![]() ![]() Some sea animals accumulate elements like vanadium and iodine within their cells to concentrations a thousand or more times as great as in the surrounding sea water. one of the properties of life is to take up certain elements that are scarce in the nonliving world and concentrate them within living cells.the composition of living things is not simply a reflection of the elements available to themįor example, hydrogen, carbon, and nitrogen together represent less than 1% of the atoms found in the earth's crust but some 74% of the atoms in living matter.but, as the table shows, the relative proportions of those it does acquire from its surroundings are quite different from the proportions in the environment.uses only a fraction of the elements available to it.For example, 47 of every 100 atoms found in a representative sample of the lithosphere are oxygen while there are only 19 atoms of carbon in every 10,000 atoms of lithosphere. Each number represents the percent of the total number of atoms present. The table shows the 11 most prevalent elements in the lithosphere (the earth's crust) and in the human body.Įlemental composition of the lithosphere and the human body. Of these 90, only 25 or so are used to build living things. (Tiny amounts - sometimes only a few atoms - of additional elements have been made in nuclear physics laboratories, but they play no role in our story). Our planet is made up of some 90 elements. Elements and Atoms Elements and Atoms Index to this pageĮlements consist of only one kind of atom and cannot be decomposed into simpler substances.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |