article: You might know that H20 is the chemical formula for water, but what about the chemistry of you? Dr Joe Hanson, a science writer and biologist based in Austin, Texas, pondered this very question and now has calculated what the human body is in terms of chemical elements. He revealed that a 'human molecule' might contain 375 million atoms of hydrogen, 132 million atoms of oxygen and 85 million atoms of carbon. By comparison, this human molecule contains just one atom of cobalt and three molecules of the metal molybdenum. When written out in full, the human molecule would read: Co1 Mo3 Se4 Cr7 F13 Mn13 I14 Cu76 Zn2,110 Fe2,680 Si38,600 Mg40,000 Cl127,000 K177,000 Na183,000 S206,000 P1,020,000 Ca1,500,000 N6,430,000 C85,700,000 O132,000,000 H375,000,000. The full list of elements that Dr Hanson says would be found in a human molecule if such a thing existed - each set of letters represent a chemical element and the numbers are the proporation of atoms in each 'molecule' Dr Hanson claims his formula, however, only represents the chemical make up of the human body at birth. Life on Earth may have been kickstarted by a series of chemical reactions triggered by two simple but poisonous compounds that were plentiful on our planet four billion years ago. Chemists have found it is possible to create the three main molecular building blocks of life - DNA, proteins and lipids - from hydrogen cyanide, hydrogen sulphide and ultraviolet light. Their findings suggest that the basic components for biological cells could have all occurred simultaneously in primordial ponds and streams, coming together to form the first cells. This suggests that life may well have first emerged here on Earth - out of a toxic soup of poisonous gas - rather than being carried to our planet by a comet or meteorite from outer space. But the researchers behind the new study say that meteorite impacts probably still played a key role in giving life a first leg up on the ladder towards existence. They claim that meteorite impacts around four billion years ago - known as the Late Heavy Bombardment - could have carried with them carbon rich material that reacted with nitrogen in the air to produce an abundance of hydrogen cyanide. This poisonous gas could then have dissolved in water and undergone a series of chemical reactions, along with hydrogen sulphide, driven by ultraviolet light. Over our lifetimes the proportions of these elements change as age and we pick up traces of other elements like heavy metals and gold. Dr Hanson said: 'Out of 98 naturally occurring elements, just over 30 are known to be essential to some form of life on Earth. 'In ancient times scholars believed everything in the universe was made from just four elements - earth, water, fire and air. 'Today we know it is a little more complicated than that. Living things are made up of cells, cells are made up of molecules and molecules are made up of atoms. 'But that old idea turns out to be sort of right. 'Altogether, 97% of the mass all living matter is made of just four chemical elements.' Dr Hanson, who created the video for the It's Okay to be Smart PBS channel on YouTube, also calculated that the average human body has the equivalent of 16kg (35lbs) of carbon in it and enough oxygen to fill a volume equivalent to 6 elephants. He said the human body also contained enough hydrogen to fill the volume of a blue whale and the same amount of nitrogen as is found in 400 litres of urine. But the human body may also be a source of revenue for those who think it is worth the effort. If the average person was to cut off all their tails and toenails, they could extract a nugget of gold worth around a tenth of a US cent (one sixteenth of a penny), according to Dr Hanson. He said: 'The average adult contains detectable amounts of 60 elements, mostly just traces of our diet and environment that have built up over time. If you isolated all of the elements in your body into their pure form, the ingredients for one life would fetch around one to two thousands dollars on the open market. 'Of course you can't really do that, but it gives us another way to look at life.' Biologist Dr Joe Hanson has worked out what the human body would look like as a chemical formula (above) The average adult human body contains around 16kg (35lbs) of carbon. Pictured is a lump of carbon-rich coal .
highlights: Dr Joe Hanson is a science writer and biologist based in Austin, Texas .
  He calculated what a hypothetical single 'human molecule' might look like .
  It would contain 375 million hydrogen atoms and 85 million carbon atoms .
  He also calculated that all the chemical elements in the human body could be worth upto $2,000 if they were isolated and sold on the open market .
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