China 
Africa 
Explore chapters and articles related to this topic
Introduction
Published in Shoogo Ueno, Tsukasa Shigemitsu, Bioelectromagnetism, 2022
Shoogo Ueno, Tsukasa Shigemitsu
The fusion of physics and biology predicted by Einstein has become a reality. A new research field was developed which combines physics (especially quantum mechanics) with biology, currently called quantum biology. One of the attempts to clarify animal behavior by quantum biology is that migrating birds may use geomagnetism to determine the direction of migration, and a radical pair model was proposed. In 2000, Ritz et al. published a hypothesis showing that birds can sense magnetic fields with the same strength as the geomagnetic field and weaker by considering a radical pair system model, and proposed that the blue-light photoreceptor protein, cryptochrome (CRY) found in the retina is the molecule most likely to act as a radical pair (Schulten et al., 1976: Ritz et al., 2000: Timmel and Henbest, 2004). This was constructed based on the concept of spin chemistry, in which the magnetic field controls the chemical reactions (Hayashi, 2004). CRY including flavin adenine dinucleotide (FAD) is widely distributed in nature, i.e., animals, plants and bacteria. The magnetic sensing ability is presumed to generate the radical pair between FAD and amino acid residue as the intermediate by radical pair mechanism. By having such magnetoreceptions in the retina, migratory birds are assumed to perceive visually in which direction to migrate. The possibility that cryptochromes serve as highly sensitive magnetoreceptions has been suggested. Currently, many other researchers are focusing on other mechanisms based on quantum mechanics (Al-Khalili and McRadden, 2014).
Molecular Physics
Published in Molecular Physics, 2019
Stefan Weber, Christiane Timmel, Art van der Est
Spin Chemistry is a well-established field of research that covers a wide range of phenomena in which electron and nuclear spins affect the rates and yields of chemical processes. This special issue of Molecular Physics illustrates the state of the art in our research through a series of papers that were presented at the 15th International Symposium on Spin and Magnetic Field Effects in Chemistry and Related Phenomena. The symposium was held at Schluchsee in the southern Black Forest region of Germany from 17 to 22 September 2017.