Philip Kurian, a scientist at Howard University, published a paper in Science Advances. He used quantum mechanics to find a new limit on how much carbon-based life can compute. Carbon-based life includes all living things, like plants, animals, and bacteria. Kurian runs the Quantum Biology Laboratory (QBL). His group found that tiny parts inside cells, called cytoskeletal filaments, show special quantum effects. These effects help life handle information in a big way. In a QBL press release, Kurian says this limit connects to how much information all matter in the universe can process.

Kurian’s work ties together thermodynamics, relativity, and quantum mechanics. He suggests that life uses quantum tricks to work fast, even in warm, messy conditions. Usually, quantum effects need cold temperatures, like in quantum computers. But life, Kurian argues, uses quantum effects at room temperature.

Quantum Information Processing, Beyond Biochemical Signaling

The QBL found superradiance in proteins. Superradiance happens when particles work together to emit light strongly. This occurs in tryptophan, a molecule in proteins. Tryptophan absorbs harmful ultraviolet (UV) light and releases it as safer light. Large tryptophan networks form in cell parts like microtubules. These networks use superradiance to process information super fast, in a picosecond. Normal cell signals, using ions, take milliseconds, which are thousandths of a second. So, quantum signals are much quicker.

All eukaryotic life, which includes cells with a nucleus, can use these quantum signals. This includes humans, animals, plants, and fungi. Even simple organisms without brains, like bacteria, compute a lot. They’ve been around longer than animals, so they’ve done most of Earth’s computing. Kurian’s findings suggest life’s computing power beats artificial systems.

Quantum technology experts are interested. They want to make quantum computers tougher, and life’s warm quantum effects could help. Kurian’s work shows life uses quantum rules to store and manage information better than top quantum computers, even in a “warm soup” of cells. This could change how we see life’s role in the universe.

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