Quantum Aspects of Life
landmark event was the publication in 1944 of Erwin Schrödinger's
book What is Life? Six decades later, the question
remains unanswered. Although biological processes are increasingly
well understood at the biochemical and molecular biological
level, from the point of view of fundamental physics life
remains deeply mysterious. Schrödinger himself drew
inspiration from his seminal work on quantum mechanics,
which had so spectacularly explained the nature of matter,
believing it was sufficiently powerful and remarkable to
explain the nature of life too. These dreams have not been
realized. To be sure, quantum mechanics is indispensable
for explaining the shapes, sizes and chemical affinities
of biological molecules, but for almost all purposes scientists
go on to treat these molecules using classical ball-and-stick
models. Life still seems an almost magical state of matter
to physicists; furthermore, it's origin from non-living
chemicals is not understood at all.
In recent years,
circumstantial evidence has accumulated that quantum mechanics
may, as Schrödinger hoped, indeed cast important light
on life's origin and nature. In October 2003, the US space
agency NASA convened a workshop at the Ames Laboratory in
California, the leading astrobiology institution, devoted
to quantum aspects of life. The workshop was hosted
by Ames astrobiologist Chris McKay and chaired by Paul Davies.
In this volume we shall solicit essays both from the participants
in the workshop, and from a wider range of physical scientists
who have considered this theme, including those who have
expressed skepticism. The over-arching question we shall
address is whether quantum mechanics plays a non-trivial
role in biology.
it is timely to set out a distinct quantum biology agenda.
The burgeoning fields of nanotechnology, biotechnology,
quantum technology and quantum information processing are
now strongly converging. The acronym BINS, for Bio-Info-Nano-Systems,
has been coined to describe the synergetic interface of
these several disciplines. The living cell is an information
replicating and processing system that is replete with naturally-evolved
nanomachines, which at some level require a quantum mechanical
description. As quantum engineering and nanotechnology meet,
increasing use will be made of biological structures, or
hybrids of biological and fabricated systems, for producing
novel devices for information storage and processing, and
other tasks. An understanding of these systems at a quantum
mechanical level will be indispensable.
the discussion, we propose to include articles on "artificial
quantum life," a rapidly-developing topic of interest
in its own right, but also because it may cast light on
real biological systems. Related mathematical models will
include quantum replication and evolution, von Neumann's
universal constructors for quantum systems, semi-quantum
cellular automata and evolutionary quantum game theory.
propose to include the transcripts of two debates:
versus reality: quantum computing" hosted by the Fluctuations
and Noise symposium held in Santa Fe, USA, 1-4 June
2003. The panelists were Carlton M. Caves, Daniel Lidar,
Howard Brandt, Alex Hamilton (for) and David Ferry, Julio
Gea-Banacloche, Sergey Bezrukov and Laszlo Kish (against).
The debate chair was Charles Doering.
effects in biology—trivial or not?" hosted by
the Fluctuations and Noise symposium held in Gran
Canaria, Spain, 25-28 May 2004. The panelists were Paul
Davies, Derek Abbott, Stuart Hameroff, Anton Zeilinger (for)
and Jens Eisert, Sergey Bezrukov, Hans Frauenfelder and
Howard Wiseman (against). The debate Chair was Julio Gea-Banacloche.
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Table of Contents
Forward: Sir R. Penrose (University
of Oxford, UK)
Sir Roger Penrose FRS OM was
born in England, in Colchester, August 8, 1931. His mother
was a medical doctor, and his father was a medical
was on a path to become a doctor, but his high school
did not allow him to take both mathematics and biology.
to chose one, and he could not bring himself to give
up mathematics. He then went on to graduate with a BSc
in mathematics from University College London. He then
obatained a PhD at Cambridge in the area of algebraic geometry,
under John A. Todd. Whilst at Cambridge he attended a number
lecturers outside of his primary studies including Paul
Dirac's course on quantum mechanics. These together with
prompting from Dennis Sciama, led to his interest in Physics.
