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Growing of artificial diamonds angers diamond companies
Clouded in secrecy and a touch of paranoia, growing diamonds has become a huge business. The military can use grown diamonds to detect biological weapons, like anthrax. Diamonds also conduct electricity more efficiently than silicon (used in semiconductors). It's one of the hardest substances that exists. And diamond mining companies are getting worried as these scientific researchers begin to encroach on their territory. Their money. I
In the end it might be the environment that benefits the most. Along with the military.
"Like most open-pit mines, diamond mines cause erosion, water pollution and habitat loss for wildlife..."
Some clips:
"Over the past decade, researchers have perfected a chemical process that grows diamonds as pure and nearly as big as the finest specimens hauled out of the ground....Diamonds are simply crystallized pure carbon, just as rock candy is crystallized sugar...
"The technology is now at a point that we can grow a more perfect diamond than we can find in nature," he says.
It's the hardest known material, of course, and it doesn't react chemically with other substances. Moreover, it's fully transparent to many wavelengths of light, is an excellent electrical insulator and semiconductor, and can be tweaked to hold an electrical charge.
It's because of these admittedly unglamorous properties that lab-produced diamonds have the potential to dramatically change technology, perhaps becoming as significant as steel or silicon in electronics and computing.
The military is interested in lab-grown diamonds for a number of applications, only some of which Butler is willing to discuss, such as lasers and wearproof coatings. Because diamond itself doesn't react with other substances, scientists think it's ideal for a biological weapons detector...
Natural diamonds aren't particularly rare. In 2006, more than 75,000 pounds were produced worldwide. A diamond is a precious commodity because everyone thinks it's a precious commodity...
Credit for the modern cult of the diamond goes primarily to South Africa-based De Beers, the world's largest diamond producer. Before the 1940s, diamond rings were rarely given as engagement gifts. But De Beers' marketing campaigns established the idea that the gems are the supreme token of love and affection. Their "A Diamond Is Forever" slogan, first deployed in 1948, is considered one of the most successful advertising campaigns of all time. Through a near total control of supply, De Beers held almost complete power over the diamond market for decades, carefully hoarding the gemstones to keep prices—and profits—high. While the company has lost some of its power to competitors in Canada and Australia over the past few years, it still controls almost two-thirds of the world's rough diamonds.
Diamond growers are proud of the challenge they pose to De Beers and the rest of the natural diamond industry.
The diamond-mining companies have been fighting back, arguing that all that glitters is not diamond. De Beers' ads and its Web sites insist that diamonds should be natural, unprocessed and millions of years old. "Diamonds are rare and special things with an inherent value that does not exist in factory-made synthetics," says spokeswoman Lynette Gould. "When people want to celebrate a unique relationship they want a unique diamond, not a three-day-old factory-made stone."
De Beers does have an investment in Element Six, the company that makes thin industrial diamonds.
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More under the link.... Clouded in secrecy and a touch of paranoia, growing diamonds has become a huge business. The military can use grown diamonds to detect... more -
478 carat diamond
This 478-carat diamond was found in Lesotho, a country within South Africa.
According to the article, its the 20th largest rough diamond.
It's of top quality color and clarity!! This 478-carat diamond was found in Lesotho, a country within South Africa. ... more -
Campaign Update 09/22/08
Sarah Palin bones up on foreign policy, Joe Biden doesn't want Barack Obama taking his guns, and a 700 billion dollar bailout has everyone running scared.
CAMPAIGN UPDATE knows that election news and weird jokes go together like a popped-collar meathead and a vacant-eyed blonde. Created by Mark Ganek and Brett Erlich, Campaign Update strives to be the dumbest smart show on television.
Bookmark us and check us out every weekday at current.com/campaignupdate. Sarah Palin bones up on foreign policy, Joe Biden doesn't want Barack Obama taking his guns, and a 700 billion dollar bailout has... more -
Mine yields one of world's largest diamonds
The near-flawless white gem weighs nearly 500 carats, mining group says
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Massive diamond found in Lesotho
The stone weighs 478 carats and is the 20th largest rough diamond ever found, said Gem Diamonds.
The company said the uncut rock was recovered recently from the Letseng mine, owned by the company in Lesotho.
The diamond, which is as yet unnamed, has the potential to yield a 150 carat cut stone, and could sell for tens of millions of dollars, the company said.
