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A comment on Scientists find gold growing on trees in Australia. Parent comment

Re:Scientists find gold growing on trees in Australia by vincie on Wednesday October 23, 2013 @02:00AM (#6597174)
Genetic modification to the rescue! Would be even more valuable if they can do it for toxic metals like arsenic and mercury.
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Re:Scientists find gold growing on trees in Australia by ekianjo on Wednesday October 23, 2013 @04:30AM (#6597596)
I'm not sure where I read it, but I do remember that plants such as broccoli and similar species can suck out heavy metals from the ground. Not sure how much or how fast, though.
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Re:Scientists find gold growing on trees in Australia by Wingman4l7 on Wednesday October 23, 2013 @04:50AM (#6597656)
Mustard plants are the ones that readily come to mind; apparently it's called phytoremediation.
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Re:Scientists find gold growing on trees in Australia by Wingman4l7 on Wednesday October 23, 2013 @04:53AM (#6597668)
Research has already been done on phytoremediation of heavy metals using mustard plants and bioaccumulation with various species of fungi.
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Re:Scientists find gold growing on trees in Australia by Turing_Machine on Wednesday October 23, 2013 @07:43AM (#6598134)
Bacteria are already being used to extract economically significant amounts of metals from ore bodies and mine waste.

ATW, up to 25% of the world's supply of new copper is now produced this way.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biomining

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Re:Scientists find gold growing on trees in Australia by jessaustin on Wednesday October 23, 2013 @09:51AM (#6598685)
That Wikipedia article is the least-sourced one I've seen in years. It has one cite, from "June 1994". Not to contradict you, and I'm sure that biomining is important, but I thought it was interesting to see a Wikipedia article like that. Biomining must not be a controversial topic!
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