Blackadder style chemists transform gold into purest ... purple

Boffins in Utah have achieved a Blackadder-esque scientific feat by turning gold into purest purple. It's hoped that this will lead to a novel means of harvesting solar power. According to a statement issued yesterday by Utah uni Brigham Young, local chemistry prof Richard Watt and students working in his lab came to suspect …

[N2]

Ah ha!

So that's where all those misplaced 'Postal Gold' packages end up

[Gordon Pryra]

Lucky gold is so abundant and cheap!!

Soon we will ALL have amazing purple rocket cars!!

[Sir Runcible Spoon]

Sir

So, you think there's a market for jewellery that looks like snot do you?

[Sir Runcible Spoon]

Sir

I'm assuming the down-voter doesn't know his BA :/ otherwise, wtf?

[Code Monkey]

Boffins

On the subject of boffins, on the bench for West Ham last night was one Ruud Boffin. What a tremendous loss for science.

[LuMan]

Pricey batteries

So, we can have gold-powered batteries. Still, with escalating fuel prices, by the time they're perfected they'll probably be cheaper than diesel!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Hell

Gold is cheaper than the REMs used in allot of batterys.

[Youngdog]

RTFA LuMan (you too G Pyra)

It's the protein that's the useful bit - the gold was just used to show a reaction had occurred.

Honestly - as if you could create a battery that runs on purple!

[Anonymous Coward]

atents thereafter

(though there are those who'd argue that his rigorously enforced patents thereafter held it back somewhat). ®

OC today people might be glad for a return to these limited time patents, rather than the US version of life + whatever they feel like this week legislation that keeps trying to infest the rest of the world legal systems

[Steven Knox]

... and AGAIN

We have someone who doesn't know the difference between patents and copyrights. For reference, US Patents expire in 20 years or less. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Term_of_patent_in_the_United_States)

US _copyrights_ are the ones that last for way too long.

[Eric Crippen]

A great big turnip

I have a plan so cunning, you could put a tail on it and call it a weasel.

Prefer 'The Prince, the Porpoise and the Pauper' episode myself. No alchemy, but funnier.

[Nigel Brown]

The title is required, and must contain letters and/or digits.

Baldric, you wouldn't recognize an alternative fuel source if it painted itself purple and danced naked on a harpsicord singing alternative fuel sources are here again.

[The Fuzzy Wotnot]

Classic!

"A nugget of purest green!"

"Yes but it's not really a nugget is it? It's more of a splat!"

[BorkedAgain]

Me, I liked...

...the name Brigham Young. Will nobody think of the children?

(also the mortal hands thing. I read the whole article in a breathlessly-awed-inner-voice...)

[Anonymous Coward]

Gold-> Purple

So now we could turn a Heart of Gold into a purple heart?

[Anonymous Coward]

purple looks great

.. but how will we get the energy from it back

[Anonymous Coward]

Thats nothing...

I know a man named Prudence who made literally hundreds of tons of gold disappear as if by magic.

[starbaby]

The title is required, and must contain letters and/or digits.

Simply vanished? Like an old oak table...

[Anonymous Coward]

Prudence

Hmmm Prudence... Would that be the same Prudence who redefined socialism as spending other people’s money until it completely ran out?

[Goat Jam]

Socialism

"redefined socialism as spending other people’s money until it completely ran out"

Sounds more like Wall St to me . . .

[Anonymous Coward]

And there's the proof

that Wall St is in fact a very socialist place!

Coat? Don't need it, for I'll be here all week.

[AlistairJ]

Yeah right

This will be the same bunch of yank boffins who mistook some fizzy water for cold fusion some years ago.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re Yeah right.

"This will be the same bunch of yank boffins who mistook some fizzy water for cold fusion some years ago."

Because that's how science works, right?

We look at all the other science in the same field and if any is proven to be incorrect we throw the theory out.

Is your name Alistair J. Baldrick by any chance?

[Vic]

Yank Boffins?

> This will be the same bunch of yank boffins

Yank?

Stan Pons is, but Martin Fleischmann is one of us...

Vic.

[Demosthenese]

MMm..

Mmmm ...Purple ....Aggghhh. - Homer J Simpson.

[lawndart]

says:

Wow.

This article has been up for some four and a half hours (as I type) and not one rant about Lewis being allowed to write a science article, nor any complaints of bias.

Is this a record?

[Elmer Phud]

Oh, all right then

"Descendant of James Watt in fruity feat"

Wasn't really 'fruit' -- more of an extract which could have also come from other citrus fruits.

This is clearly bias towards oranges!

Where are lemons and limes in this, oranges are not the only fruit!!!

[John Smith 19]

Just remember

You cross the baby eating bishop of Bath & Welles* at your peril

*Collections officer for the Black Monks of St Herod ("banking with a smile and a stab")

[David Haig]

Another option for the 419ers

Dear Mr Lewis,

We have 500 tonnes of gold which has been turned purple for the opportunity of exporting it from our country. We require a partner to help us unload the gold and wash it in the special chemical only available in the western isles of europe.

If you are acceptable, we will transfer the gold by UPS to your location in return for 10% of the value once cleaned. However, we are unable to purchase the appropriate chemicals directly in the west and must ask you to do this for us.

Please order and pay for 500 litres of special gold cleaning fluid from our specialist supplier - contact details below - They will ship this direct to you at 250euro per litre plus shipping.

Yours in

Abo Mac Salient

Supplier details -

......................................................

[Tom 7]

Not the only way to turn gold purple

The Purple Plague was a description of the appearance of a silicon chip after gold got near it (in bonding etc) when I did chip work 25 years ago or so.

An while I'm on the nostalgia trip can anyone explain this:

25 years ago you could get 10,000 transistors on a chip for $100 and a silicon photovoltaic setup took 25 years to pay for itself.

Now you can get 20,000,000,000 transistors on a chip for less than $100, electricity is about 5 times the price in real terms and a PV setup takes 25 years to pay for itself.

[Ian Bush]

Truely Alchemy

OK, having a degree in chemistry and being a tedious pedant I had to comment.

Gold is what is produced by this reaction, not what goes in (Citric acid dissolve gold? Wedding rings wouldn't last long in the kitchen). What is input is AuCl4-, and this is photoreduced to produce gold nanoparticles, the reaction being catalyzed by the protein. And it is the nanoparticles that cause the purple colour.

So purest purple is actually gold ... Percy didn't stand a chance!

(Also why is the El Reg spill chucker objecting to "colour")

[Falanx]

Re: True Alchemy

You beat me to it.

Now, if they'd pointed out a requirement of this experiment was something else, something nasty, further up the china, like aqua regia, just to make the gold chloride complex in the first place...

Wouldn't seem quite so simple after that, would it?

[MarkieMark1]

the El Reg spoolchucker

well you'll need a degree in computing to understand that the El Reg spoolchucker was subcontracted to <Your Browser> Inc, who in their infinite wisdom have set <Your Preferred Language> settings to US English. Try [Firefox] right-click->Languages-> / [Chrome] right-click->spell-checker options->

Incidentally, could you notify all your colleagues who it seems are constantly making similar comments re: the 'El Reg spellchecker/spoolchucker', thanks :-)

[John Smith 19]

Some amazing physics

The particles are 5.7 ± 1.6nm

They are 97x *smaller* than the wavelength of light (c530nm) that is involved.

It seems something called "Surface plasmon resonance" is involved

No idea how that works but it is intriguing.