25 Interesting facts that most people don't know about gold.

1. Gold was probably the first metal worked by man, objects made from the metal have been found that date back as far as 4,000 B.C.

2. The Egyptians were the first recorded civilization to use gold for jewelry.

3. Dentists in Italy used it to make wire for attaching fake teeth in the 7th century B.C.

4. In 1532 the Spaniards invaded the Incan Empire in Peru and discovered one of the largest collections of golden metal ever accumulated.

5. The Aztec word for gold is teocuitlatl which roughly translates to 'excrement of the gods'.

6. The first documented nugget discovery in the United States was in 1799 on a farm in North Carolina. The family used the rock as a doorstop for 3 years before realizing its value.

7. Gold is very soft and malleable. One ounce can be beaten into a sheet five-millionths of an inch thick or spun into 50 miles of wire - with one-tenth the diameter of a human hair.

8. This metal is also virtually indestructible so it has been recycled throughout history as a prized metal. More than 85% of gold that has been discovered is still in use today.

9. In fact, it is one of the most recycled materials in the world.

10. A thin film of gold is laid over the visors astronauts use on the space shuttle to protect their eyes from glare.

11. For the last 70 years a standard method of treatment for rheumatoid arthritis is regular injections of a liquid suspension of gold. The suspension is a mystery to the world of science because it acts as an anti-inflammatory and doctors don't know why.

12. Australian researchers have discovered microorganisms that if fed trace amounts of the precious metal within rocks and will then deposit them into larger nuggets. The hope is to used these organisms to pull gold from ore instead of cyanide which is incredibly destructive to the environment.

13. Over 20% of decorative gold used worldwide is found in the thread of Indian saris.

14. The largest reservoirs on the planet lie under the ocean (an estimated 10 billion tons). Unfortunately getting to them is highly impractical.

15. Approximately 65% of the gold in existence today was mined after 1950.

16. In 1999 the NEAR spacecraft showed that a single asteroid contains more ore than has ever been mined on planet earth.

17. This metal is commercially produced on every continent except for Antarctica.

18. In fact, gold has been located on 90% of the earth's surface, from deserts, to mountains, to the arctic and the ocean.

19. But the world's largest producer of the golden metal is South Africa.

20. Gold is the only metal that is impervious to rust.

21. Pure gold is too soft to be used for jewelry and must be alloyed with other metals to create a metal strong enough to withstand daily wear.

22. Fool's gold is actually pyrite and it is not a metal it is a mineral.

23. Average ore extraction costs are $250-$400 an ounce - depending upon how difficult it is to access the ore.

24. Approximate use percentages are: 70% jewelry, 11% industrial (such as electronics & dentistry), 13% investment (such as coins or bars), 4% misc (such as medical, art, food).

25. 182,000 tons of cyanide in a .04% aqueous solution are used every year in the production of the finished product. To put that in perspective, one teaspoon of a .02% solution will kill an average human.