This led to a series of papers on general relativity, black
holes, twistor theory, spin networks, and quantum gravity.He
has held a number of academic positions inclding those
at Cambridge, Princeton, Birkbeck College, and he is presently
Emeritus Rouse Ball Professor of Mathematics at Oxford.
He is the receipient of numerous wawrds including the Dirac
Medal, the Royal Society Medal, and the Eddington Medal.
1: Emergence & Complexity
1: P.C.W. Davies (Macquarie University, Australia)
and the emergence of quantum complexity"
is a theoretical physicist, cosmologist, and astrobiologist.
He held academic appointments at the Universities of Cambridge,
London and Newcastle upon Tyne before moving to Australia
in 1990, first as Professor of Mathematical Physics at
The University of Adelaide, and later as Professor of
Natural Philosophy at Macquarie University in Sydney,
where he helped establish the NASA-affiliated Australian
Centre for Astrobiology. In September 2006, he joined
University as College Professor and Director of a new interdisciplinary
research institute called Beyond, devoted to exploring
the "big questions" of science and philosophy. Davies's
research has been mainly in the theory of quantum fields
in curved spacetime, with applications to the very early
universe and the properties of black holes, although
he is also an expert on the nature of time. His astrobiology
research has focused on the origin of life; he was a
forerunner of the theory that life on Earth may have
originated on Mars. Davies is the author of several hundred
research papers and articles, as well as 27 books, including
The Physics of Time Asymmetry and Quantum Fields in Curved
Space, co-authored with his former PhD student Nicholas
Birrell. Among his recent popular books are How to Build
Machine and The Goldilocks Enigma: Why is the universe
just right for life? (U.S. edition entitled Cosmic Jackpot).
He writes frequently for newspapers, journals and magazines
in several countries. His television series "The Big
Questions", filmed in the Australian outback, won national
while his theories on astrobiology formed the subject
of a specially commissioned one-hour BBC 4 television
production screened in 2003 entitled The Cradle of Life.
In addition, he has also devised and presented many BBC
and ABC radio documentaries on topics ranging from chaos
theory to superstrings. Davies was awarded the 2001 Kelvin
Medal and Prize by the UK Institute of Physics and the
2002 Faraday Award by The Royal Society. In Australia,
he was the recipient of two Eureka Prizes and an Advance
Australia award. Davies also won the 1995 Templeton Prize
for his work on the deeper meaning of science. The asteroid
1992 OG was renamed (6870) Pauldavies in his honour.
2: S. Lloyd (MIT, USA) "Quantum origins of complexity"
Seth Lloyd is a Professor
of Quantum-Mechanical Engineering at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology. His research focuses on how physical
systems process information. He proposed the first design
for a quantum computer and has worked with scientists and
engineers around to world to construct quantum computers
and quantum communication systems. Dr Lloyd is the author
of Programming the Universe (Knopf, 2006).
2: Quantum Mechanisms in Biology
3: J. McFadden and J. Al-Khalili (University of Surrey,
"Quantum coherence and the search for the first replicator"
Jim Al-Khalili is a theoretical
physicist at the University of Surrey, UK, where he also
holds a chair in the public engagement in
science. He has published widely in his specialist field
of theoretical nuclear physics where he has developed quantum
scattering methods to model the structure and properties
of light exotic nuclei. He has published several popular
science books on a range of topics in physics and is a
regular broadcaster on radio and television. He is a fellow
of the UK Institute of Physics and a trustee of the British
Association for the Advancement of Science.
Johnjoe McFadden Johnjoe
McFadden is Professor of Molecular Genetics at the University
of Surrey. He obtained his PhD at Imperial College, University
of London, in 1982. Since then he has worked mainly on
molecular genetic of bacteria and has published more
than 120 refereed scientific papers in this area. His
work has also strayed into more controversial areas such
as the origins of life and consciousness. He has published
a number of books including "Quantum Evolution" and "Human
Nature: Fact and Fiction".
