Slashdot Mirror
Money That Grows On Trees
parvez1 submits this piece about a process that uses plants to soak up and accumulate contaminants - and gold - from near gold-mining sites. Then the plants are harvested for their metal content. The plants aren't bio-engineered - he's taking advantage of the natural tendency for certain plants to accumulate heavy metals.
from the article "Anderson's field trials also yielded an unexpected and potentially profitable byproduct. The plants he harvested had purple leaves because they contained gold nanoparticles, which are purple, not yellow. These nanoparticles melt at one tenth the temperature of regular gold - which makes them highly sought after for industrial processes, such as cleaning up carbon monoxide in fuel cells."
so where can get that chemical spray for the soil? I like to apply some to around here
These are the things which will move the world forward. The small wonderous discoveries which can actually change and fix things.
This example in particular is very simple and will have a smaller effect but it can potentially have a very vital effect on those in the region.
Other things like this will come around and some of them are going to have an amazing effect. I can't even define what that invention will be obviously...but maybe someone will someday make the air to electricity machine from Atlas Shrugged?
With computing power slowly ramping up and in some time nano technology being moved to a consumer level in combination with the printing of electronics (if we really even need that...with true control over molecular movements we technically could create whatever we wanted in a nice little microwave or whatever - a la star trek - and it really isn't all that science fiction...its just time and patience and some science)
People could soon be inventing the most amazing things in their own homes on random weekends...each of us will become research and creation experts...
its bright
Mad, adj : Affected with a high degree of intellectual independence. Ambrose Bierce - The Deveil's Dictionsary
There's no need to move this stuff far, just crack the oil locally for the ethyl and methyl ester fatty acids after you've removed the heavy metals and you could power a diesel power plant which could probably power the whole project and the local village.
Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.
So far, it's been two hours since this was posted, and no one's mentioned tiberium? [Okay, someone mentioned Command & Conquer, and was maked 'offtopic', even though he wasn't.]
For those of you non-gamer geeks, the basic premise for money production in the game was that there was this plant, tiberium, which would leech minerals from the ground, and you would collect it up, and you'd get a source of funding that you could use to produce troops, tanks, buildings, whatever to take out your opponents.
Of couse, the problem was, that regular troopers were harmed if they went into a tiberium field. [However, they only took damage for moving, in the original game]. Later sequels introduced a mutant army, who healed if they were in a tiberium field.
Red Alert had crystal fields, which just wasn't the same [they didn't regenerate for one], and C&C Generals uses supply depots -- no concept of tiberium at all. [The best thing about tiberium was that it grew over time, as opposed to being a fixed resource]
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
They pipe their waste water through reed beds to remove contaminants. They've had them in place since the 1960s.
It isn't just the reeds themselves which clean the water, they support microbiological colonies which break down organic and inorganic toxins and fix heavy metals in the soil keeping them out of the ground water.
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.