Gold miners aren't going to want to throw away their drills and explosives-at least, not right away. But in New Zealand, researchers have come up with another way to mine gold. It's a plant, Brassica juncea, that is in the same family as cabbage.

No one is likely to strike it rich using this floral method, says Robert R. Brooks, a geochemist at New Zealand's Massey University who trained the plant in gold mining. But it could provide an effective way to glean gold from the "tailings," or spent earth, around old mines.