The quantum robin and their friends

A fifth of the Earth’s nearly 10,000 bird species regularly migrate with the changing seasons and, interestingly, they never lose their way, always finding their way to where they need to go. How do they do it? They hardly have maps, compasses or GPS, but instead navigate by the subtle changes in the Earth’s magnetic field and take advantage of quantum entanglement.

The European robin (Erithacus rubecula) and other migratory birds were previously suspected to navigate by sensing subtle magnetic fields, and some British scientists have come closer to understanding the precise mechanism of this. It looks very likely that birds also use quantum mechanics to navigate.

In quantum entanglement (video), two elementary particles (e.g. unpaired electrons in free radicals) created at the same time can remain in strange contact, with a change in the state of one – or the mere observation of one – affecting the other at the same moment, in theory even if they are at ‘both ends’ of the universe. Can faster-than-the-speed-of-light information transfer exist? It seems that living organisms have already figured out this trick.

As the robin flies, subtle changes in the Earth’s magnetic field can distort the quantum state (spin) of electrons, indirectly affecting the chemical properties of the cryptochrome molecules in the birds’ eyes. The researchers enclosed the birds in a special cage during the migration season and varied the frequency, strength and polarity of the magnetic field around them.

The study found that up to 3000th of the strength of the earth’s magnetic field already changed the birds’ flight direction, which can only be explained by quantum processes in particles smaller than atoms.

Interestingly, the state of entanglement is usually very short, on the order of microseconds. Experimentally created, as little as 80 microseconds is considered good (under special conditions such as absolute zero temperature), but in the case of robins, 100 microseconds have been measured (in the warm, humid environment of the eye), so again, it is worth bowing down to the grandeur and sophistication of nature.

If a simple migratory bird- not to underestimate its capabilities, of course – is using such advanced technology, it makes you wonder what kind of electronics might be in the human brain…but that’s another story.

As a bonus, here’s the Arctic fox, who also detects subtle electromagnetic fields while hunting. 😉

References

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15141211

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15614508

http://www.physicscentral.com/explore/action/pia-entanglement.cfm

http://www.wired.com/2011/01/quantum-birds/

http://hore.chem.ox.ac.uk/PDFs/The_Quantum_Robin.pdf

Jim Al Khalili: Life on the edge

Read more about quantum biology in my books and articles

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