Scientists uncover a photosynthetic puzzle

[OKIsItJustMe]

(Please note, material is from a US Federal Research Lab, copyright concerns are nil.)

http://www.anl.gov/articles/scientists-uncover-photosynthetic-puzzle

[font face=Serif][font size=5]Scientists uncover a photosynthetic puzzle[/font]

By Jared Sagoff • May 21, 2012

[font size=3]Quantum physics and plant biology seem like two branches of science that could not be more different, but surprisingly they may in fact be intimately tied.

Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory and the Notre Dame Radiation Laboratory at the University of Notre Dame used ultrafast spectroscopy to see what happens at the subatomic level during the very first stage of photosynthesis. “If you think of photosynthesis as a marathon, we’re getting a snapshot of what a runner looks like just as he leaves the blocks,” said Argonne biochemist David Tiede. “We’re seeing the potential for a much more fundamental interaction than a lot of people previously considered.”

While different species of plants, algae and bacteria have evolved a variety of different mechanisms to harvest light energy, they all share a feature known as a photosynthetic reaction center. Pigments and proteins found in the reaction center help organisms perform the initial stage of energy conversion.

These pigment molecules, or chromophores, are responsible for absorbing the energy carried by incoming light. After a photon hits the cell, it excites one of the electrons inside the chromophore. As they observed the initial step of the process, Argonne scientists saw something no one had observed before: a single photon appeared to excite different chromophores simultaneously.

“The behavior we were able to see at these very fast time scales implies a much more sophisticated mixing of electronic states,” Tiede said. “It shows us that high-level biological systems could be tapped into very fundamental physics in a way that didn’t seem likely or even possible.”

The quantum effects observed in the course of the experiment hint that the natural light-harvesting processes involved in photosynthesis may be more efficient than previously indicated by classical biophysics, said chemist Gary Wiederrecht of Argonne’s Center for Nanoscale Materials. “It leaves us wondering: how did Mother Nature create this incredibly elegant solution?” he said.

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http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1116862109

[longship]

1. "We need to put billions of dollar into nano."

R&K

It just shows that evolution can grab any advantage, even those that exist as emergent quantum effects. Mother Nature is indeed wonderful.

[Peace Patriot]

2. It makes you wonder if mammals (including us) are evolutionary retards...

...having to find and eat plants (and each other) to get energy, rather than doing it...um...magically (for lack of a better word), like plants do, at the quantum level.

That was my first thought. My second was that I don't really understand this article (at the gross level of the English language). Aren't we all (and isn't everything that exists) comprised of elements and interactions at the quantum level? Are there not "magical" (quantum) properties in everything, at that level? This example is a single photon that excites "different chromophores simultaneously" (in plant photosynthesis). Why is this a surprise? Quantum physics often reports strange, counterintuitive, seemingly non-rational, non-'Newtonian,' and, as I said, "magical" doings at the quantum level--so often that it is virtually in the nature of quantum physics results to appear to be "magical." So, why was this unexpected in plants? (Bias against plants as somehow too stupid--too low on the "food chain"--to "get" quantum physics? Just joking.)

Here is the paragraph:

"These pigment molecules, or chromophores, are responsible for absorbing the energy carried by incoming light. After a photon hits the cell, it excites one of the electrons inside the chromophore. As they observed the initial step of the process, Argonne scientists saw something no one had observed before: a single photon appeared to excite different chromophores simultaneously." --from the OP

----

What am I not getting?

(The English language problem is that the paragraph sets up the photon hitting the cell and exciting "one" of the electrons inside as the standard. Then it says that "a single photon" exciting "different chromophores simultaneously" is a deviation from that standard and therefore surprising (no one had observed it before). But who set up this standard of one-on-one (photon hitting electron)? A "Newtonian"? Someone unfamiliar with quantum physics? Why would someone conducting quantum physics experiments on plants not be positively looking for quantum physics sort of results (i.e., surprising, inexplicable, seemingly magical, etc.?))

[bigmonkey]

3. I think the general answer is that biology is still mostly working from a Newtonian perspective.

You can see it readily, once you know to look for it. There's a wonderful YouTube from John Cleese that pokes fun at the problem:

[link:

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