Chapter 4: Alexandra
Olaya Castro, Francesca Fassioli Olsen, Chiu Fan Lee and
Neil F. Johnson (University of Oxford,
"Ultrafast quantum dynamics in photosynthesis"
Alexandra Olaya-Castro is currently a
Junior Research Fellow in Physics at Trinity College in
Oxford. She obtained
her undergraduate degree in Physics at Universidad Distrital
Francisco Jose de Caldas and her MSc
at Universidad de Los Andes in Bogota, Colombia. She
obtained her DPhil
at Oxford. Her research interests currently focus on entanglement
in open systems and quantum coherence in biomolecular complexes.
Francesca Fassioli Olsen is currently
a DPhil student in Prof Neil Johnson's group at Oxford
University. She obtained her BSc in Physics at Pontificia
Universidad Cat olica de Chile. Her research interests
are entanglement in open quantum systems and excitation
dynamics in photosynthetic membranes.
Chiu Fan Lee is currently a Glasstone
Research Fellow at the physics department and a Junior
Research Fellow at Jesus College
in Oxford. He obtained his BSc at McGill University, Canada,
and DPhil at Oxford University. His research interests
lie in the areas of biophysics and theoretical biology.
Neil Johnson is currently a professor
of physics at Oxford University. His training in physics
consisted of an undergraduate degree at Cambridge University
and a PhD at Harvard University. His interests focus around
Complexity, and Complex Systems, in the physical, biological
and social sciences.
5: J. Bothma, J. Gilmore, and R.H. McKenzie
(Univ. Queensland, Australia)
"Modelling quantum decoherence in biomolecules"
Jacques Bothma is currently
an MPhil student in the Physics department at the University
Queensland. He completed his BSc in Physics at the University
of Queensland in 2006. His research interests are in the
areas of theoretical and experimental biological physics.
Joel Gilmore is a science communicator
with the University of Queensland, and coordinator of the
UQ Physics Demo Troupe. He completed a PhD in Physics at
the University of Queensland in 2007, researching minimal
models of quantum mechanics in biological systems.
Ross McKenzie is a Professorial
Research Fellow in Physics at the University of Queensland.
He was an undergraduate at the Australian National University
and completed a PhD at Princeton University in 1988. His
interests are in the quantum many-body theory
of complex materials ranging from organic superconductors
to biomolecules to rare-earth oxide catalysts.
3: The Biological Evidence
6: A. Goel (Harvard University, USA)
"Molecular evolution: a role for quantum mechanics
in the dynamics of molecular machines that read DNA"
Anita Goel holds both
a PhD in Physics from Harvard University and an MD from
Joint Division of Health Sciences
and Technology (HST) and BS in Physics from Stanford
University. She was named in 2005 as one of the worlds
top 35 science and technology innovators under the age
of 35 by the MIT Technology Review Magazine. Dr. Goel is
the Chairman, and Scientific Director of Nanobiosym
Labs and the President and CEO of Nanobiosym Diagnostics,
Inc. Dr. Goel also serves as an Associate of the Harvard
Physics Department, an Adjunct Professor at BEYOND, a Fellow
of the World Technology Network, a Fellow-at-Large of the
Santa Fe Institute, and a Member of the Board of
and Scientific Advisory Board of India-Nano, an organization
devoted to bridging breakthrough advances in nanotechnology
with the burgeoning Indian nanotech sector.
7: A. Mershin and D.V. Nanopoulos (Texas A & M,
"Microtubules and the quantum origin of memory: (more)
facts and (less) fancy"
Andreas Mershin received
his MSci in Physics from Imperial College London (1997)
and his PhD
in Physics from Texas A&M
University (2003) where, under the guidance of D. V. Nanopoulos,
he studied the theoretical and experimental biophysics
of the cytoskeleton. He performed molecular dynamic simulations
on tubulin and after winning an NSF grant initiated wide-reaching,
cross-disciplinary collaborations performing experiments
utilizing surface plasmon resonance, dielectric spectroscopy
and molecular neurobiology to successfully test the hypothesis
that the neuronal microtubular cytoskeleton is involved
in memory encoding, storage and retrieval in Drosophila.
