[HN Gopher] Birds Have a Mysterious 'Quantum Sense'. Scientists ...
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Birds Have a Mysterious 'Quantum Sense'. Scientists Have Now Seen
It in Action
Author : bookofjoe
Score : 56 points
Date : 2021-10-08 13:44 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.sciencealert.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.sciencealert.com)
| [deleted]
| leephillips wrote:
| The article says,
|
| "Importantly, this is evidence of quantum physics directly
| affecting a biochemical reaction in a cell - something we've long
| hypothesized but haven't seen in action before."
|
| But there is an entire field called quantum biology:
|
| https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsif.2018.064...
| ceejayoz wrote:
| There's a whole field of study in dark matter, something we've
| not directly observed yet. That article doesn't seem to
| contradict the assertion; it says things like:
|
| > As we investigate biological systems on nanoscales and
| larger, we find that there exist processes in biological
| organisms, detailed in this article, for which it is currently
| thought that a quantum mechanical description is necessary to
| fully characterize the behaviour of the relevant subsystem.
|
| This would be proof of one of those hypothesized processes.
| leephillips wrote:
| Quantum phenomena in photosynthesis have been observed for
| some time now:
|
| https://www.pnas.org/content/108/52/20908.short
|
| https://www.osti.gov/biblio/914472
| jnwatson wrote:
| A great example (and AFAIK, the first quantum biological
| reaction identified) is photosynthesis [1]. Quantum coherence
| is part of the energy transfer mechanism of photosynthesis.
|
| 1. https://www.nature.com/articles/nature05678
| lisper wrote:
| This is not a "quantum sense", it's a mechanism for sensing (non-
| quantum) magnetic fields that happens to rely on a quantum
| mechanical effect. But ultimately everything that happens in our
| universe relies on quantum mechanical effects, to that's not
| quite as esoteric as the headline is trying to make it appear.
| kremlin wrote:
| my first thought was the same, but I still had an intuition
| that it makes sense to call this sort of thing quantum as
| opposed to other, say, chemical-based senses which, although
| still at some level obviously relying on quantum physics, are
| more readily explained by using higher level concepts.
|
| I suppose it comes down to emergent phenomena: what's the
| lowest-level concept you HAVE to invoke to understand what's
| going on here? when you want to explain how taste buds work,
| you can talk about neural paths and chemical chains, and even
| though each of those things relies on quantum physics to exist,
| you don't have to invoke the concepts or objects of the quantum
| world to understand the phenomenon in question. but with this
| particular phenomenon, you do. you can't just explain how this
| works with higher level concepts, you have to get low down.
| pradn wrote:
| The distinction here is that this effect requires a quantum-
| mechanical understanding of the world to be understood at the
| core. It's not like the simple movement of a ball in a
| parabola, which can be explained in classical terms.
| gus_massa wrote:
| The most interesting part is very similar to phosphorescence
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phosphorescence#Introduction
| Look at the figure 1A in the research paper
| https://www.pnas.org/content/118/3/e2018043118
|
| Note that the diagram in Fig 1A is more complicated than the
| one in Wikipedia, because in this case the process involve
| some additional chemical steps.
|
| If phosphorescence a chemical or a quantum phenomena?
| https://xkcd.com/435/
|
| With some random search in Google I found this:
| https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/chemistry/triplet-state
| It's somewhat relevant because the cause of phosphorescence
| and what is happening in this articles is caused by triplets.
| I want to highlight that if I'd want to ask more about these
| articles, in half of them I'd ask a Chemist and in the other
| half a Physicist. (In both cases, one that is specialized in
| these things that are between the fields.)
| smaddox wrote:
| The same could be said about sense of smell. And frankly any
| of the other senses. Even touch, if you realize that the
| atoms in your hand never really "touch" other objects.
| drdeca wrote:
| Depends how you define "touch" doesn't it? It's not like
| the atoms have sharp boundaries which fall short of
| coinciding with the boundaries of other atoms,
|
| what should it even mean to say that they do or don't
| touch?
|
| I don't know much of anything about how smell works. Does
| it involve quantum mechanics in ways which don't fall under
| "chemistry" (with chemistry being an implication of quantum
| mechanics) ?
|
| I think "has to be understood in terms of quantum mechanics
| beyond just chemistry" is a reasonable distinction to make,
| and applies to the way these birds work.
| smaddox wrote:
| > I don't know much of anything about how smell works.
| Does it involve quantum mechanics in ways which don't
| fall under "chemistry" (with chemistry being an
| implication of quantum mechanics) ?
|
| Arguably, yes. You could call smell a chemical sensor,
| but it's not sensing chemicals through a chemical
| reaction. Instead, it's sensing the modes of excitation
| of a molecule, i.e. the distribution of available state
| transitions, which is inherently quantum mechanical.
| ryandvm wrote:
| Am I missing something or is this about detecting _moving_
| magnetic fields? The researchers waved a magnet over tissue
| samples.
|
| Moving a magnetic field through electrically conductive material
| generates electrical currents. That seems like a much simpler
| mechanism than some invoking quantum effect.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| There's more detailed information here:
| https://www.u-tokyo.ac.jp/focus/en/press/z0508_00158.html and
| the actual publication at
| https://www.pnas.org/content/118/3/e2018043118
|
| The mechanism of action isn't hypothesized to be electrical
| current; it's hypothesized to be the magnetic field causing a
| probability shift in the formation of radical pairs. How they
| controlled for the possibility of magnetic flux inducing
| current I'm unclear on (but I think it's understood that that
| mechanism would be impossible for flavins).
