Humans, same as Earth?

C

christa

Frankly, I don't give a dam!
Valued Senior Member
Would you expect the elemental composition of Earth's crust to be the same as that of the human body or different? Explain your answer.
 
Obviously we are going to contain elements that are presant on earth and no more however we can contain less. For instance most people dont contain urainium (unless very unlucky) but we do contain at least SOME of most of the substances on earth. If you mean do we contain tjem in tje same percentages then the answer is obviously no. take sodium for instamce, the body activly retains it because in a natural diet its rare but in a westen diet its high. so that alone shows that the body and us as autonomus beings manipulate the contence of our body
 
Would you expect the elemental composition of Earth's crust to be the same as that of the human body or different? Explain your answer.
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The human body will be different from the earth's compostion since life requires a different proportion of atoms, compared to the earth. The earth is mostly oxygen, iron, silicon and aluminum, while life is oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen and phosphorus. There are also traces of many other elements such as iron but not like the earth.

The choice of atoms and their proportions that life uses makes life less dense since these atoms are less dense than metals and metal oxides.

To restate it a different way, the earth (and all the planets) came from the sun and continue to get further away from the sun as they get less dense and evolve to gas, and even dark matter as time goes on. Another way to say it is that the solar system IS the sun, expanding in volume and turning into dark matter. What say you?
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Another way to explain how the denser planets are closer to the sun and gaseous planets are farther away, has to do with our sun being a second generation sun. The original or first generation sun was larger and lacked a solar system. As it aged, it exploded (nova) releasing material for the solar system. The modern sun #2 gradually formed in the center while the planets were also forming.

The heavier materials from the explosion did not move away from center as fast and would form the inner planets. The lighter material moved further out into space and formed the outer planets.
 
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wellwisher said:
The heavier materials from the explosion did not move away from center as fast and would form the inner planets. The lighter material moved further out into space and formed the outer planets.
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Indeed. Inner system rocky planets tend to be higher in Metallicity.
 
christa said:
Would you expect the elemental composition of Earth's crust to be the same as that of the human body or different? Explain your answer.
Click to expand...


Seeing as humans evolved from the Earth, it stands to reason that we will be comprised of a subset of the elements that make up the Earth. The relative composition will differ, of course, as matter has been reorganised from inanimate to animate matter. 60 of the 78 elements in the Earth’s crust are found in the human body (according to wikipedia).

This is a list of the abundance of elements in the Earth's crust (in order of lithosphere abundance):

oxygen, silicon, aluminium, iron, calcium, sodium, potassium, magnesium, titanium, hydrogen, phosphorus, manganese, fluorine, barium, carbon, strontium, sulfur, zirconium, tungsten, vanadium, chlorine, chromium, rubidium, nickel, zinc, copper, cerium, neodymium, lanthanum, yttrium, nitrogen, cobalt, lithium, niobium, gallium, scandium, lead, samarium, thorium, praseodymium, boron, gadolinium, dysprosium, hafnium, erbium, ytterbium, caesium, beryllium, tin, europium, uranium, tantalum, germanium, molybdenum, arsenic, holmium, terbium, thulium, bromine, thallium, lutetium, antimony, iodine, cadmium, silver, mercury, selenium, indium, bismuth, tellurium, platinum, gold, ruthenium, palladium, rhenium, iridium, rhodium, osmium.​


This is a list of the abundance of elements in the human body (in order of percent of mass):

oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, calcium, phosphorus, potassium, sulfur, sodium, chlorine, magnesium, iron, fluorine, zinc, silicon, rubidium, strontium, bromine, lead, copper, aluminium, cadmium, cerium, barium, tin, iodine, titanium, boron, selenium, nickel, chromium, manganese, arsenic, lithium, mercury, caesium, molybdenum, germanium, cobalt, antimony, silver, niobium, zirconium, lanthanum, tellurium, gallium, yttrium, bismuth, thallium, indium, gold, scandium, tantalum, vanadium, thorium, uranium, samarium, tungsten, beryllium, radium.​
 
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