A rap summary of Jim Al-Khalili’s fascinating TED talk about the emerging field of Quantum Biology. How does life use the weird abilities of the Quantum World on a cellular level? Science is starting to find out.
lyrics
This is Jim Al-Khalili, I hope you all can hear me
I be a nuclear physicist here to bring out an emerging theory:
Quantum physics or mechanics, we often cite these properties
but Quantum Biology? what might it possibly be?
so as we understand it
if you expanded the zoom past the nano level to an atom,
To glance at electrons, the nucleus, all of its factors
that is the domain of Quantum Mechanics
And in this level of reality when we look at
the very smallest particles they move in ways we would intuit
that they shouldn’t …like behaving as waves or particles in the same Moment
Or not respecting a barrier, but just going through it
it’s almost like magic when we view it
It.s Like seeing a skier ski through a tree as if it were fluid,
and remaining intact, how'd he do it
In fact Neils Bohr put it
that if you’re not shocked by this, then you haven’t understood it
While Chemists and Physicists have almost got used to this analysis
Biologists still mostly model molecules as balls and plastic sticks
But Can this weird and wonderful and powerful theory
of subatomic physics also play a role in the cells of living beings?
Are there happenings in the cells of all this living matter
that can be accurately explained with the helping hand of Quantum Mechanics?
the latest experiments have evidenced via spectroscopy
that Quantum effects are seen in life constantly - Quantum Biology
Come with me as we seek the fine properties
inside all that we find on this odyssey
whole new worlds reside in all we see
on the tree of life... on the tree of life
Come with me as we seek the fine properties
inside all that we find on this odyssey
whole new worlds reside in all we see
peek inside with Quantum Biology
In the body, there’s times when Enzymes catalyse a reaction
between two molecules and protons go travelling
from one of them to the other one so rapidly
that it must be underpinned by a process called Quantum Tunneling
the puzzling ability of particles to go through, not over barriers
that stand in the way and still speculating, but we can say
Quantum Tunneling may even play a role in the way
that 2 protons change places with one another in DNA
Another trick that has appeared to us is quantum coherence
the manner individual particles travel multiple routes simultaneous
and with solar energies that's what the whole dope system is
when particles of light are shifted in living cells in photosynthesis
I'll finish with, another speculation: a Robin’s migration
which traces the Earth’s magnetic field as the basis for its navigation
this field is so faint, but the way the Robin is tracking it
may be cryptochrome in its eyes matched with Quantum Entanglement
so, imagine it, the principle that Einstein called Spooky Action at a Distance
Could be integral to one of life’s primary instincts
Watch this space, and watch what occurs
as science finds ways nature has evolved using tricks from the Quantum World
Come with me as we seek the fine properties
inside all that we find on this odyssey
whole new worlds reside in all we see
on the tree of life... on the tree of life
Come with me as we seek the fine properties
inside all that we find on this odyssey
whole new worlds reside in all we see
peek inside with Quantum Biology
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