ABSTRACT
The periodic table contains 111 elements. Only 90 of these elements occur naturally in the environment, and still fewer elements comprise the living world. Scientists have long sought means to predict, interpret, detect, and measure quantitatively the elements necessary for life. The discovery of life’s elements, contained by the totality of present knowledge, suggests that life has evolved from the less biologically complex to the more biologically complex. The elements of the organic cluster appear also to have been selected because of their abundance in the primordial atmosphere at the time the first molecules, probably amino acids, were found in the primordial soup. Bacteria, plants, animals, and humans require, in addition to the organic elements, various amounts and types of other elements, collectively referred to as minerals. Macro-, micro-, and ultramicro- (trace) elements are provided to humans by foods from both plant and animal origin.
