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Is your implication that we can find every single element in the periodic table (if not compounds and other chemicals, too) in the human body with sufficiently
by silicon2401 5y ago
Is your implication that we can find every single element in the periodic table (if not compounds and other chemicals, too) in the human body with sufficiently sensitive testing?
- contravariant 5y agoThat's basically equivalent to just saying the human body contains atoms for all isotopes. And other than the unstable or exceedingly rare isotopes I don't see why not.
- Jabbles 5y agoThe number of possible chemicals is vast, due to the exponentially large number of ways you can combine the elements. So although every stable element is present in the average human, every possible chemical (or compound) is not. Recent discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27634549 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27634549
- seoaeu 5y agoThe human body contains something like 10^27 atoms. It doesn't seem that unreasonable that all elements which are at least moderately common on Earth would be present...
- IdoRA 5y agoMore or less. I used to run samples of water from student’s canteens on a Thermo Scientific Element 2 (an exquisitely sensitive mass spectrometer) in their presence, knowing I would find uranium and lead in it. Not a lot, but it’s there. The point to the students was the dose makes the poison, more or less.