I recently saw a very interesting BBC new article by Rebecca Morelle in which she talked about how geologists in Australia had found hidden messages in the leaves of Eucalyptus trees that helped them find deep buried viens of gold.
Money might not grow on trees, but scientists have confirmed that gold is found in the leaves of some plants. Researchers from Australia say that the presence of the particles in a eucalyptus tree's foliage indicates that deposits are buried many metres below. They believe that the discovery offers a new way to locate the sought-after metal in difficult-to-reach locations.
Dr Mel Lintern, a geochemist from Australia's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), said: "We've found a lot of the easy deposits in Australia and elsewhere in the world as well. Now we are trying to tackle finding these more difficult ones that are buried beneath tens of metres of river sediments and sand dunes and the trees are providing us with a method to be able to do this."
Gold particles have often been found around the soils of eucalyptus trees, but the researchers have now confirmed that the plants were taking in the element. Using the Australian synchrotron - a vast machine that uses X-rays to probe matter in remarkable detail - they found traces of gold in the leaves, twigs and bark of some trees.
The amounts of the precious metal were tiny because the trees were taking in the gold particles as they drew in water from deep within the soils
"We've done a calculation, and found that we need 500 trees growing over a gold deposit to have enough gold in the trees themselves to make a gold ring," said Dr Lintern, however, the presence of the particles pointed to greater riches buried more than 30m (100ft) below. "We believe that the trees are acting like a hydraulic pump. They are bringing life-giving water from their roots, and in so doing, they are taking smaller dissolved gold particles up through the vascular system into the foliage."
Currently, the metal is found in outcrops, where the ore appears at the surface, or it is detected through exploratory drilling, but the researchers said that analysing vegetation could offer a better method to find untapped gold deposits. Dr Lintern said: "Not only do we believe it is a way of stretching the exploration dollar further, because exploring for these deposits can be quite expensive, it also minimises the damage to the environment because we are taking a very small sample from the trees themselves, as well as the leaves and twigs on the ground."
The researchers said the technique could also be used to find other minerals such as iron, copper and lead in other parts of the world.
This news report started me thinking about "HIDDEN MESSAGES" in general and I was reminded of how there are a lot of hidden message used in marketing especially when we look at some of the weel known logos that we see every day. Many of us are totally unaware of these messages I blieve even though they are glaringly obvious once someone points them out to us.
Brands are built to reflect company's identities and to be memorized as quickly as possible. Why is it so? A big reason is that we look very quickly at brands and don’t take the time to enjoy tthe designers’ work (it would be impossible to take that time anyway). In this post I take a look at some of the hidden messages that designers did sneak into some of the world’s most popular logos.
1) THE AMAZON LOGO
A very famous one is, the Amazon logo. The arrow under the logo goes from the “a” to the “z”, suggesting that Amazon sells everyhing from A to Z.. Now be honest, did you know that before I told you?
2) THE BASKIN ROBBINS LOGO
I am sure most of you have been to Baskin Robbins for an ice cream and you all probably know that they sel 31 different flavors . How many of you have noticed however that the number 31 appears in pink in their logo?
3) THE FEDEX LOGO
Fedex is probably one of the best known courrier companies and delivers millions of letters and packages around the world door to door every single day. I am sure you have seen their logo thousands of times but have you ever noticed the arrow between the E and the X ?
What is very interesting with Fedex is that they managed to retain the arrow in their Arabic name but you will notice that the arrow noe points in the other direction because Arabic is read from right to left. Very clever stuff indeed, don't you agree.
4) THE TOBLERONE LOGO
I think the Toblerone Logo is exceptionally clever and I really doubt if very many people have ever spotted the message that is hidden in this well known logo. The famous Swiss chocolate brand features the Matterhorn, Switzerland's most famous mountain. Have you noticed that you can see a bear inside the white space of the mountain. The bear is the animal that represent the “canton” of Bern, where Toblerone comes from.
5) THE WENDY'S LOGO
Wendy’s tries to bring back childhood memories by adding the word mom in the collar of the little girl in their logo.
6) THE CISCO LOGO
The high-tech company who powers the great firewall of China was founded in San Francisco and features a minimalist version of the Golden Gate bridge in its logo.
These ar just a few of the clever logos used in our present day marketing and there are many more around if you just keep your eyes open and look more closely at company logos that you come across in your everyday life...
I hope you have enjoyed this article today and if you have any comment to add then I would really like to hear from you.
Here is an exercise for you, why don't you go and find some other good examples of messages hidden in well known logos and then contact me by clicking on the contact Irish Jim link in the header menu bar at the top of the page and tell me what you have found. I can then include your findings in a future article.
Please also take the time out and visit IRISH JIM'S BEAST BLOG which highlights interesting articles abouut current happenings from all around the world.
Comments
Great and interesting article. I liked how you presented the logo's and their hidden meaning. Very good indeed. Sharing this.
Great post Jim. I have never heard of Basco Robbins but very interesting the way they have done their logo with the 31 showing. Thanks for sharing.
Thanks for the comments Terri and Susan I really appreciate the support and i hope you will also enjoy the one that i have posted today on the Mythical Creatures Of The Philippines
Hi James,
Great blog :) I did hear of the fedex one before but not the others and yes indeed it is so cool the way they do those things.
Also kudos to you on the transition from your article to your business (two thumbs up)
I have liked and shared...
Thank you Irish Jim for sharing this information. I enjoyed learning about the gold minerals that's found in the eucalyptus plants. I didn't notice the logos that have hidden message that you shared, and this is a good point to bring out in your post today. This is pretty much what all companies are doing, it is very clever indeed. Happy to share this post for you for more to read. Very interesting indeed. Have a good day.