It seems this microbe removes dissolved gold from its immediate environment, and accumulates it into grains of gold. You still have to have dissolved gold, but it's interesting...
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Scientists have discovered that a lowly bacteria that has the Midas touch?it appears to turn dissolved metal into solid gold.
The bacteria, called Ralstonia metallidurans, was identified by Frank Reith of Australian National University and his colleagues as the common denominator among bacteria comprising a dried organic biofilm found on the surface of gold grains collected from a park and gold mines in southern New South Wales and northern Queensland, Australia.
Reith then isolated and grew more of the bacteria in the lab and used a scanning electron microscope to observe gold precipitation in the presence of the microbe. It took just eight hours for a small grain to form.
Testing a theory for how gold grains form when it starts out dissolved in a liquid solution, he confirmed that the bacteria play an important role in the formation of this type of gold nugget. Others thought the grains might come out of solution by some other chemical or leftover process.
http://www.livescience.com/othernews..._bacteria.html
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Scientists have discovered that a lowly bacteria that has the Midas touch?it appears to turn dissolved metal into solid gold.
The bacteria, called Ralstonia metallidurans, was identified by Frank Reith of Australian National University and his colleagues as the common denominator among bacteria comprising a dried organic biofilm found on the surface of gold grains collected from a park and gold mines in southern New South Wales and northern Queensland, Australia.
Reith then isolated and grew more of the bacteria in the lab and used a scanning electron microscope to observe gold precipitation in the presence of the microbe. It took just eight hours for a small grain to form.
Testing a theory for how gold grains form when it starts out dissolved in a liquid solution, he confirmed that the bacteria play an important role in the formation of this type of gold nugget. Others thought the grains might come out of solution by some other chemical or leftover process.
http://www.livescience.com/othernews..._bacteria.html
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