This essay revisits Schrödinger’s question, “What is life?”, through the lens of quantum biology. Life is not a rigid genetic program but an improvisational system where information flows across scales, from DNA to cells, tissues, and brains. Developmental biology and stem cell reprogramming reveal how genomes encode vast potentialities unlocked by context, while recent evidence suggests that biological systems may also harness quantum phenomena such as coherence, spin dynamics, and even ultra-weak photon emissions. Yet, as Sydney Brenner observed, progress depends first on new techniques: emerging tools like genetically encoded spin qubits may finally let us test these possibilities. The argument is not that biology is fully quantum, but that in key places life acts as a quantum engineer, exploiting subtle physical resources long before humans learned to name them.
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