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Growing Your Own Gold

Posted by timothy on from the requires-patience dept.

An anonymous reader submits: "Scientists believe it may be possible to grow gold like growing potatoes. Time to throw away my IT degree and go back to being a primary producer!"

6 of 64 comments (clear)

  1. Dang it by clausiam · · Score: 4, Funny
    From the article: "although it may take millions of years to grow a really big one"

    Oh well, good thing I didn't quit my day job then...

    /Claus

  2. Unspoken by cgenman · · Score: 4, Informative

    SMH.com.au has a more informed description of what happens. The gold is not "grown," it is "collected." Bacteria break down and carry gold material away from a larger vein, and another group picks it up and deposits it when they get to a chunk or nugget. ABC au also has a good article.

    So unless you happen to live near a large, undiscovered underground tract of gold, your chance of growing gold in your backyard like potatoes is just about zero.

    --
    The ______ Agenda
  3. Anyone notice the .au domain? by andawyr · · Score: 5, Funny

    Takers anyone? Periodic table symbo AU is the symbol for what? Gold.

    Coincidence, but funny nonetheless.

  4. Flowers and mines by AtariAmarok · · Score: 4, Funny

    Now, if they could breed flowering potato plants that turn red in the presence of gold mines, we might have something here!

    --
    Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
  5. Only Gold? by MissMarvel · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I'm curious if they did the research to see if this bacteria/fungus works with other heavy metals as well, i.e. Silver, Mercury. If so, it might be possible to adapt this type of process to the removal of heavy metals from soil and drinking water sources.

  6. Georgius Agicola said it first by geoswan · · Score: 4, Interesting
    I have a copy of De Re Metallica, the 2nd book on metallurgy and related arts published outside of China. Rather I have a translation of it.

    Written in 1556, by a German, in Latin -- it covered labor management, metal working, ore processing, mining and prospecting .

    Agricola explained that gold grew in the ground, like the roots of trees. So, he said it first.

    (The first book was entitled Pirotechnia, written in Italian, in the city of Siena, in 1540, by one Vannocio Biringucio.)

    (I know Agricola doesn't sound like a German name. His real name was Georg Bauer. Like Nicholas Copernicus he translated his name into Latin. People did that back then.)