As little as a decade ago, scientists were sure that the chemistry of life and the weird chemistry of the quantum world were completely separate things. Quantum effects were usually observed only on the nanometer scale, surrounded by hard vacuum, ultra-low temperatures, and a tightly controlled laboratory environment. Biology, however, is a macroscopic world that is warm, messy, and anything but controlled. It seemed elementary that a quantum phenomenon such as 'coherence', in which the wave patterns of every part of a system stay in step, wouldn't last a microsecond in the tumultuous realm of the cell. It would be simply unthinkable.
Or so we thought…
Recent years have seen scientists finding coherent quantum processes all across the natural world. And it’s not just in some exotic halobacteria or flying marsupial, it turns out quantum biology is pretty much ubiquitous. In fact, it appears to be a central part in the most important chemical reactions on Earth: photosynthesis and cellular respiration.
Now… why should you care?
To read more, click here.