Question

Do living organisms contain unique chemical elements not found in non-living systems?

Answer 1

Now when you say living what are you referring to? Trees are living but controversially do not express consciousness! Single celled organisms like algae are living, they are autotrophic photosythetic metabolisers. Viruses however cannot metabolize on their own but do possess the ability to multiply, but only when they hijack other living cells and manipulate their hosts' machinery, however to consider a virus as living would be difficult. Viruses and most other living organisms have some sort of nucleotide chain or aminoacid, polypeptide (proteins) necessary for their own 'survival'... survival explicitly meaning the ability to stay alive. Therefore the 'thing' which we are describing must be living in order to survive so I guess under that basis viruses are living however very loosely so. Typically the atoms, B, C, N, P, Ca, Mg, S, Cl, Fe, Cu, Z, Mo, Ni are essential for living organisms. Inanimate objects do not generally have nucleotide chains in the form of DNA/RNA or express their own proteins which could be used as the deciding factor. When protoblasts come into the equation i'm not too sure. So basically I think that the elements uniquely expressed by living organisms are different forms of DNA/RNA and proteins! I hope this helps! :)

Answer 2

I think the answer is yes because living things needs carbon and all living things have DNA. A non-living thing like a house does not need carbon and it does not have DNA.