Seven QBL staff members awarded support to attend first ever Gordon Research Conference in quantum biology
03/14/2023
Congratulations to Dr. Muneer Abbas, Dr. Nathan Babcock, Dr. Matteo Gori, Dr. Khatereh Azizi, Dr. James Murray, Vincent Madhlopa, and Jasmine El Mrabti, who each received either a Carl Storm Fellowship or speaker support to attend the Gordon Research Conference: Emerging Methodologies to Investigate Quantum Effects in Biology! Each investigator will present a poster at the GRC taking place in Galveston, TX, on March 19-24, 2023.
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QBL director selected as Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics (KITP) Fellow
02/14/2023
Dr. Kurian is selected to be part of the second cohort of KITP Fellows. Funded by the Heising-Simons Foundation, the KITP Fellows program was inaugurated in 2022 and supports bi-directional exchange between the UC Santa Barbara-based physics institute and minority-serving institutions. Dr. Kurian will advance QBL research directions and training opportunities through his participation in two KITP programs: Out-of-equilibrium Dynamics and Quantum Information of Many-body Systems with Long-range Interactions and Deep Learning from the Perspective of Physics and Neuroscience.
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QBL receives major award from Alfred P. Sloan Foundation for Matter-to-Life research
01/06/2023
The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation awards $1M to the QBL as part of its “Matter-to-Life” Program. The grant will support the lab in studying how self-organizing processes give rise to goal-oriented behaviors in the reassembly, agential decision-making, and information-processing activity of the multinucleate slime mold Physarum polycephalum. The QBL will work in collaboration with colleagues from the Allen Discovery Center at Tufts University. News of the Sloan Foundation award to the QBL was featured in the Howard University Newsroom, The Sway, and The Quantum Insider.
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Dr. Kurian shines light on quantum worlds at TEDxBrookland (Washington, DC)
10/08/2022
Philip Kurian, founding director of the Quantum Biology Lab, presents What's Your Reality? Shining Light on Quantum Worlds at this TEDx event - Striving Toward Excellent Minds - in the iconic Brookland neighborhood of Washington, DC. Dr. Kurian's TED talk takes us on a journey from the commonplace (trees and rainbows) to the quantum (electron), exploring our observational capacities, the supra-natural, challenges for our scientific models and philosophical frameworks, the limitlessness of Truth, and the co-relations of interacting communities of human subjectives. To watch the lecture, please access the video by clicking the picture.
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Prof. David Lidzey and Dr. Tersilla Virgili present new effects in optical microcavities with applications to organic quantum batteries
07/26/2022
Prof. David Lidzey, professor of physics and director of the Electronic and Photonic Molecular Materials Group at the University of Sheffield (UK), and Dr. Tersilla Virgili, a researcher at the Institute of Photonics and Nanotechnologies of the National Research Council (Italy), deliver a joint presentation to the QBL and wider network on "New effects in optical microcavities: From strong-coupled living bacteria to organic quantum batteries." To watch the lecture, with an introduction by Dr. Kurian and Q&A throughout, please access the video.
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QBL at the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics
07/02/2022
Dr. Kurian participates in scientific discussions at KITP (Santa Barbara, CA) during the program Emerging Regimes and Implications of Quantum and Thermal Fluctuational Electrodynamics.
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Theoretical physicist and author Carlo Rovelli discusses the relational view of quantum physics and quantum gravity
05/17/2022
Prof. Carlo Rovelli, author of the global bestsellers The Order of Time, Helgoland, and the recently released There Are Places in the World Where Rules Are Less Important Than Kindness, presents "The Relational Interpretation of Quantum Physics and Its Implications" to the QBL community. This lecture illustrates the advantages and radicality of interpreting quantum theory as the discovery of a deeply relational structure undergirding physical reality. He explains why this view helps in constructing a quantum theory of gravity and why it deflates radical dualities such as those assumed to give rise to the “hard” mind-body problem. To watch the lecture, with an introduction by Dr. Kurian and wide-ranging Q&A spanning technical physics, conceptual insight, and guiding philosophical frameworks, please access the video.
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Dr. Kurian discusses recentering our knowledge systems in a relational cosmos at AAAS Science for Seminaries event
04/30/2022
Dr. Kurian delivers a keynote lecture on "Science is Not Enough to Save Us: Recentering our Knowledge Systems in a Relational Cosmos” for an American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Dialogue on Science, Ethics, and Religion (DoSER)-sponsored public engagement event organized by Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary. His presentation explores the dualities between subjectivity and objectivity, spiritual and physical, mind and matter, and potentia and manifestation, examining Aristotle, Augustine, Aquinas, and the usual suspects but also engaging Søren Kierkegaard, Martin Buber, and Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o in the search for a coherent and global description of reality. His discussion centers on our collective representations of the physical world, whose observational capacities and subjectivities count in our measurements, and how communities of subjectives form networks that construct bodies of knowledge. Communicating how a relational interpretation of quantum physics relinquishes the demand for universal objectivity, Dr. Kurian establishes the significance, mystery, and capaciousness of Truth in the cosmos.
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Dr. Gori presents at Institute for Pure & Applied Mathematics on multiscale approaches in quantum mechanics
04/01/2022
Dr. Gori presents "Second-Quantization of Many-Body Dispersion Formalism: Towards Modeling of Million Atom Systems in Arbitrary Environments" at IPAM in Los Angeles, California. His presentation illustrates how a quantum field theoretical approach can provide insights into the structure, stability, and dynamical properties of physical, chemical, and biological systems interacting with complex environments.
