Science: GOLD can be recovered from poop

RawStory.com; Wisdom Quarterly, "The Germ That Lays Golden Eggs"

The alchemists were right -- about more things than one. gold from dross (bacteria and toxic water), Philosopher's Stone from dew and rain, etc. (DailyBling.com)

 

Gold mudra (fengshui.about.com)

Among the more peculiar organisms that inhabit our Earth exists a bacterium that turns water-soluble gold into microscopic nuggets of solid gold, scientists said Sunday.

 

Chemists have often pondered why the germ Delftia acidovorans is frequently found on the surface of tiny gold nuggets.

 

Its presence led scientists to speculate it may be creating the particles from soluble gold -- ions of gold that are dissolved in water.

 

Kate Moss as gold yogini (celebitchy.com)

But the puzzle was how D. acidovorans did this trick, as soluble gold is toxic.

 

The answer, suggest researchers in Canada, lies in a molecule excreted by the microbe that both shields the organism and transforms the poisonous ions into particles.

 

“This finding is the first demonstration that a secreted metabolite can protect against toxic gold and cause gold biomineralization,” the process by which living organisms produce minerals, they wrote in the journal Nature Chemical Biology.

 

The molecule, delftibactin A, is capable of achieving this feat within seconds in pH-neutral conditions at room temperature. More