Scientists just Managed to Create ‘Quantum Artificial Life’

Scientists just Managed to Create ‘Quantum Artificial Life’
SHARE

Some new research is looked at with a lot of excitement and that’s because it provides a breakthrough which might just help us with answering the question about life’s origin. Apparently, it is possible that it could be answered with the help of quantum mechanics. This represents a new way of approaching one of the most durable life mysteries which is yet to be unsolved by science.

For the first time some individual living things which are microscopically small were made to ‘mate’ through the help of a quantum computer and superconducting qubits. Besides ‘mating’, they were able to interact with their environment and eventually ‘die’, helping scientists to model some of the most influential factors of evolution.

Science Alerts reports that “the goal of the proposed model is to reproduce the characteristic processes of Darwinian evolution, adapted to quantum algorithms and quantum computing”. In order for this to be done, researchers had to use a five-qubit IBM QX4 quantum computer. This one was developed by IBM and it is accessible through the cloud. Qubits are used by quantum computers, possessing information value which can be a combination of both zero and one.

Superposition is the official name of this property and it treanslates into vastly more information-processing power for large-scale quantum computers, far exceeding classical ones. Enrique Solano from the University of the Basque Country in Spain is the leader of the research team and together, they managed to code units of quantum life which were made up by 2 qubits, one meant to represent the genotype, while the other represented the phenotype.

Published in Scientific Reports just this Thursday, the new research marks a breakthrough which will eventually help us to answer the question about how we came to be and quantum mechanics are meant to be a huge aid for this.


SHARE

I am a pop culture and social media expert. Aside from writing about the latest news health, I also enjoy pop culture and Yoga. I have BA in American Cultural Studies and currently enrolled in a Mass-Media MA program. I like to spend my spring breaks volunteering overseas.

Post Comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.