

New Discovery: Photosynthesis uses quantum effects - mvandemar
http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/news/3285/photosynthesis-uses-quantum-effects

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idlewords
Well, light is a quantum effect, so...

A more accurate way to put it is that long-lived, coherent quantum states
appear to play a role in photosynthesis.

This is surprising because in the laboratory this kind of coherence requires
super low temperatures.

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n8agrin
_Does the nature know about and use quantum effects more than we do?_ [sic]

Yes.

Also the last paragraph is interesting. From another scientist:

 _"Based on past experience, I predict this work will be misrepresented by
those who desperately want to believe that bizarre quantum effects such as
entanglement are crucial to biomolecules being able to function in an optimum
manner. I see no evidence for such claims in this experimental data."_

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mvandemar
It is important to note though that he is not claiming that he sees no
evidence for the claims made in the article, he's just predicting that others
will make claims that are not supported based on the same data.

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JunkDNA
For anyone with access to Nature, I found the Editor's summary considerably
more readable than the actual research article (since I'm not all that well-
versed in quantum mechanics and biophysics):

[http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v463/n7281/full/463614a...](http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v463/n7281/full/463614a.html)

