Biological Role and Toxicity
Copper, although potentially toxic in excessive amounts, is essential for life. Copper is shown to have antimicrobial properties which make it useful for hospital doorknobs to keep diseases from being spread. Eating food in copper containers is known to increase the risk of copper toxicity.
Elemental gold and silver have no known toxic effects or biological use, although gold salts can be toxic to liver and kidney tissue. Like copper, silver also has antimicrobial properties. The prolonged use of preparations containing gold or silver can also lead to the accumulation of these metals in body tissue; the results are the irreversible but apparently harmless pigmentation conditions known as chrysiasis and argyria respectively.
Due to being short lived and radioactive, roentgenium has no biological use but it is expected to be extremely harmful due to its radioactivity.
Read more about this topic: Group 11 Element
Famous quotes containing the words biological and/or role:
“No poetic phantasy
but a biological reality,
a fact: I am an entity
like bird, insect, plant
or sea-plant cell;
I live; I am alive.”
—Hilda Doolittle (1886–1961)
“Recent studies that have investigated maternal satisfaction have found this to be a better prediction of mother-child interaction than work status alone. More important for the overall quality of interaction with their children than simply whether the mother works or not, these studies suggest, is how satisfied the mother is with her role as worker or homemaker. Satisfied women are consistently more warm, involved, playful, stimulating and effective with their children than unsatisfied women.”
—Alison Clarke-Stewart (20th century)