Amazing stuff!
"... scientists have traditionally assumed that biology and quantum mechanics just don’t mix. After all, living systems are warm and unpredictable, and even itty-bitty cells are far too large to display quantum properties. But last year, a team of researchers ... demonstrated that the amino acid tryptophan can exhibit a quantum phenomenon called “superradiance” when arranged in large networks within cells. That discovery ... could mean that life on Earth has far more computing capacity than previously thought.
Because all life forms are physical systems and process information according to the laws of physics, they can be thought of as performing computations. When estimating the computational limits of life, scientists have traditionally treated the neuron as the fundamental information-processing unit. But many organisms that lack neurons—including bacteria, fungi, and plants—are still capable of performing computations. ... these life forms have been around much longer than animals, making them responsible for the vast majority of carbon-based computation on Earth.
The discovery of superradiant quantum effects in proteins containing tryptophan, meanwhile, suggests that living cells can process information much more efficiently than previously thought. These tryptophan networks could even be operating as quantum fiber optics, allowing cells across the tree of life to process information billions of times faster than traditional biochemical signaling would allow—rivaling the power of even the most sophisticated quantum computers. ..."
From the abstract:
"As physical systems, all life in the universe processes information according to physical laws. Estimates for the computational capacity of living systems generally assume that the fundamental information-processing unit is the Hodgkin-Huxley neuron, thereby excluding aneural organisms. Assuming the laws of quantum mechanics, the relativistic speed limit set by light, a universe at critical mass-energy density, and a recent experimental demonstration of single-photon superradiance in cytoskeletal protein fibers at thermal equilibrium, it is conjectured that the number of elementary logical operations that can have been performed by all eukaryotic life in the history of Earth, which is shown to be approximately equal to the ratio of the age of the universe to the Planck time, is about the square root of the number by the entire observable universe from the beginning. The existence of ultraviolet-excited states in these protein fibers, operating within two orders of magnitude of the Margolus-Levitin speed limit, motivates state-of-the-art performance comparisons with contemporary quantum computers."
Howard University physicist revisits the computational limits of life and Schrödinger’s essential question in the era of quantum computing "The discovery of life processing with UV-excited qubits supports a conjecture relative to the computing capacity of the universe"
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