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Teaching Tips: The SPONCH CaFe
 What’s
on the menu at the SPONCH CaFe? The elements of life! Our host Dr.
Douglas Zook provides us with a clever way of remembering some
of the most common types of elements found as atoms in the molecules
of living
things. This mnemonic device is based on the chemical symbols
for elements in the periodic table. The elements sulfur (S), phosphorus (P),
oxygen (O), nitrogen (N), carbon (C), and hydrogen (H) are
the most abundant in organic molecules, but calcium (Ca) and iron (Fe) are also critical
to life functions. Dr. Zook even goes further with his students by
adding “Maggie’s SPONCH CaFe”, where Maggie stands
for magnesium (Mg). Of the 107 elements that occur naturally on Earth,
only about a dozen or so compose most of the matter of an organism.
There are many other elements, however, that are very important and
occur in trace amounts. Furthermore, different types of organisms often
have different proportions of these elements.
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Teaching
Tips 
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extremophiles