Swiss boffins produce working cloth made of GOLD

Swiss government boffins, perhaps confirming certain views on the prime preoccupation of many in Switzerland, are overjoyed to announce that they have finally developed a way of making practicably useful textiles out of gold. Thin gold wires and thread have of course been used as ornamentation on clothing and other textiles …

[Anonymous Coward]

they stole my shirt and pants.....

.... but gave me back my credit card since it was useless to them.

[jubtastic1]

May I suggest

Gold plated diapers.

[Armando 123]

Gold plated diapers? Great, the new latest status symbol in Hollywood.

[James Micallef]

wouldn't be very absorbent, would they?

[Mips]

But if you can afford gold diapers..

.. you probably don't shit anyway.

[Anonymous Coward]

Rumpelstiltskin?

Surely Moist von Lipwig is closer to the el-reg humour level?

[SuperTim]

Strong as silk?

I call shenanigans on that.

[TeeCee]

Ultimate status symbol....

......for the tasteless uber-wealthy oil sheik set.

Gold bog roll......

[Anonymous Coward]

So that's how...

...they are planning to smuggle out the stolen Nazi Gold.

[Anonymous Coward]

Something about a statue with big boobies.

[Mystic Megabyte]

"gentlemen with an exclusive sense of style"

AKA knobheads.

[Stephen Hunt]

Ties and hankerchiefs?

I think they are missing a trick. They should be making golden snoods for lowly-paid footballers to go with their gold boots.

[Anonymous Coward]

Golden parachute

I was going to make a comment about gold and weight. but then I thought of the recipients of said "Golden Parachutes" and holes in the ground and got the warm fuzzies.

[Asiren]

So...

How long before The Donald gets the treatment for his toupee?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, there is plenty of Gold in Switzerland. What else are they going to do?

[John Sturdy]

Exclusive sense of style?

Sounds more like bling to me.

[Steven Jones]

Headline again...

So this isn't cloth made of gold, but cloth woven from textile threads coated with a very thin layer of gold.

[Velv]

Ah, so it's only really gold plated. I'll wait for the real deal.

Could be an interesting smuggling tool for the future though :)

Mine's the gold coat.

[George Nacht]

This joke is so obvious

Since few years back, when Swiss banks cut down the interest rates so low, that it does not cover the banking charges, I was under impression, that all Nazi/Jewish gold in their safes is already spent! I was apparently wrong....

C´mon, people, somebody was bound to make this joke sooner or later, so why not me?

[TRT]

Meh...

Now if they could make cloth out of Toblerone...

[Seanmon]

Very swanky.

With silent "S".

[JimC]

Gold-plated thread surely

But I guess if they called it that their target market (Σ$ > Σsense) would be put off.

[Bob Bobson]

Perfectly suited...

for premiership footballers to wear to their court appearances for dogging

[Anonymous Coward]

I see Mr Abramovichs new wardrobe has been sorted then....

Gold everything but I bet it's a bit rough in the Trossachs area.

[Tim Worstal]

So, this is sputtering then?

Same technology as is used to put that layer of metal on the inside of a packet of Walkers crisps. They're just doing it with fibres, not flat plastic sheets.

Now that this has been done (absent any patents) there are hundreds if not thousands of companies who could rejig to do this. Sputtering is a well understood technology.

And you wouldn't have to limit yourself to gold either.

[Frank Bitterlich]

"high-velocity argon ions"...?

So *that* is what they built the CERN accelerator for... it all makes sense now.

[jake]

Why?

There's research ... and then there is a clear waste of money.

[Mediocrates]

Forgrt Wall Street

Occupy Switzerland

[roamingstudio]

Occupy Switzerland...

I already did... and having worked directly with these guys; I can say that the golden underware is indeed very soft. However I'm afraid the process is well patented, and documented, and nowhere near as easy as suggested. Especially if you want to wash it more than once!

[Nigel 11]

Washing it

Isn't gold one of the few things that won't dissolve in hydroflouric acid?

I'll get my chemical-protection coat. (PTFE? )

[Nigel 11]

Woven jewelery

Visit the British Moseum, and you'll see some very beautiful Roman jewellery made by weaving fine gold wires into a flexible cloth. Similarly from other civilisations. Another technique is tiny interlocked rings, like mouse-scale chain-mail.

These died out because of goldsmiths' hallmarking regulations. Every separable piece had to be individually hallmarked. Obviously, that wasn't possible with suchg thin or tuny pieces.

Some modern jeweller ought to bring it back. These days the hallmarking could be done, usinga microscope and a laser!