Currently, he is a postdoctoral
associate at the Center for Biomedical Engineering of the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology developing bioelectronic
photovoltaic and chemical sensing applications using membrane
proteins integrated onto semiconductors. A patent holder
and entrepreneur in the field of biosensors, he is also
a co-founder of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences'
international annual Molecular Frontiers Inquiry Prize
for the best scientific question posed by children (www.molecularfrontiers.org).
Dimitri V. Nanopoulos received his BSc
in Physics from the University of Athens (1971) and his
PhD in High Energy Physics from
the University of Sussex (1973). He has been a Research Fellow
at CERN, at Ecole Normale Superieure and at Harvard University.
In 1989, he was elected professor (Department of Physics,
Texas A&M University) where since
1992 he is a Distinguished Professor of Physics and since
2002 holds the Mitchell/Heep Chair in High Energy Physics.
He is also Head of the Astroparticle Physics Group at the
Houston Advanced Research Center. He has made several contributions
to particle physics and cosmology working on string unified
theories, fundamentals of quantum theory, astroparticle
quantum-inspired models of brain function. With over 550
original papers and 31,000 citations he has been ranked 4th
most cited high energy physicist of all time by the Stanford
University Census. A fellow of the American Physical Society
since 1988 he was elected a member of the Academy of Athens
in 1997 and became President of the Greek National Council
for Research and Technology as well as the National representative
of Greece to CERN in 2005. He has received numerous awards
and honors including the Onassis International prize.
8: V.A. Parsegian (NIH, USA)
fluctuations, van der Waals forces and biology"
- Late chapter. Please submit asap or it will
9: L. Demetrius (Max Planck Institute for Molecular
Genetics, Germany, and Harvard University, USA)
metabolism and allometric scaling relations in biology"
Lloyd Demetrius was educated
at Cambridge University, England and the University of
Chicago, USA. His present research
interests include the application of Ergodic theory and
dynamical systems to the study of evolutionary processes
in biology . He has been on the mathematics faculty at
the University of California, Berkeley , Brown University
Rutgers. His current affiliations are the Max Planck
Institute for molecular genetics, Berlin, and Harvard
10: J.D. Bashford and P.D. Jarvis (Univ. Tasmania,
"Spectroscopy of the genetic code"
Jim Bashford is presently an ice sheet
data analyst at the Australian Government Antarctic Division.
He graduated with a PhD
in theoretical physics from the University of Adelaide
in 2003. Recent research interests have included modelling
of codon-amino acid degeneracy, oligomer thermo- dynamics,
nonlinear models of DNA dynamics and phylogenetic entanglement.
Peter Jarvis is at the School of Mathematics
and Physics, University of Tasmania. His main interests
are in algebraic structures in mathematical physics and
their applications, especially combinatorial Hopf algebras
in integrable systems and quantum field theory. In
applications of group theory to physical problems, aside
from the work on supersymmetry in the genetic code, recent
papers have included applications of classical invariant
11: A. Patel (Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore,
understandin the origin of genetic
Apoorva D. Patel is a
Professor a the Centre for High Energy Physics, Indian
Institute of Science, Bangalore. He obtained his MSc in
physics from the Indian Institute of Technology, Mumbai,
and PhD in physics from the Califorbnia Instititute of
Technology (Caltech). His major field of work has been
the theory of QCD, where he has used lattice guage theory
techniques to investigate spectral properties, phase transitions,
and matrix elements. In recent years, he has worked on
quantum algorithms, and used concepts from information
theory to understand the structure of genetic languages.
4: Artificial Quantum Life
12: A.K. Pati (Institute of Physics, Orrisa, India)
Samuel L. Braunstein (University of York, York, UK)
arbitrary quantum system undergo self-replication?"
