Talk:CHNOPS

my June 2009 edits to CHON
I apologize for having edited this article several times on June 29 instead of just once. It may be clear I'm newish at editing. Both of the references were "dead links" on that date (6/19/09), and two of the three "external links" were also "dead links". One fact (26 elements) needs verification, whether from an external source or an in-Wiki source. Another fact (99% of all living systems) needs clarification; it's vague, as is, and unclear what meaning was intended. Eldin raigmore (talk) 23:59, 29 June 2009 (UTC)
 * The micronutrients page adds another 18 elements making 24. Vanadium and Bromine could be the other two, being used by some marine organisms, but probably not essential to life in general.96.54.32.44 (talk) 06:59, 10 December 2010 (UTC)
 * 'These represent ten of the 26[verification needed] elements commonly found in living things.' Something does not add up - only six elements have been listed - He and Ne don't count.96.54.32.44 (talk) 07:08, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Article name
It is not clear to me that the current article name CHON is the correct or best one. Recent news announced by NASA about GFAJ-1 and Arsenic DNA have introduced me to the term CHNOPS many times. As of today (2010-12-09T14:05:10), someone has created a redirect page for CHNOPS to redir to this article. But since CHON is unsourced, it may be the case that CHNOPS is a better article name than CHON. Interested in what others think. N2e (talk) 18:31, 9 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Let me add that it could be the case that CHNOPS are the six most important biologically important elements and that the four CHON elements are more/most important from an astro-resource point of view. I don't know, of course, because there are no citations for the CHON claims.  So ultimately, the CHON stuff might just fall out of the article completely if it doesn't get sourced.


 * However, if the CHON stuff gets sourced and stays in the article, it does suggest a better organizational schema for the sections might include something like:
 * CHNOPS—biologically important,
 * CHON—astrochemically important,
 * no matter what we decide is the best name for the article.N2e (talk) 06:12, 12 December 2010 (UTC)


 * I just located a citation for CHON, and have added it to the article. Thus, it is no longer totally unsourced.  This makes me think that maybe CHON and CHNOPS ought to be separate, albeit related articles.  Thoughts?  N2e (talk) 17:47, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

Proposed article split
Per the logic of the discussion above, I am proposing to split this article into two articles:
 * CHNOPS—biologically important—per current science, of critical importance to all biological life. Currently of interest, per tag on this article, to the WikiProject Biology project.  The WikiProject Chemistry project would likely be interested in both articles.
 * CHON—astrochemically important—important for extraterrestrial resource extraction for off-Earth construction, rocket fuel production, etc. Widely used in Science Fiction space genre for many years.  Likely of interest to WikiProject Spaceflight and perhaps other WikiProjects.

I don't think it is straightforward to keep them together, and conflate their use as the article does a bit of today, when the terms are typically used by entirely different communities (with the exception of the astrobiologists, who would likely be familiar with both). The sources seem to indicate this distinction, as do Google searches on the terms. Cheers. N2e (talk) 19:04, 12 January 2011 (UTC)


 * SUPPORT the split, as proposer. N2e (talk) 19:04, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Comments on the split, with no support or oppose

 * If you look at article history, you will note that the unsourced claims about CHON are gradually being deleted from the article. This is fine, and consistent with WP:V.  However, it does appear that there may, in the end, be very little CHON material left for a second/splt article, and that references to CHON may eventually fall out completely from this article, as unrelated to the material that is sourced on CHNOPS.  NET:  now would be a really good time for interested CHONians to find sources to support the CHON claims remaining in this article.  N2e (talk) 14:05, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

Not what I'm looking for.
I was looking for "CHON" as a molecular formula, containing the following:

H-N=C=O

Where there is one hydrogen, nitrogen, carbon, and oxygen atom. The hydrogen bonds to the nitrogen. The nitrogen has a double bond with the carbon. The carbon also has a double bond with the oxygen. Can someone tell me what this molecule is called, and direct me to the right link? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.104.152.213 (talk) 21:27, 21 June 2011 (UTC)
 * That would be isocyanic acid, HNCO. -- Orange Mike  &#x007C;   Talk  18:58, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

