You have discovered a crashed spaceship and a slightly injured alien. In gratitude for the aid you give the alien after its crash, it agrees to let you have some tissue specimens and body fluids for your research.
The alien's tissue and body fluids are not made from the same elements as ours. In fact, you discover a multitude of new elements, which you name Alien Elements 1-35 (AE1-AE35). A few of these elements seem to be essential for a number of basic structures. Based on your knowledge of the elements that are most common in our bodies, hypothesize what two common characteristics of the essential alien elements might be and why these characteristics are important? Explain the answer.