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The Quantum Biology Laboratory is moving forward by reaching back
03/10/2022
Dr. James Murray, K-12 Liaison in the QBL and Principal of William Rowen Elementary School in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, partners with QBL scientists to establish a STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics) lab focused on training the next generation of students in quantum information science. Murray envisions the Quantum STEAM Lab—which includes 3D printers, 3D scanners, virtual reality headsets, a green room to create VR experiences, robotics, and science learning spaces to explore quantum concepts—as the first step toward a nationwide school movement integrating immersive learning experiences and cutting-edge science. Dr. Philip Kurian, principal investigator and founding director of the QBL, and Dr. Georgia Dunston, professor emerita and senior advisor in the QBL, both give remarks at the Quantum STEAM Lab’s virtual dedication ceremony.
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Prof. Vlatko Vedral entangles whole organisms to qubits in QBL Quantum Sciences lecture
01/26/2022
Vlatko Vedral presents "Schrödinger’s tardigrade? Hybrid quantum technologies and living organisms entangled to quantum bits" for the QBL's Quantum Sciences lecture series. His presentation describes the basics of witnessing entanglement and contextualizes some of our present understanding of macroscopic quantum phenomena, in particular the few-millikelvin, ultra-low pressure superconducting qubit experiments with the wondrous, cryptobiotic “slow steppers” known as tardigrades. The lecture includes an introduction by Dr. Babcock and Q&A moderated by Dr. Kurian, which features a rich discussion including Templeton Prize winner Paul Davies, National Medal of Science recipient Judith Klinman, Nobel laureate William Phillips, and others. You may contact us to receive announcements of future QBL Quantum Sciences lectures.
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QBL director interview: "Searching for the brain's quantum network"
featured in SPIE Photonics Focus
01/01/2022
QBL staff present at the African Physical Society joint conference
11/18/2021
Dr. Kurian lectures on “Light and information as scaffold for organizing life" and Dr. Nathan Babcock presents on "Photonic Cooperativity and Coherence in Microtubule Architectures" at the Joint Virtual Meeting of the African Light Source, African Physical Society, and Pan African Conference on Crystallography.
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Dr. Babcock introduces speakers in Guy Foundation 2021 Autumn Series
11/03/2021 and 11/17/2021
Dr. Nathan Babcock, postdoctoral scholar in the QBL, delivers overview prolegomena to introduce Professor Margaret Ahmad, Director of Research for the Institute of Biology Paris-Seine at Sorbonne University, and Professor Christoph Simon of the Institute for Quantum Science and Technology and Hotchkiss Brain Institute, University of Calgary, in the Guy Foundation 2021 Autumn Series.
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Prof. Tristan Hübsch introspects quantum foundations in opening QBL lecture
10/26/2021
Dr. Tristan Hübsch presents "Introspections on Quantum Introspection" for the Quantum Biology Lab's inaugural lecture. This presentation describes investigations since his 1998 publication "Quantum mechanics is either non-linear or non-introspective" and highlights the Gödelian incompleteness inherent in all fundamental physics, and in axiomatic systems in general. To watch the lecture, with an introduction by Dr. Kurian and Q&A including Dr. William Phillips, who shared the 1997 Nobel Prize in Physics, please access the video.
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QBL kicks off Biological Mentality Workshop
09/27/2021
Dr. Kurian delivers the opening lecture for the Fifth Annual Workshop on Biological Mentality, an eclectic group of scientists, mathematicians, and philosophers. Other speakers in the series include Christoph Simon, Jack Tuszynski, MacArthur Fellow Stuart Kauffman, and Templeton Prize winner George F. R. Ellis.
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QBL seminar at the Politecnico di Torino
09/10/2021
Dr. Kurian, with support from Dr. Babcock, presents the QBL’s latest results at a seminar to the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at the Polytechnic University of Turin on "Cooperative quantum effects from THz to GHz: Evolution of superradiant states in mechanically oscillating tubulin architectures.”
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QBL presents at the UCLA Diverse Intelligences Summer Institute
06/30/2021
Dr. Kurian delivers a virtual lecture to the UCLA Diverse Intelligences Summer Institute on "What is life today? Light and information as scaffold for organizing whole intelligences, and the future of quantum immortality."
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QBL presents at 2021 Congress of the Canadian Association of Physicists
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QBL director appointed to UCLA Diverse Intelligences Summer Institute
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QBL presents at the RPI Physics, Applied Physics, and Astronomy Colloquium
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National Academies Workshop in Quantum Biology
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QBL director kicks off Guy Foundation Spring Seminar Series for 2021
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Source: The Guy Foundation
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QBL to lead theory efforts on collaborative NSF grant
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QBL director appointed to National Academies organizing committee
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QBL presents at Leverhulme QB-DTC seminar series
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QBL presents at the JQI special seminar
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QBL becomes first group outside UK to receive Guy Foundation grant
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American Physical Society March Symposium
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DOE Argonne Leadership Computing Facility awards QBL one million
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QuEBS 2019 in Puebla, Mexico
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UCLA Institute for Pure and Applied Mathematics Workshop: Machine Learning for Physics
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NSF selects quantum biology collaborative for Quantum Leap Challenge Institute conceptualization grant
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Dr. Dunston and Dr. Kurian invited to keynote ASU March forum
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QBL receives first major award from DARPA
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