| hungryforcodes wrote:
| That's much deeper then.
| throwawayboise wrote:
| I've known people who have a profoundly good sense of direction.
| They always know which way is North, etc. Not sure if they are
| just more attuned to visual cues such as position of sun,
| shadows, stars, etc. or possibly have better sensitivity to
| magnetic fields?
| rozab wrote:
| How's this for an experimental setup: get a cohort of people
| going in for surgery under general anaesthesia, and randomly
| place them in a north or south facing windowless room
| afterwards :) no added risk, and pretty minor cost
| mrec wrote:
| That seems like a fairly straightforward question to settle
| experimentally, using advanced scientific apparatus like a bag
| over the head.
| bbarnett wrote:
| I'd fund that study, if only to see birds with tiny paper
| bags over their heads.
| selimthegrim wrote:
| Plastic lens over the eyes but still gnarly looking
| remarkEon wrote:
| I have this, and it was a running joke when I was a kid.
| "remarkEon - what way is North?" and I'd always get it right. I
| think it's just good spatial awareness - nothing magical or any
| special sensitivity to magnetic fields. For example, I still
| get turned around after exiting the subways in New York on
| occasion (who doesn't).
| insilicophage wrote:
| I also have this. And I also think it's just a synthesis of
| many clues and I guess some people don't perform that same
| synthesis (my wife for example). Things like "last known
| direction", "position of sun", "time of day", "this side of
| the tree is wet but the other isn't", and probably a bit of
| grid neurons somewhere doing dead reckoning.
| hanoz wrote:
| I also have this a bit, but when I moved from London to
| Sydney, my sense of it flipped, i.e. 'up' on my internal
| map was now South not North, from which I concluded it was
| not magnetic.
| lazide wrote:
| Same here. Hyper awareness explains it, and it definitely
| isn't reliable enough to say it is based on some extra
| sensory input. Just paying attention more than most.
|
| Not sure if you've experienced similar, but I also have been
| aware of things like where the trash cans and bathrooms are,
| where the fire extinguisher is, where the power outlets are,
| etc. without being asked or consciously attempting to find
| them, and can give accurate spatial directions to them
| without thinking about it much, which seems to be similarly
| unusual. I just remember and integrate the knowledge as I
| happen to run across various data.
| remarkEon wrote:
| I think this is just pattern recognition, really. There's
| only a few places where it makes sense to put e.g. a fire
| extinguisher or power outlets so you can make an inference
| about where they're at without actively thinking too much
| about the layout of a building.
| lazide wrote:
| Of course!
|
| North is also a VERY predictable and easy to figure out
| direction with a little thought if you can see the sky,
| and anyone with a smart phone (99% of the population
| now?) have GPS and high resolution maps and satellite
| photos accessible at a moments notice on it. Yet people
| get lost all the time, and I bet if you asked 10 people
| which way was north walking on the street, you'd be lucky
| to get 3 which pointed in the right direction (and 2 of
| those would only be right through sheer luck).
|
| I've been around groups several times now when a fire
| happens, and had to grab extinguishers because of
| unexpected fires when I've been around, and most folks
| can't figure out where a fire extinguisher is (let alone
| get it) when a fire happens even after they were shown it
| when they arrived.
| pradn wrote:
| At least in the middle of Manhattan, I've learned to rely on
| the direction of cars up and down avenues to tell which way
| I'm facing. I know that Eighth Ave goes up because I live and
| work around there, and so can extrapolate for the other major
| avenues. That, and that subway exits often given you their
| cardinal orientation relative to the center of the
| intersection they erupt from.
| rpmisms wrote:
| I could do this when I was young, too, even with my eyes
| closed after walking around blindfolded. Went away after
| puberty.
| nkrisc wrote:
| It's basically just an innately good sense of dead reckoning.
| I was especially good at it growing up in Chicago where
| pretty much every street is either N/S or E/W, it made it
| much easier. You just needed an intuition of the difference
| between your left turns and right turns, or you could just
| explicitly count it.
| ppod wrote:
| >And there's evidence that even though it's not conscious, humans
| are actually still capable of detecting Earth's magnetism.
|
| There's nothing totally convincing on this is there? I followed
| the links and it seems to just be modulating EEG responses.
| That's not the same as "humans are capable of detecting". It's
| possible to measure unconscious capabilities behaviourally, e.g
| in blindsight experiments.
| sa1 wrote:
| I guess the more accurate statement would be that human cells
| have the machinery to do it.
| aaron695 wrote:
| No mammals can detect magnetic fields
|
| Although it's hard to know as the list of lies is long - dogs,
| cats, humans, cows...
|
| Maybe bats do, but researches are swamping the world with fake
| papers on mammals detecting magnetic fields so I'd just to
| default to all are lies until you read a paper with a
| researcher willing to tell the truth about what's true and what
| isn't, rather than coasting for citations.
|
| But this is a article about a Mysterious 'Quantum Sense', so I
| guess you'd not be really interesting in the truth. I get that,
| we are in the Super Hero stage of entertainment. And we are
| here to be entertained.
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