brain's neurons

Quantum Insights and Neurobiology

"The brain's neurons contain hollow cylindrical polymers called microtubules. These are in turn made up of individual proteins known as tubulin, which can exist in a superposition of two slightly different shapes. Penrose and Hameroff maintain that microtubules have just the right properties for the superposition to be maintained, and spread to surrounding tubulins."

Quantum: A Guide for the Perplexed, (Jim Al-Khalili (2005), p. 264.

David Deutsch, an Oxford physicist, conceived of a quantum computer based in part on utilizing the principle of superposition.

"Deutsch's machine would operate according to quantum principles to simulate any physical process. It required a row of quantume systems that could each of exist in a superposition of two states, such as atoms in superpositions of two energy levels. These quantum systems would then be entangled together to create quantum logic gates that would be made to perform certain operations."

p. 255.

"However, if a quantum system, such as an atom, is used then it could exist in two states at once. A qubit (quantum byte) can thus be off and on at the same time, just so long as it can be kept isolated from its environment."

"Certain problems that might take a normal supercomputer years to solve could be cracked in a fraction of a second."

Ibid.

Microtubule structure

diameter = 25 nannometers,
8 nannometers 8 nm per segment length of tubulin building block,
500 to 300 nannometers in length for the entire extension of the tubule.

genes give rise to the amno acids that are found in the tubulin protein; there are about 17 varieties of b tubulin exist in mammal brains!

calcium hardens under high pH

Stuart Hameroff, "Quantum Coherence in Microtubules:" Journal of Consciousness Studies, 1;#1, Summer 1994, p. 109.

Calcitonin is a vertebrate hormone
from mammalian thyroid / or gill pouches in fish
which controls the blood levels of calcium in the PTH parathyroid hormone

"the filaments convert chemical energy into mechanical energy…"

"the contraction of muscle is caused by the calcium regulated sliding of actin anfd myosin filaments."

Calcium carbonate skeletons have been found in sediments that are 600 million years old!calcium sink (supply) within a cell calcium needed for motility in muscles & microtubular construction "in order to deposit a calcium carbonate shell, a cell must regulate the concentration of calcium in its interior (cytoplasm)

"low intracellular calcium concentration is necessary for the formation of microtubules (MT) of the mitotic sindle."

Lynn Margulis, Early Life, (1984), pp. 104-105, 135-137.

40.08 is the Atomic Mass of Ca, or calcium

Calcium was originally called an alkali earth.

Its chemical affinity is an electrical phenomenon related to the missing electrons in the outer shell of Ca.

The external or outer shell of Calcium atoms has the same reactive potential (valence) as the more massive atom Strontium. Radioactive strontium-90 readily replaces Ca in the bones, or cells and can increase the risk of cancer because radiation ionizes the surrounding atoms that are the building blocks of molecules.

William Brock, History of Chemistry, p. 149

Details on elemntal calcium; Ca

Ca is # 20; metallic element
which at 1490º F calcium melts

5th most abundant planetary element
it acts as a molecular bridge
abundant in rivers in the form of calcium carbonate -- limestone is made of calcium carbonate
calcium sulfate -- in gypsum
calcium fluoride -- in fluorite
calcium phosphate -- in silicates
six stable isotopes -- radioactive