K. Pati has been a theoretical
physicist in the Theoretical Physics Division, BARC,
Mumbai, India since 1989, and is currently a visiting
scientist at the Institute of Physics, Bhubaneswar, India.
research is in quantum information and computation, the
theory of geometric phases and its applications, and
the foundations of quantum mechanics. He is also interested
in the quantum mechanics of bio-systems. He has published
over 60 papers on these topics and has edited a book
on quantum information theory. Pati is the recipient
of the India Physics Association Award for Young Physicist
of the Year (2000) and the Indian Physical Society Award
for Young Scientists (1996). His research has been featured
in news items in Nature, Science and many national and
Samuel L. Braunstein joined the University
of York, in 2003 and is heading a group in non-standard
computation. He is a recipient of the prestigious Royal
Research Merit Award. He was recently awarded the honorary
title of 2001 Lord Kelvin Lecturer. He is editor of three
books Quantum Computing, Scalable Quantum Computing
and Quantum Information with Continuous Variables and serves
editorial board of the journal Fortschritte der Physik.
He is a Founding Managing Editor of Quantum Information
and Computation. He has over 90 papers published in refereed
journals. His work has received extensive coverage in
prestigious scientific venues such as Science,
Nature, Physics Today, New Scientist and daily newspapers
around the world.
13: A.P. Flitney (University of Melbourne, Australia)
and D. Abbott (University of Adelaide, Australia)
"Quantum game of life"
Adrian Flitney completed
a Bachelor of Science with first class honours in theoretical
physics at the University of Tasmania in 1983.
He worked in the field of ionospheric physics and high
frequency radio communications for the Department of Science
for two years and later for Andrew Antennas Corporation.
He was a researcher in quantum field theory in the Physics
Department at the University of Adelaide for some time,
as a tutor in physics and mathematics both within the University
and privately. In 2001 Flitney finally saw the light
and began a PhD in the field of quantum information with
the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering
at the University of Adelaide. At the beginning of 2005
he submitted a thesis entitled "Aspects of Quantum Game
was awarded his doctorate with highest commendation. He
is currently worked in the School of Physics, University
of Melbourne on quantum games and decoherence under an
Australian Research Council Postdoctoral Fellowship. He
has authored thirteen peer reviewed publications and presented
seven conference papers. Currently Flitney's major non-academic
interests are chess, where he has achieved considerable
success in the past, and kayaking.
Derek Abbott was born in South
Kensington, London, UK. He is with The University of Adelaide,
Australia, where he is presently the Director of the Centre
for Biomedical Engineering (CBME). He has served as an
editor and/or guest editor for a number of journals including Chaos (AIP), Smart
Structures and Materials (IOP), Journal of Optics
B (IOP), Microelectronics Journal (Elsevier), Proceedings
of the IEEE, and Fluctuation Noise Letters (World
Scientific). He is a life Fellow of the Institute of Physics
(IOP) and Fellow of the Institution of Electrical & Electronic
Engineers (IEEE). Prof Abbott is co-founder of two international
conference series: Microelectronics in the New Millennium and Fluctuations
A. Iqbal and T. Cheon (Kochi University of Technology,
stability in quantum games"
Email: email@example.com , firstname.lastname@example.org
Azhar Iqbal graduated
in Physics in 1995 from the University of Sheffield, UK.
From 1995 to 2002 he was associated with the Pakistan
Institute of Lasers &
Optics. He earned his PhD from the University of Hull,
UK, in 2006 in the area of quantum games. He is Assistant
Professor (on leave) at the National University of Sciences
and Technology, Pakistan and Visiting Associate Professor
at the Kochi University of Technology, Japan.
Taksu Cheon graduated in Physics in 1980
from the University of Tokyo, Japan. He earned his PhD
from the University of Tokyo
in 1985 in the area of theoretical nuclear physics.
He is Professor of Theoretical Physics at the Kochi University
of Technology, Japan.
J. Sladkowski (University of Silesia, Poland)
"Quantum transmemetic intelligence"
5: The Debate
16: Transcript of debate held in Santa Fe, 2003:
"Dreams versus reality: quantum computing"
personae: S. Bezrukov (NIH), H. Brandt (Army Research
lab), C.M. Caves (Univ. New Mexico), C. R. Doering,
(Univ. of Michigan). Gea-Banacloche
(Univ. Arkansas), L. Kish (Texas A&M), D. Lidar
(Univ. Toronto), D. Ferry (Arizona State University),
A. Hamilton (Univ. New South Wales).
Editor: D. Abbott (Univ. Adelaide)
17: Transcript of debate held in the Canary Islands,
effects in biology---trivial or not?"
personae: D. Abbott (Univ. Adelaide), S. Bezrukov (NIH),
P.C.W. Davies (Macquarie Univ.), J. Eisert (Imperial College
and Potsdam Univ.), H. Frauenfelder (Los Alamos Labs), S.
