Re:Scientists find gold growing on trees in Australia
by ChuckMcM on Wednesday October 23, 2013 @04:44PM
(#6601562)
I think they came up with the wrong use case though. What you'd really like is to have a gengeneered bacteria that extracts gold out of solution and can live in salt water. And some phytoplankton or arthropods that eat the bacteria and concentrate metallic salts in a kidney like organ. which are then collectable with drag nets. All new gold mining industry :-)
One wonders though if there are plants in the Sierras that would be similar processors of dissolved gold.
The study is remarkable in the sense that they for the first time proved a definite link that eucalyptus trees in fact imbibe gold ore from the earth, and theorized the mechanism behind it.