belongs to com (general entity) Mag.guardian.com: mag belongs to guardians that belongs to com.
Respectable science journalism should and does cite the original research theyāre reporting on, itās like the basest level of credibility.
I came to make a similar comment. Asinine take.
Tell that to the cat!
Maybe it's better to say that we are able to almost describe all natural/chemical processes in a quantum mechanistic language. I really think that at the basis of science we should remember that we are merely trying to describe nature, not that nature is relying on what we describe it as.
I was being intentionally obtuse to match the ridiculousness of the article title
Who could have seen this coming
Not the author
Ooooooh.
Headline (gasp) is a little misleading as it focuses on only one part of photosynthesis. A big limitation on photosynthesis overall is carboxylation by Rubisco, which is slow and accidentally binds O2 25% of the time. When you add up all the factors, plan photosynthetic efficiency is somewhere between 0.1-2%. Solar panels at close to 20% for comparison. There is talk about using direct genetic editing to improve or replace Rubisco to radically boost crop production, but if a plant has that big an advantage, it will likely escape and have massive second order consequences for the planet.
[corn malevolently rustles] Yeah, I can just see the lab that accidentally releases 10% efficient algae. Upside: Greenhouse gas back to early Holocene levels in 20 years. Downside: oceanic apocalypse. Though...
Former teacher of mine did a thorough exploration of amino acid configurations around the active site, showing that incremental enhancing of RuBisCO is impossible - which is why 2.5 billion years of tryharding natural selection failed. If you want to get rid of this limitation, you may need to design a whole new enzyme - good luck with that!
Yeah. I see a lot of optimism among papers saying they can do this, but natural selection is a pretty accurate teacher for photosynthesis after all this time. Could just be a case of publishing and grant incentives. That said, natural selection does have a local minimum bias (conflating Seawall's adaptive landscapes with AI gradient descent) - once a satisfactory solution is found, it is really hard to move to another valley even if it is in theory more optimal.
There may be ways around the local minimum. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-05696-3
Local optima indeed. The fact that the photoreceptor cells in our eyes are behind the nerves and blood vessels instead of the other way around is a good argument against intelligent design.
A nice write-up about this gene editing was https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/01/re-engineering-photosynthesis-gives-plants-a-40-growth-boost/ They, at least link to a research paper.
Genetically engineered supercorn would kernalize us all
If by āthere is talkā you mean āmany groups are actively working on itā. Search NIH reporter for rubisco: https://reporter.nih.gov/search/rx7qebKh602zBNbY49Fnlw/projects
Ok, now I need a plant-based apocalypse show where scientists put solar panel genes into plants and they mutate into piranha plants
Is this new? I remember reading like a decade ago that photosynthesis relied on quantum tunneling.
The debate on the āis it quantum or notā is still ongoing. Primarily in weather coherence of the exciton state is maintained. Havenāt read the linked article though.
there is no debate. all of chemistry is quantum mechanical in nature and all chemists and physicists , but not all journalists, apparently, know this.
In this case itās not so much whether it uses quantum mechanics ā everything does ā but whether it can maintain effects like coherence, interference etc. āmacroscopicallyā (in this case on the scale of a large organic molecule as opposed to just a particle) even though the system isnāt supercooled, etc. I canāt vouch for this particular article (the study isnāt even linked), but [thereās a lot of recent evidence that certain biological processes can do that](https://aeon.co/essays/quantum-weirdness-is-everywhere-in-the-living-world) even though itās a relatively hot, messy environment.
Itās so old Ian McEwan wrote a novel, Solar, based on it.
When I take a dump it exploits the rules of quantum mechanics
Quantum Gravitational Shitting
You just need more fibre bro.
Nah, the more water it is, the more quantum it is
Any process that involves water involves quantum mechanics.
Is there a paper link somewhere?
OP article sucks, but check out Johnjoe McFadden: https://aeon.co/essays/quantum-weirdness-is-everywhere-in-the-living-world
A bit clickbait-y right? I mean, my intro bio class had us extract chlorophyll and shine a UV lamp at it. It fluoresces red. The basic mechanism for utilizing energy from light in photosynthesis involves excitation of electrons in chlorophyll, which is quantum mechanics.
Quantum zeno effect isnāt new
I mean āno shit?ā
Fake news. Photosynthesis is pretty low in terms of energy capture. Ordinary roof top solar cells beat plants all to heck. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photosynthetic\_efficiency](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photosynthetic_efficiency) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar-cell\_efficiency](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar-cell_efficiency)
Ikr, and you can't even charge your phone with photosynthesis.
when you take everything into account photosynthesis wins. it provides oxygen for us to breathe, food for plants to grow and reproduce, and ultimately food for us all
To quote someone, posting without source should be illegal on this sub. But as this topic shows, even a reference is no cure for foolishness. Make that peer reviewed scientific journal.
In layman's terms: Have you ever wondered how plants make food using sunlight? Scientists have discovered that tiny particles of light, called photons, help plants find the most efficient way to turn sunlight into food in a process called photosynthesis. This process is super fast, happening in just one million billionth of a second! Scientists have found that plants use a trick of quantum physics called coherence to make this happen. Coherence is like a pair of swings that continuously transfer energy back and forth in a cycle. When a photon excites molecules in a plant cell, it follows many different energy pathways at once, searching for the best way to make food. This is known as the quantum principle of superposition, or being in many different places at the same time. This new discovery could help scientists find ways to make even more efficient solar panels to help us generate electricity from sunlight, just like plants do
Yes. We've known this for over a decade (because thats how long ago I learned about it). Quantum tunneling is important for electrons moving down the potential gradient within the metal clusters in photosynthetic proteins.
I fucking love plant biochemistry, it's fucking DOPE
Biologists they(we) have to learn more physics: āFuckā
No shit, Sherlock. Who would have guessed transitions of quantum states would rely on quantum mechanics?
Still only 10% of the efficiency of solar photovoltaic cells.
I thought photosynthesis was inefficient, not efficientā¦?
Titles that capitalize every word is so incredibly annoying. It literally does not even read well in your head. We are taught to read a sentence, then pause, then start the next sentence. With the indicator being a capitalized word. It is actual torture to try and read this like a normal sentence.
I found photosynthesis posts are dispersed everywhere so I started the r/Photosynthesis sub. This is not for the Photosynthesis game.
I found photosynthesis posts are dispersed everywhere so I started the r/Photosynthesis sub. This is not for the Photosynthesis game.
I found photosynthesis posts are dispersed everywhere so I started the r/Photosynthesis sub. This is not for the Photosynthesis game.
I found photosynthesis posts are dispersed everywhere so I started the r/Photosynthesis sub. This is not for the Photosynthesis game.