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The gold you see in the photo above was not found in a river or a mine. It was produced by a bacteria that, according to researchers at Michigan State University, can survive in extreme toxic environments and create 24-carat gold nuggets. Pure gold.
Maybe this critter can save us all from the global economic crisis.
Or at least make Kazem Kashefi—assistant professor of microbiology and molecular genetics—and Adam Brown—associate professor of electronic art and intermedia—rich. They are the ones who have created a compact laboratory that uses the bacteria Cupriavidus metallidurans to turn gold chlroride—a toxic chemical liquid found in nature—into 99.9 per cent pure solid gold.
Accoding to Kashefi, they are doing “microbial alchemy” by “something that has no value into a solid, precious metal that’s valuable.”
The bacteria is incredibly resistant to this toxic element. In fact, it’s 25 times stronger than previously thought. The researchers’ compact factory—which they named The Great Work of the Metal Lover—holds the bacteria as they feed it the gold chloride. In about a week, the bacteria does its job, processing all that junk into the precious metal—a process they believe happens regularly in nature.
So yes, basically, Cupriavidus metallidurans can eat toxins and poop out gold nuggets.
It seems that medieval alchemists were looking for the Philosopher’s Stone—the magic element that could turn lead to gold—in the wrong place. It’s not a mineral. It’s a bug. [Michigan State University]
The gold laboratory created by Kashefi and Brown. It contains the bacteria and the toxic crap they feed it.
This is Cupriavidus metallidurans in action, eating away the toxins and producing the gold.
If i discovered this i wouldnt tell anyone haha, i would be using the gold to make more gold until i was stupid rich…. Then maybe i would tell people.
“It would be cost prohibitive to reproduce their experiment on a larger scale”
Never mind…..
I cannot find anything stating how common this gold chlroride is in nature or even as a biproduct of any manufacturing process, so how much gold they will get out of this I don’t know.
It also doesn’t say if there is any other way of doing it other than bacteria. On wikipedia it looks like you can turn the Gold Chloride into just gold by using potassium bromide
3 AuCl + 4 KBr → KAuBr4 + 2 Au + 3 KCl
Well yes, I assume the bacteria is simply “eating” the chlorine and “excreting” the gold. I assume the biological element means it it effectively self powering rather than having to produce a chemical reaction to break and molecular bonds. please excuse me if none of that made any sense.
I really like the idea’s behind this story, but correct me if I’m wrong technically the Gold is already there, albeit as Gold Chloride.
The idea behind the Philosopher’s Stone is that it could turn Lead to Gold with no Gold being used.
Do correct me if I’m wrong but surely this is just the discovery of a Bacteria that’s super resistant to a toxic chemical?
Gold chloride has no value. This is about being able to extract the gold from the compound using bacteria which does have value.
I’m not clear on whether it’s gold(I) chloride or gold(III) chloride, but if you wanted to buy either from a chemicals supplier (I did a quick search on Sigma-Aldrich) they are in the region of £100 a gram.
Prices of chemicals are based on abundance and what you can get out of them, anything containing a precious metal in extractable quantities is expensive.
Exactly.
Ya so instead of plundering the ground for gold we’ll be plundering wherever the hell you get gold chloride from
A bacteria that produces gold? my clean freak gf will be so conflicted
Get her a pear necklace instead.
*pearl (joke totally ruined)
LOL Pear.
Dont want to knock her out
What? She needs to be unconscious? Is that the only way you can….?
*deliberate joke sabotage*
Where’s the article on Facebook? C’mon Giz. Just saw Zuck’s post in the morning.
What, Facebook reaching 1bn users? Yawn.
Presumably the writer meant to say “a bacterium” since he is not talking about several bacteria.
While this is pretty awesome, and the guy – Kazem Kashefi – even sounds like he should be an alchemist, this isn’t lead-into-gold alchemy. This is the pretty ‘basic’ alchemy that we just call ‘chemistry’, now.
I would love to see a species of bacteria, or any other organism for that matter, capable of fusion/fission though.