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Home Articles Reviews Videos App Store Book Shop Forum What Are We Made Of? By Adam Sinicki When we bodybuild or try and improve our brain we are taking the materials that make us up and then recombining them and redesigning them to create something new. This is means we're working with an incredibly complex and fascinating 'machine' almost and working with some incredible materials. However what's a bit of a tragedy is that despite the majesty of our bodies, and the crucial role they play in our lives (particularly for those interested in improving themselves), few of us really even know what we're made out of. Okay so sure we all know we're skin and bone, and at a push we might know that those are made from protein... but do we know what protein is? What an amino acid is? What carbon is? It's all pretty awesome when you do know and it gives you a newfound respect for your body and for the 'circle of life' that Elton John keeps going on about. So here we will have a look at what makes us up. Protein and Minerals On a basic level we are made up of protein. This protein is what we get in our meat and some other foods. The reason being? Because they're made up of protein too. So what you've really got going on here is recycling. When a farmer kills a sheep and you eat it, you then use up some of the meat that made that sheep, so in other words you are taking that animal's muscle and skin and putting it inside your body. At the same time though we're not just made of protein, but also minerals which we get from our food to. For instance our blood is made of iron and that iron comes from tiny bits of the same stuff that makes up your bike etc. Oh and we're also made from 75% water – which comes from everywhere – our food, the rain, the rivers, the lakes and the seas. When you really think about it then, the stuff that makes our bodies has been on an incredible journey – and has previously been animals, rocks, trees, birds and lakes. Probably at some point some part of you was a dinosaur... how weird is that? That's because of the circle of life – the T-Rex died and was eaten by Raptors, the Raptors were eaten by a crocodile, the crocodile died and dissolved at the bottom of a lake, that water and the particles of protein were dinner for a pond skater, the pond skater was eaten by a dragon fly, the dragon fly was eaten by a dog, the dog was buried by its owners and its minerals fuelled the grass that grew there, then years later that grass was eaten by a cow and we ate that cow. The circle of life means that in a way you really do return to Mother nature and get reincarnated in some ways. This is really only a small part of the journey our protein and minerals have been on though, as we will see later... What Are Amino Acids and Where do They Come From? Of course you need to realise that the protein in you is very different to what it was like when it was in a cow or a T-Rex. This is because it has been recombined and re-formed in different ways – new peptides and polypeptides which are in turn chains of amino acids. So really it's not your protein that was in the T-Rex, but the amino acids, but that's still pretty impressive... And what are amino acids? They are carbon compounds, compounds made from one of the basic elements that is crucial to life on Earth. But let's take that further and ask – where does Carbon come from? Where do the elements come from? This is where things start to become rather spectacular... Carbon is an element and that means it is a combination of protons and neutrons. Specifically it is made of a combination of protons and neutrons that at some point were bonded together by what's called 'nuclear fusion' (specifically carbon is made from six protons – and most have 6 neutrons but there can be anything from 2 to 16). Interestingly nuclear fusion requires incredibly high temperatures – millions of degrees – which we can't achieve currently anywhere on Earth. So where did this carbon come from? Where Carbon Comes From The answer to that question is truly fascinating and may well blow your mind. This is because the only thing hot enough to create carbon is a dying sun called a red giant. While our sun is hot enough to give off helium, it is not hot enough to create create 'heavier' elements such as our carbon. This is because helium is made up of just two protons and so is much easier to create, whereas carbon as we mentioned has an atomic value of 6. Thus it's only when the sun is dying having run out of fuel and succumbing to the forces of gravity, that the temperature at the very core reaches high enough to create carbon. So the stuff that made you, that you now forge in the gym, was originally forged in the very furnace of a dying sun. You are a cosmic creation, and one that required incredibly pressure and temperature to create. So the next question is of course... how did that carbon, given off by a dying sun most likely somewhere within the Milky Way, get to Earth? The answer has been discovered by scientists who have found carbon compounds embedded in meteorites – that carbon will have travelled through space millions of light years to reach our Earth. And as the Earth itself was made from countless pieces of rock that will have been attracted together by the force of gravity, these pieces too will have at some point carried traces of carbon. Interesting Fact: While we are made up of carbon atoms that were formed by a red giant, this still isn't hot enough to create the 'heavier' elements that have higher atomic values such as gold or uranium. To create these the sun has to be much larger before it dies, so that it becomes what is called a supernova. This is why gold is so rare – and why if you took all the gold ever harvested by mankind it would only be enough to fill up three Olympic swimming pools. Think about that next time you buy a gold ring! As that iron – that also makes us up – has an atomic value of 26, that means that parts of you were also made by supernovi (the plural for supernova – say supernovas and I'll smack you!). You Are Not You The implications of this are incredible – the parts that made you up were forged in the heart of a star and then travelled millions of light years across space in asteroids and possibly even other planets in order to get to Earth. After this those parts will have been involved in the lives of countless creatures and even inanimate mountains and other things – and it's even possible that our carbon was once a part of alien life on its journey to Earth. Who knows what it will be after we decompose... Your body is made of ancient materials that pre-date the very Earth and that will outlast it. They have been on an incredible journey and will continue long after you are dead. And for that reason if nothing else, it pays to show it a little respect. But if that hasn't blown your mind enough then let's end on one other note – the fact that roughly every ten years every atom in your body is replaced by new ones. That means that not one single part of you is the same as it was before and only your memory remains to help you identify yourself as yourself. So the question is... are we even the same person?  Copyright 2012 The Biomatrix.Net

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