Think Biology. Any ideas would be helpful. My initial response was carbon since almost everything is made of carbon.
2007-02-14 01:40:05 · 8 answers · asked by Anonymous in Science & Mathematics ➔ Biology
Carbon - it serves as the "chemical backbone" for all living (organic) things on earth. Every organism in biology has carbon.
2007-02-14 01:46:22 · answer #1 · answered by Niotulove 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
My first reaction is also to say carbon.
However, I've got some gripes with that...
Yes, there are organisms which don't need the atmosphere we think is so important, and there are also lots of organisms that don't need water. HOWEVER, life isn't about to exist without a cell membrane, and that is composed of lipids, which have C,O, and H.
Furthermore, you're not going to have DNA or RNA without the nitrogenous bases (now we have to throw N in), or the ribose or deoxiribose sugars (again, C,O, and H), or a phosphorous group, P. Further, amino acids are required for proteins, and those again require C,O,N, H and sometimes S... So, you can't pick just one element and say that it is the MOST important. I don't think that life as we know it is possible without all six of those elements. (C,O,N,P,S, and H) Ok, maybe you could cut out sulfur, since there are only four or so amino acids that contain it.... BUT, you're not going to have any sort of cell without C,N,P, O and H.
2007-02-14 10:10:12 · answer #2 · answered by tanzanari 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Carbon.
No organic life without it. There are lots of elements that life needs though, oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, phosphorus... Carbon is the most important those as its tetravalence links all the other elements together.
2007-02-14 09:48:00 · answer #3 · answered by Leviathan 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Yeah, I agree with you - carbon! Except, some scientists have been saying... on some planets, life could be silicon-based! How cool is that? The silicon-based life would have to live at a waaay different temperature (I can't remember which way), so if we ever got to the point where we got to interact, we'd never be able to actually touch. Weird, huh?
2007-02-14 09:52:55 · answer #4 · answered by Cedar 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
that is a very hard question since everything is not made out of only one element, but i would have to say hydrogen. hydrogen makes water when added with oxygen and it leads to all things like photosynthesis (though you could argue for oxygen and carbon). hydrogen (or was it oxygen???) was the first element released into the atmoshphere when the world was first evolving and lead to the world that we know today.
2007-02-14 09:50:34 · answer #5 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋
Carbon. It's the backbone of all organic molecules which makeup all living things.
2007-02-18 02:04:29 · answer #6 · answered by BP 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Einsteinium: without Einsteinium all life would decay!
2007-02-14 09:59:24 · answer #7 · answered by polk2525 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
oxygen.
2007-02-14 09:44:31 · answer #8 · answered by Cant stop thinking 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