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Can we create quantum creatures in the lab?

By Marcus Chown

16 September 2009

QUANTUM weirdness could soon invade the living world, if a scheme to give a a strange double life comes off. The method might work on more complex life forms too.

In quantum theory, a single object can be doing two different things at once. This so-called “superposition” is a delicate state, destroyed by any contact with the outside world. The largest objects that have been superposed so far are molecules. It is hard to put a much larger object such as a cat or human into a superposition because air molecules and photons are always bouncing off…

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