how can one simple chemical, like cyanide, be so detrimental to the human body, compared to just carbon and just nitrogen?

Question

I just found it so wild that our bodies are full of carbon and nitrogen (even if as part of other chemicals. We breath, what I assume, to be molecular nitrogen. But then slap a carbon atom to a nitrogen atom and you’re screwed. Why?

In: 27

Answer 1

Well it’s the oxygen in Air we breath, not the nitrogen. Breathing pure nitrogen would kill you, due to lack of oxygen, though you wouldn’t realize it was killing you until it was too late.