What Are You Made Of?

If you are not certain, I can you exactly what you are made of.

Besides dangling prepositions.

To start with, the preponderance of you is water. Specifically, 55% to 80% of your body content is water, depending on sundry variables. The average adult male is waterier than the average adult female—apparently 60% water for men, compared with 55% for females. The missing 5% in females is made up of butter.

As to chemical composition, if you want to get more fine-tuned about all this, 99% of our body mass consists of six elements: oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, calcium, and phosphorus. I guess all that H₂O in us is where the oxygen and hydrogen can be found.

Carbon, I guess, is in our hair, fingernails, and toenails, because those are our hard bits. Oh yes—bones and teeth. Having used up the carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen, I am guessing that the nitrogen, calcium, and phosphorus are basically stored in our brains, giving them their grey colour. Calcium is required in the brain so that you can have fixed opinions.

Now, as to that mystery 1%: you will find scientific papers telling all about the many trace elements that are in us, some with a known or speculated function, some thought to be accidental and maybe poisonous. My view is that the 1% is dust, because there is always some dust in stuff. Especially if you go outdoors at all.

But then, get this: we have more microbial cells inside us than we do human cells. Here is what Science News Today said in a Nov. 5, 2025, article:

The Microbial Landscape of the Human Body

The human body contains about 30 trillion human cells and roughly 39 trillion microbial cells. Although they are vastly smaller, microbes collectively make up about 1–3% of our body weight—equivalent to the weight of the human brain. These microbes inhabit nearly every surface and cavity, including the skin, mouth, respiratory tract, genitals, and especially the gastrointestinal tract.

Each region of the body provides a unique habitat with its own temperature, moisture, acidity, and nutrient availability, leading to distinct microbial communities adapted to those conditions. For example, the oily skin of the forehead harbours different bacteria than the moist environment of the armpit. Similarly, the microbes of the mouth differ dramatically from those of the colon.

The gut microbiome, particularly that of the large intestine, is the most diverse and densely populated microbial ecosystem in the human body. It contains thousands of species and trillions of individual organisms, representing a genetic diversity that dwarfs the human genome. These microbes collectively possess more than 100 times as many genes as our own cells, providing metabolic functions we could not perform alone.

Now hang on a minute. Are these microbes mostly water, too? They showed a picture of the microbes in that article, and some of them have a lot of hair. What if there are male and female microbes, with the female microbes more fatty and less watery?

A very, very quick look on the internet about yeast seems to say that, yes, there are girl and boy yeast cells (or at least Type A and Type B, not to get too anthropomorphic about this), so there is every chance that they are hanging around trying to get a date with a really good-looking one of the opposite sex—or category. The teenagers are likely the most exercised about all this. But how old would a teenage yeast cell be? I don't know if their life span is a matter of minutes, days, or weeks, and I don't have time to look that up. You could look that up if you want.

It seems that we are nothing but a sort of movable universe for a bunch of bugs. This is as disconcerting as finding out that certain cheeses are made with the use of worms, basically.

Oh yes, if you look into this further, we have gas in us. Intestinal, and possibly conversational. General lung fillings, too.

Here is what else is in us: old music lessons. The times tables. "Thirty days hath September." Look both ways before crossing. Ladies first. All the birthdays of your siblings. The words to O Canada. "I before E except after C." The letters A to G in semaphore. Where you keep the candles in case of a power failure.

Skills: how to ride a bike. How to skate. How to take turns in a conversation, not just hog the whole thing because you think you are so darn funny all the time. How to apply nail polish with your non-dominant hand. How to shuffle cards. Knowing how long a handshake should last, whether in grip or pump form.

Oh yes, in the human body: electricity and chemical reactions. As to the electricity, we must all have a battery (lithium) in us somewhere, which allows nervous impulses to impulse along. Only no one has yet located the battery. Either that or we are plugged in, but I haven't actually noticed that. So it must be a battery.

Then on the chemical side, have you ever noticed that when you have chemistry with someone, you get a very bubbling and fizzy reaction to them? Sort of like those two cleaning products—I forget which—that you are not supposed to mix together because they will explode or something. I think one of them is ammonia, which I never have in the house because (a) the potential explosion issue, (b) I don't know what ammonia is supposed to be good for anyway, and (c) it smells terrible.

But oh, the joy of bubbling and fizzing.

Also in the human body: hopes and dreams. Big and little. I like the big hopes and dreams very much. Unlike a lottery, you don't even have to buy a ticket. Just think them up and enjoy the prospect.

Little hopes and wishes: you hope you did the dishes last night when you wake up in the morning. You hope you have something clean to wear. Please let this be Saturday. Or even Friday.

Then most humans occasionally contain recollections of dreams first thing in the morning. It is desirable to find yourself with a family member whom you can bore with the details.

"Can I just tell you this dream I had?"

"No, please don't."

Your dreams are tedious in the extreme to me.

There is this rule about dreams, however: if you don't remember one by 4:20 p.m. the next day, it is gone for good. It just vanishes. It disintegrates. If you do remember the dream, that gives it the kiss of life, and you can remember it—and bore people with it—for decades, if you just think about it now and again. Sort of like watering a plant.

Also in the human body: heat, a nice surface smell if you washed recently, sundry appetites (could use a hug, could use a dish of peanuts, could use a cup of tea), the urge to cough, the urge to scratch an itch.

Brain directives, all in the head, so technically also in the human body:

You SHOULD get out for a walk.

You SHOULD phone that friend who is having all that trouble.

You SHOULD vacuum—look at the kitchen floor, for heaven's sake.

The sources for this scientific article are listed below:

1. Casual grazing on the internet

2. Stuff I have noticed

3. Made it up myself out of whole cloth.