Fun on Friday: A Bacteria That Literally Poops Gold

Imagine the riches you would have if you discovered a way to turn lead, or dirt, or iron into pure gold. Well, people have been trying to figure out how to do this for eons. We have records of people trying to come up with formulas to turn regular old stuff into gold dating back to ancient Egypt, China and India.

In fact, a whole pseudoscience grew up around efforts to change common substances into gold known as alchemy. Well, where man has failed, Mother Nature has prevailed.

Fun fact, when I was a kid, I dreamed of getting a chemistry set and turning a jar of sand I’d saved from a trip to the beach into gold. True story. But my parents never bought me that chemistry set. I got a microscope instead. As it turns out, microscopes are cool, but useless for transforming sand into gold. In retrospect, mom and dad were probably wise not to put chemicals into the hands of a kid who regularly spilled his milk and was generally known as “the klutz” – even if the chemicals were largely benign. That said, I’m also pretty certain my parents deprived me of great riches and the world of significant scientific advancement.

At any rate, to date, we haven’t figured out how to turn lead or dirt into gold. If you want to own gold, you still have to dig the yellow metal out of the ground, or we can call 1-888-GOLD-160 and buy it in bar or coin form.

But get this. Where humankind has failed, bacteria have prevailed. A rod-shaped bacterium Cupriavidus metallidurans that thrive in toxic soil literally poop gold nuggets. I’m not making this up. It takes toxic metals into its body and poops out pure gold.

Now a while back, I did a Fun on Friday column about an Indian caterer who was asked to come up with something that would stun guests at a wedding. So, V Sai Radha Krishna decided he would serve rice covered in 24-karat gold leaf. The big appeal? The fact that it would “make your guests poop out gold.”

But this is completely different. The wedding guests ate gold and it came out the other end as gold. In the case of this bacteria, it takes in stuff out of the soil and literally changes it into pure gold. What humans have been trying to do for centuries has been accomplished by an organism without a brain.

Let that sink in for a moment.

According to Live Science, “new research reveals that special enzymes within the bacteria are responsible for changing toxic versions of gold into inert solid gold, which creates miniature gold nuggets.”

It’s a pretty complex process. You science nerds out there can read more about it here. But the bottom line is the bacteria poops gold.

The bacteria essentially transform solid gold into a highly soluble gold compound and then back again. If humans could mimic the process, it would be possible to take ore with a very low percentage of gold, transform the precious metal into a water-soluble version of itself, dissolve it from the rock and then — voila —  transform it back into the shiny solid gold used in everything from jewelry to electronics. Right now, the only way to do that is to use mercury, which is very toxic.”

On a side-note, I went to see a play my son performed in recently. Before the show, they did a disclaimer assuring us that the toy guns with big orange caps on the end, were indeed toy guns. Presumably, this was so we wouldn’t panic at the sight of teenage actors wielding toys on stage. Since, in the brave new world of the 21st century, we are required to warn people about stupid stuff, I just want to emphasize you should not try this at home. Do not eat toxic metal hoping to poop gold. It’s not going to work. You are not a bacteria. It will make you sick and you might die. That is all.

But if you really want to poop gold, you can attend an Indian wedding catered by V Sai Radha Krishna.

Or, you can just get gold the old fashioned way and give us a call at SchiffGold. That will be both safe and effective.

Fun on Friday is a weekly SchiffGold feature. We dig up some of the off-the-wall and off-beat stories relating to precious metals and share them with you – with tongue firmly planted in cheek. Click here to read other posts in this series.

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