CHON claims remain almost totally unsourced
, the CHON claims in the article are nearly totally unsupported. I was able to find one CHON source that I added to the article back in January 2011. If the unsourced claims are not supported, I will soon remove each of the unsourced CHON-related claims. (And if so, it would probably be appropriate to just WP:MOVE the article to CHNOPS and thereby change the article name from CHON to CHNOPS. N2e (talk) 17:18, 28 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Whatever may be the merits of CHON as astrobiologically important in science fiction, it appears no editor ever located any sources for the unverified claims, despite being fact-tagged for the past three months. I have now removed those claims pending sources.  If sources are located, these assertions may easily be added back to the article.


 * I will leave this to simmer for a while before possibly proposing a WP:MOVE of the article to CHNOPS and thereby change the article name from CHON to CHNOPS, since there is so little CHON related info in the article any longer. Cheers.  N2e (talk) 15:32, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

Name change proposal
Proposing an "article Move" of this article, from CHON to CHNOPS, and then changing the CHON article to a redirect. Rationale: all of the unsourced CHON claims have now been removed, and undisputed. Little on CHON remains. However, a large amount of information on CHNOPS as bilogically important elements in the article is sourced. Therefore, i say, demote the CHON.


 * 'SUPPORT, as nom, support the move of this article to CHNOPS. Rationale given above.  N2e (talk) 03:31, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

Ratio?
Is there an established ratio of each of the elements in organisms? Preferably not by weight but by number of atoms.198.40.29.8 (talk) 19:57, 16 December 2012 (UTC)


 * Maybe this helps: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Composition_of_the_human_body
 * (try sorting by Atomic percent)
 * I was sceptical about the Calcium percentage (bones), so I looked this up.

Jwilkes (talk) 12:12, 22 March 2024 (UTC)

Source
The 1977 novel | Gateway by Frederik Pohl refers to a fictional Food Factory that uses CHON from asteroids to create artificial food. This is the earliest reference I know of.

I would add this reference to the page if I knew how & where to place it.

Trelligan (talk) 08:46, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

External links modified (January 2018)
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 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20121008202722/http://www.utdallas.edu/~mitterer/Biosphere/pdfs/CarbonCycle.pdf to http://www.utdallas.edu/~mitterer/Biosphere/pdfs/CarbonCycle.pdf

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Wiki Education assignment: ASTBIO 502 Astrobiology Special Topics -Origin Of Life
— Assignment last updated by Plutooprojector (talk) 00:04, 8 December 2023 (UTC)

Merge proposal: Merge from CHON
I propose merging CHON into CHNOPS because of closely related and overlapped content, small size of CHON, and ease with which they can both be covered and distinguished. See old related discussions at:, and. –MadeOfAtoms (talk) 22:58, 9 December 2023 (UTC)


 * Support Seems to be identical content.   scope_creep Talk  07:38, 10 December 2023 (UTC)


 * Support the merge. The key thing we should not lose in the merge is the CHON is also a common acronym for the most important elements (may be even more common in the literature that CHNOPS), and that CHON make up 96% of the mass in biological systems, and that CHON materials are rather common in carbonaceous asteroids.  Probably, CHON can just be in a separate section of the CHNOPS article, and CHON should clearly redirect there.  In reality CHON is the big stuff in bio systems, with P & S critical, but each <1% by mass; then the many many other elements that are critical to life probably just follow a power-law distribution downwards; elements that are small in terms of mass or percentage, but life doesn't work without them.  N2e (talk) 00:44, 11 December 2023 (UTC)

I Withdraw this merge proposal pending some study of the present contents of CHNOPS. The quality is so poor that I would not be willing to attempt to salvage it. It has the character of an article written mostly or entirely by an AI chatbot, in my opinion. My apologies for the false start. –MadeOfAtoms (talk) 23:56, 12 December 2023 (UTC)


