Also: are the most conducive
- oxygen
- hydrogen
- nitrogen
- carbon
Gold? I don’t think any life uses it for sustenance outside of technological and sociological applications.
I mean, you could start almost at the very top.
Skip hydrogen which is an obvious need and we’re right at something that’s not particularly helpful with either the creation or the sustenance of life. Helium has advanced use in MRI machines, and is fun in party balloons and squeaky voice tricks, but we got by for millennia without any of that. Relatively harmless otherwise, but not necessary.
Lithium? It does find itself in biological places often in place of more important things like sodium or potassium, but it’s neither necessary nor completely worthless, I guess.
My vote, though, for the worst of the top of the periodic table: Beryllium. Toxic. No biological function except to cause problems. Helps make pretty crystals, but the same is true of lots of less harmful elements. In that sense then, completely worthless.
Seems like we use berlyium in a lot of things.
What is beryllium?
Beryllium is a metal that’s used in the manufacturing of dozens of products, including cars, computers, golf clubs and electrical equipment. Beryllium is light, non-magnetic, and a good conductor of heat and electricity, which is why it’s so common.
https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/13807-beryllium-disease
All the radioactive ones maybe?
That’s more a question of semantics (and dosage I suppose). Radioactive elements can be therapeutic if used properly in a hospital (X-ray scan, radiation treatment for cancers, etc…).
More to the point, radiation spurs mutation. Mutation 99.9% of the times is bad, but that 0.1% chance of a beneficial mutation is a major driver of evolution. So in a way radioactive elements help create new ‘forms’ of life via speciation.
My question is genuine though, I’m not biophysics expert, I know there are radioactive elements in our body, but are they worthless? Probably the least meaningful to sustaining life would be least reactive elements if that makes sence, but life is more about energy of chemical reactions between molecules, not individual elements
Polonium is definitely near the top of the list.
Neon