Hameroff (Univ. Arizona), J. Gea-Bancloche (Univ. Akansas),
H. Wiseman (Griffith Univ.), A. Zeilinger (Univ. Vienna).
H. Wiseman (Griffith University, Australia) and Jens
Eisert (Imperial College, UK, and Potsdam Univertsity,
effects in biology: a skeptical physicists' view"
Howard Wiseman is a theoretical quantum
physicist. His principle interests are quantum measurements,
quantum feedback control, quantum information, fundamental
questions in quantum mechan ics, and open quantum systems.
He completed his PhD with Gerard Milburn at the University
of Queensland in 1994, and then undertook a a postdoc with
Dan Walls at the University of Auckland. Since 1996 he
has held Australian Research Council research fellowships.
He is currently Professor and Federation Fellow at Griffith
University, where he is the Director of the Centre Quantum
Dynamics. He is also a Program Manager in the ARC Centre
for Quantum Computer Technology. He has over 120 refereed
journal papers, and his awards include the Bragg Medal
of the Australian Institute of Physics, the Pawsey Medal
of the Australian Academy of Science and the Malcolm Macintosh
Medal of the Federal Science Ministry.
Jens Eisert is a lecturer
and holder of the prestigeous European Young Investigator
Award at Imperial College London in
the UK (Diploma, University of Freiburg, Germany; MSc,
University of Connecticut, USA; PhD, University of Potsdam,
Germany). His research interests are in quantum information
science and related fields: This includes formal aspects
of entanglement theory and computational models, as well
as quantum optical implementations and the study of complex
Chapter 19: S.
Hameroff (University of Arizona, USA)
and the quantum/classical boundary"
Stuart Hameroff MD is
an anesthesiologist and Professor of Anesthesiology and
Psychology at the University of
Arizona in Tucson, Arizona. He has teamed with Sir Roger
Penrose to develop the "Orch OR" (orchestrated
objective reduction) model of consciousness based on quantum
computation in brain microtubules, and has also researched
the action of anesthetic gases. As Director of the University
of Arizona's Center for Consciousness Studies, Hameroff
organizes the biennial "Tucson conferences" Toward
a Science of Consciousness, among other Center activities.
His website is www.quantumconsciousness.org
Derek Abbott, University of Adelaide,
Mailing address: EEE Dept, University of
Adelaide, SA 5005, Australia
Derek Abbott was born in
South Kensington, London, UK. He is with The University of Adelaide,
Australia, where he is presently the Director of the Centre for
Biomedical Engineering (CBME). He has served as an
and/or guest editor for a number of journals including Chaos
(AIP), Smart Structures and Materials (IOP), Journal
of Optics B (IOP), Microelectronics Journal (Elsevier),
Proceedings of the IEEE, and Fluctuation Noise Letters
(World Scientific). He is a life
Fellow of the Institute of Physics (IOP) and Fellow of the Institution
of Electrical & Electronic
Engineers (IEEE). Prof Abbott is co-founder of two international
conference series: Microelectronics in the New Millennium
and Fluctuations and Noise.
Paul Davies, Macquarie
University, Sydney, Australia
Mailing address: Australian
Centre for Astrobiology, Macquarie University,
New South Wales 2109, Australia
Paul Davies is Professor of Natural Philosophy
at the Australian Centre for Astrobiology, Macquarie University,
Sydney. He is the author of over 25 books, including several published
by Cambridge University Press. Davies is a theoretical physicist
and cosmologist who has contributed to the development of quantum
field theory in curved spacetime, the theory of quantum black
holes, the physics of the very early universe and the nature of
time. His current research concerns the origin of life. He is
the recipient of many awards, including the Kelvin Medal of the
UK Institute of Physics and the Faraday Prize of The Royal Society.
