SCIENCE IN THE NEWS DAILY
Quantum Compass for Birds
from Science News
A quantum effect known as
entanglement may be part of the compass
that birds use to sense Earth's
magnetic field, researchers report in
an upcoming Physical Review
Letters.
Critters from bacteria to mole rats
use tiny variations in the Earth's
magnetic field to navigate, but exactly
how they sense the magnetism is a
mystery. One idea is that magnetic
fields disrupt pairs of entangled
electrons in a light-sensitive protein
in the retina. In quantum entanglement,
particles are linked to each other so
that one always knows instantly what
the other is doing, even if they get
separated.
In the new research, physicists at
the University of Oxford and the
National University of Singapore
calculated that quantum entanglement in
a bird's eye could last more than 100
microseconds--longer than the 80
microseconds achieved in physicists'
experiments at temperatures just above
absolute zero, says Elisabeth Rieper, a
physicist at the National University of
Singapore. That would be a surprising
feat for a bird warbling at room
temperature, which people thought was
too hot to see quantum effects.
Read more...
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