Elements of Life

in this video, we're going to talk about the elements of life. And so it's interesting to note is that of all of the known elements that exist in the universe on Lee, a small subset of those elements is found in living organisms. Now the periodic table of elements, which I'm sure you guys have probably heard of before in your previous courses eyes a table that arranges all of the known elements that exist based on their chemical properties. And so, if you take a look down below at our image, which will notices, we're showing you a periodic table of elements showing you all of the known elements that exist now. Once again, living things do not utilize all of these elements. Instead, they Onley utilize a small subset of them. In fact, about 97% of the mass of most living organisms, which is the vast majority of the mass, is made up of just six elements, which are carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorous and sulfur. And if you take the chemical symbols for each of these elements, it spells the word chin ops. And so if you can remember chin ops, then you'll be able to remember these six elements that make up the vast majority of most living organisms. And so because these six elements make up the vast majority of most living organisms, they're referred to as bulk elements, which we're showing you down below here in the periodic table. So notice that the bulk elements are highlighted in blue, and so you can see the positions of these six elements that make up the vast majority of life. And so these are once again going to be hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorous and sulfur. And so if you arrange them in the right way, it will spell out that word chin ups. Now, which will also notice, is that we've got these other elements that air highlighted in this yellowish color, and these are referred to as the trace elements. And so, as the name implies with trace elements, uh, these are required for life. However, there Onley required in trace amounts or in very, very small amounts. And so if you take a look down below notice once again that the trace elements that are required for life however they're required in very, very small amounts, uh, they are highlighted in yellow throughout our table here. And so you don't need to memorize all of these trace elements. Don't worry about doing that. Um, instead, what you should be aware is that there are some trace elements that are required in small amounts. And you should be familiar with more familiar with the bulk elements, which again you can remember just by remembering chin ups. And so this here concludes our lesson on the elements that are required for life and will be able to get some practice as we move along through our course. And so I'll see you all in our next video.