 * Thank you User:MadeOfAtoms and User:Drmies for taking the time to look at those edits. I now understand that the way I moved the material was incorrect, for that I apologize. I was editing this apge as part of a course I was taking on the Origins of life (abiogenesis, homochirality, polymerization, proto cells, RNA world, rhibozymes, phylogeny, LUCA.. etc). all students were to select and improve a relevant page. I had hoped to create a new CHNOPS page, moving my sandbox to it, but learned that one already existed (but it had no content), but being redirected to the CHON page. In my haste to get the title to what I thought was more relevant I made those errors. Considering that the CHON page hadn't seen much activity in several years, I thought it would be fine, and that version control would save the version and revision history of the CHON page.
 * Thank you for agreeing and making the CHON move to CHNOPS after reverting to the old version, I agree that CHNOPS is a more relevant title for the content and that perhaps a subsection for CHON (composing >96% by mass) is deserving. However, no matter how little phosphorus and sulfur compose life by mass, it phosphorus and sulfur are also essential so I don't think they should be left out.
 * I'm sorry that you think it was written by a chatbot (it wasn't), I do hope you had the time to read through those references. Furthermore, I thought that the additional details/sections and reorganization would provide clarity to the content while also providing more structure for future edits by the wiki community.
 * Thank you to User:LambdaWolf and User:DI2000 for making some comments and edits before the page was reverted back. I had included the initial summary and scope clarification for a quick read, and to differentiate it from CHON or specific element information. However, if you and others didn't think it was valuable than I'm okay with that too.
 * User:MadeOfAtoms was there any specific content which you disagreed with or found to be incorrect? were there sections that you thought the old content was better in either content or format?
 * I will not be re-editing this page until there is a general consensus. Again, my apologies for making the move incorrectly, thank you for pointing out and fixing that error.
 * MikeSadler11 (talk) 01:41, 13 December 2023 (UTC)
 * @Scope creep @Drmies can we merge the talk pages? This is really confusing that we seem to have switched talk pages. I do not know what happened here. Immanuelle ❤️💚💙 (talk to the cutest Wikipedian) 02:21, 13 December 2023 (UTC)
 * I did a bold merge anyways. I am having a lot of trouble with understandin what actually happened. Is there anywhere where I can see the old page? Immanuelle ❤️💚💙 (talk to the cutest Wikipedian) 02:27, 13 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks for that talk merge, helped a lot! I think the there are "three" versions. one from before my edits (which is the current CHNOPS page as it was reverted), my version which was a major update/reformat (03:01, 9 December 2023) and another version of that which received some updates before the reversion (18:46, 9 December 2023).
 * Sorry that I got this all messed up during the move and thanks for your help! MikeSadler11 (talk) 02:45, 13 December 2023 (UTC)

Hello! looks like there hasn't been a response to my questions on specific issues of quality, information, or format of my edits. @Drmies, @LambdaWolf, @DI2000, @MadeOfAtoms, I still believe my updates were comprehensive and worthwhile to add more information and structure to a page that was lacking and hadn't been updated in almost 10 years. If you have any specific concerns, please let me know, otherwise I will be pushing the update from my sandbox at the end of the week (hopefully the right way this time). again, thanks for the time and for letting me know of those errors I made. 172.56.104.184 (talk) 15:32, 19 December 2023 (UTC)
 * The Dec 9 version of the CHNOPS article, which was posted by before being reverted to the original CHON contents, addresses subjects that I think would benefit this article, such as the origin and distribution of CHNOPS in the solar system and in the Earth and near its surface. But most of its statements are not supported by references. The citations that are given are generally relevant to the article, but they don't support their associated claims in many cases. For example, I don't find support in the given citations for ... refractory Carbon is found in meteorites along the asteroid belt, but in concentrations approximately 1/10th that of carbon in comets, suggesting a depletion of carbon in the inner solar system or enrichment in volatile forms. or for the overly vague statement Some CHNOPS elements are formed during different stages during stellar evolution or by different kinds of stars. So the claims should have better support before adding them to the article. –MadeOfAtoms (talk) 02:38, 28 December 2023 (UTC)