Bacterial Alchemist

They probably bred the bacteria.

A similar bacteria has been made that eats PET plastic, which is found in anything from milk cartons, soda bottles, to those annoying sealed packages that you have to struggle with scissors to open.


The real value in this isn't the fact that it can be done, I'm not sure there was ever any real question about that, at least not in the past few decades. The value itself is mostly progress itself. The bacteria are doing what we can't simply because we are too large. Once we create machines that are small enough to do this on their own, we won't need bacteria to make gold, we can skip them entirely, and gold will become truly worthless. Everything is just a collection of atoms, protons, and neutrons, we just have to figure out how to reliably manipulate these in order to make whatever we want. We need to make an Element Printer.

as for currency in scifi, thats more a societal construct based around our predatory instincts, in order for us to do anything our brains break it down into risk vs reward, the fundamental reason why every applied form of communism has failed (beyond the fact that every implementation has had a corrupt ruling class and a oppressed servant class which is actually pretty ironic) is that communism seeks to remove risk vs reward in favor of appealing to our sense of community, which works well in small tight knit groups but breaks down when you try to apply it to a larger group because eventually people will realize when theres no reward for working harder there is no point in risking more (would you work hard at your job if you knew you will never get a raise or a promotion or even recognition, but bob next to you pulls the same paycheck as you and does half the work you currently do?)
star trek only really works because it handwaves it every time the subject of money comes up (and they demonize capitalism with the ferengi), but even then its wildly inconsistant on how their economy works, in one instance theyll say money doesnt exist, in another scene theyre expected to pay for their drinks, and in another picard makes it sound like humans now magically live in a communist utopia, if this were true it would take massive brainwashing, the complete destruction of our predatory instincts through in utero surgery, turning humanity into lemmings, or just handwaving away the concept of money when it was convenient for gene to make a statement about money being evil, your pick

You got that from my Facebook, XombieMike!

I might be the one of the few Bloodstained fans that also happens to be a geology nerd as well (but alchemy equally fascinates me!). Got that article from a Facebook page that is for rock/mineral lovers and stuff.