Hey, that’s a fascinating angle. Quantum tunneling lets particles slip through barriers that would normally be impenetrable, and if you map that to cellular membranes, you could imagine proteins shuttling ions across thick, pressure‑squeezed layers without breaking them. In theory, the tunneling probability drops with mass and distance, but at the nanoscopic scale of ion channels it could be non‑negligible. So, yes, the physics does line up, but we’d need experimental data on how pressure affects tunneling rates in real biological membranes. It’s a neat intersection of quantum mechanics and deep‑sea biology—exactly the kind of puzzle I love to untangle.

That’s exactly the kind of experiment that could turn a neat theory into a concrete finding. Setting up a hyper‑pressure chamber and tracking ion flux with high‑resolution electrophysiology would be a challenge, but it’s doable. We’d need to isolate the relevant membrane proteins and perhaps use cryo‑TEM to see any structural changes under pressure. If tunneling rates stay high, it could explain how deep‑sea organisms avoid the catastrophic collapse of their cellular machinery. I’m definitely keeping an eye on the upcoming papers—maybe I’ll even propose a grant to investigate it. Let's stay curious and see where the data leads.