In this video, we're going to talk about the elements of life. And so what's interesting to note is that of all of the known elements that exist in the universe, only a small subset of those elements is found in living organisms. Now the periodic table of elements, which I'm sure you guys have probably heard of before in your previous courses, is a table that arranges all of the known elements that exist based on their chemical properties. And so if you take a look down below at our image, what you'll notice is we're showing you a periodic table of elements showing you all of the known elements that exist. Now once again, living things do not utilize all of these elements.
Instead, they only utilize a small subset of them. In fact, about 97% of the mass of most living organisms, which is the vast majority of the mass, is made up of just 6 elements, which are carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus, and sulfur. And if you take the chemical symbols for each of these elements, it spells the word CHNOPS. And so if you can remember CHNOPS, then you'll be able to remember these 6 elements that make up the vast majority of most living organisms. Because these 6 elements make up the vast majority of most living organisms, they are referred to as bulk elements, which we're showing you down below here in the periodic table.
So notice that the bulk elements are highlighted in blue. And so you can see the positions of these 6 elements that make up the vast majority of life: hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus, and sulfur. And so, if you arrange them in the right way, it'll spell out that word CHNOPS. Now what you'll also notice is that we've got these other elements that are highlighted in this yellowish color, and these are referred to as the trace elements.
And so as the name implies with trace elements, these are required for life. However, they're only required in trace amounts or in very small amounts. And so if you take a look down below, notice once again that the trace elements that are required for life, however they're required in very, very small amounts, are highlighted in yellow throughout our table here. And so you don't need to memorize all of these trace elements. Don't worry about doing that.
Instead, what you should be aware of is that there are some trace elements that are required in small amounts, and you should be more familiar with the bulk elements, which again, you can remember just by remembering CHNOPS. And so this here concludes our lesson on the elements that are required for life and we'll be able to get some practice as we move along through our course. And so I'll see you all in our next video.