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Selenium, which is an essential element for animals and prokaryotes and is a beneficial element for many plants, is the least-common of all the elements essential to life. [3] [63] Selenium acts as the catalytic center of several antioxidant enzymes, such as glutathione peroxidase, [11] and plays a wide variety of other biological roles.
The elements listed below as "Essential in humans" are those listed by the US Food and Drug Administration as essential nutrients, [9] as well as six additional elements: oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, and nitrogen (the fundamental building blocks of life on Earth), sulfur (essential to all cells) and cobalt (a necessary component of vitamin B 12).
The various forms of life are caused by an appropriate mixture of elements. [41] Democritus (460 BC) was an atomist ; he thought that the essential characteristic of life was having a soul ( psyche ), and that the soul, like everything else, was composed of fiery atoms.
Around two dozen chemical elements are essential to various kinds of biological life. Most rare elements on Earth are not needed by life (exceptions being selenium and iodine), [33] while a few common ones (aluminum and titanium) are not used. Most organisms share element needs, but there are a few differences between plants and animals.
See also: Carbon-based life: Fossil fuels: coal, methane and petroleum Textile industry: cellulose Metallurgy: alloys, especially carbon steel 7: N: Nitrogen 2: 15: Bacteria and archaea: nitrogen fixation by diazotrophs All forms of life on Earth: essential component of amino acids and of nucleic acids Earth's atmosphere, soil, and life forms ...
Graphic representation of carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus, and sulfur. CHNOPS and CHON are mnemonic acronyms for the most common elements in living organisms. . "CHON" stands for carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen, which together make up more than 95 percent of the mass of biological system
Some "minerals" are essential for life, but most are not. [1] [2] [3] Minerals are one of the four groups of essential nutrients; the others are vitamins, essential fatty acids, and essential amino acids. [4] The five major minerals in the human body are calcium, phosphorus, potassium, sodium, and magnesium. [2]
Carbon is the 15th most abundant element in the Earth's crust, and the fourth most abundant element in the universe by mass, after hydrogen, helium, and oxygen. Carbon's widespread abundance, its ability to form stable bonds with numerous other elements, and its unusual ability to form polymers at the temperatures commonly encountered on Earth ...