Arun K.Pati, Institute
of Physics (IOP), Orissa, India.
Mailing address: Institute
of Physics (IOP), Sachivalaya Marg, Sainik School Post, Bhubaneswar-751005,
Arun K. Pati has been a theoretical physicist
in the Theoretical Physics Division, BARC, Mumbai, India since
1989, and is currently a visiting scientist at the Institute of
Physics, Bhubaneswar, India. His research is in quantum information
and computation, the theory of geometric phases and its applications,
and the foundations of quantum mechanics. He is also interested
in the quantum mechanics of bio-systems. He has published over
60 papers on these topics and has edited a book on quantum information
theory. Pati is the recipient of the India Physics Association
Award for Young Physicist of the Year (2000) and the Indian Physical
Society Award for Young Scientists (1996). His research has been
featured in news items in Nature, Science and many
national and international newspapers.
Useful Downloadable References for Authors
Here we attempt to
have a near exhaustive list of all the references that may be
of benefit to authors. If you see any obvious omissions, please
submit pdf files of references to Derek
Abbott and we will list the references here. Crazy papers
have not been filtered out: these are gryst for debate and amusement.
This material is presented to ensure timely dissemination
of scholarly and technical work. Copyright and all rights therein
are retained by authors or by other copyright holders. All persons
copying this information are expected to adhere to the terms and
constraints invoked by each author's copyright. In most cases,
these works may not be reposted without the explicit permission
of the copyright holder.
F.H. Thaheld, "An interdisciplinary approach
to certain fundamental issues in the fields of physics and biology:
towards a unified theory" BioSystems, 80,
pp. 41-56, 2005. pdf
J. Gilmore and R.H. McKenzie, "Spin boson
models for quantum decoherence of electronic excitations of biomolecules
and quantum dots in a solvent," Journal of Physics: Condensed
Matter, 17(10), pp. 1735-1746, 2005. pdf
S. Hameroff and J. Tuszynski, "Quantum states
in proteins and protein assemblies: the essence of life?"
Proc. SPIE Fluctuations and Noise in Biological, Biophysical,
and Biomedical Systems II, Eds. D. Abbott, S.M. Bezrukov,
A. Der, and A. Sánchez, 5467, pp. 27-41,
Canary Islands, 2004. pdf
P.C.W. Davies, "Does quantum mechanics play
a non-trivial role in life?" BioSystems, 78,
pp. 69-79, 2004. pdf
A.F. Rocha, E. Massad and F.A.B. Coutinho, "Can
the human brain do quantum computing?," Medical Hypotheses,
63, pp. 895-899, 2004. pdf
A.U. Igamberdiev, "Quantum computation,
non-demolition measurements, and reflective control in living
systems," BioSystems, 77, pp. 47-56,
S.R. Hameroff, "A new theory of the origin
of cancer: quantum coherent entanglement, centrioles, mitosis,
and differentiation," BioSystems, 77,
pp. 119-136, 2004. pdf
Z.-X. Liang and J.P. Klinman, "Structural
bases of hydrogen tunneling in enzymes: progress and puzzles,"
Current Opinion in Structural Biology, 14,
pp. 468-655, 2004. pdf
P.C.W. Davies, "Emergent biological principles
and the computational properties of the universe," Complexity,
10(2), pp. 11-15, 2004. pdf
C.W. Smith, "Quanta and coherence effects
in water and living systems," The Journal of Alternative
and Complimentary Medicine, 10(1), pp.
69-78, 2004. pdf
L. Hackermuller, S. Uttenthaler, K. Hornberger,
E. Reiger, B. Brezger, A. Zeilinger, and M. Arndt, "Wave
nature of biomolecules and fluorofullerenes," Physical
Review Letters, 91(9), 090408, 2003. pdf
O. Nariz, M. Arndt, and A. Zeilinger, "Quantum
interference experiments with large molecules," American
Journal of Physics, 71(4), pp. 319-325,
S. Axelsson, "Perspectives on handedness,
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