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Concept

radical pair mechanism

A circular diagram illustrates the radical pair mechanism, depicting a central sphere surrounded by eight smaller spheres connected by lines, symbolizing the concept of unpaired electrons in a chemical reaction proposed for biological magnetoreception.

A model from spin chemistry, proposed for biological magnetoreception by Klaus Schulten in 1978, in which a chemical reaction produces two molecules each carrying an unpaired electron. The two electrons are briefly entangled, and the Earth's magnetic field shifts the balance between their singlet and triplet spin states, altering the reaction's products. It is the only known way a chemical sensor can read a field as weak as the Earth's.

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