Clarity
"Preliminary examination of this remarkable diamond indicates it will yield a record-breaking polished stone of the very best colour and clarity," said the company's chief executive Clifford Elphick.
It would be bigger than the 105 carat round-cut Koh-i-Noor diamond, which is part of the British Crown Jewels.
You can read the rest of this story at the link. The stone weighs 478 carats and is the 20th largest rough diamond ever found, said Gem Diamonds. ... more -
Keep Loved Ones Forever, as a Diamond
CHUR, Switzerland (Sept. 18) - Diamonds really are forever.
Algordanza, a small company based in the mountainous southeast of Switzerland, uses the ashes of dead people to make diamonds as a permanent memento for their nearest and dearest. CHUR, Switzerland (Sept. 18) - Diamonds really are forever. ... more -
Lab-grown diamonds sparkle blood-free
A U.S. company says it is ready to take its diamond-making process into the marketplace and produce high-quality gems at a reasonable price.
Stephen Lux, founder of Gemesis Corp., told the San Francisco Chronicle Wednesday its machines could produce a 3-carat diamond every four days.
The process involves using particles of natural diamond dust that are combined with metal and graphite and then subjected to intense heat and pressure.
These are diamonds, Lux said. Just from a different origin: a lab.
Lux was in San Francisco this week for what was billed as the first diamond show to exclusively display diamonds produced in the laboratory.
So far, Gemesis can only produce colored diamonds. However, work continues on the more mainstream colorless stones. If eventually accepted by consumers, man-made diamonds could fill supply shortages and satisfy demand for diamonds that do not come from war-ravaged areas of Africa. A U.S. company says it is ready to take its diamond-making process into the marketplace and produce high-quality gems at a reasonable ... more -
Angola elections
With a booming economy fuelled by oil, Angola approaches its first election since 1992. That election resulted in a return to civil war. Today the country remains plagued by unemployment and poverty. With a booming economy fuelled by oil, Angola approaches its first election since 1992. That election resulted in a return to civil wa... more
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Remember your loved one - as a diamond
Diamonds really are forever. Algordanza, a small company based in the mountainous southeast of Switzerland, uses the ashes of dead people to make diamonds as a permanent memento for their nearest and dearest.
And with prices starting at less than 5,000 euros ($7,488), the jewels are not solely the preserve of the jetset.
"Some people find it helpful to go to the cemetery and grieve, and they leave their grief in the cemetery," said Algordanza Chairman Veit Brimer. "There are some people who, for whatever reason, do not want to have this farewell.
"Astonishingly these are mainly Christian people. They say: 'Why should I say goodbye? I'll see my husband in 15 years in heaven anyway,'" Brimer said in his office overlooking the town of Chur and its surrounding steep mountains.
The technology for making artificial diamonds was first pioneered by General Electric in the 1950s, and mirrors nature by subjecting carbon to huge pressure and temperature.
Algordanza -- which means "remembrance" in the local language Romansch, spoken in some parts of the Swiss canton of Grisons -- is one of a handful of companies offering artificial diamonds that have sprung up as the technology has improved.
U.S.-based LifeGem and Britain's Phoenix Diamonds, for example, also offer diamonds made from hair, which contains more carbon than ashes meaning a gem can be created from the hair of a living person, or from someone who has been buried rather than cremated. LifeGem even offers diamonds made from dead pets.
By Sam Cage
http://www.reuters.com/article/inDepthNews/idUSL0846525... Diamonds really are forever. Algordanza, a small company based in the mountainous southeast of Switzerland, uses the ashes of dead peo... more -
DeBeers: exploitation is forever
Diamond purveyor DeBeers wants you to get your Africa-inspired bling on. The September issue of Elle magazine features the company's diamond pendants shaped like tribal masks. Hmm, let's see...what part of this is most vomitously offensive?
The fact that Cecil Rhodes, DeBeers' founder was a colonialist and white supremacist, who disdained non-Anglo culture and eagerly participated in the rape of the African continent throughout his lifetime? Wikipedia says:
Rhodes wanted to expand the British Empire because he believed that the Anglo-Saxon race was destined to greatness. In his last will and testament, Rhodes said of the British, "I contend that we are the finest race in the world and that the more of the world we inhabit the better it is for the human race." He wanted to make the British Empire a superpower in which all of the white countries in the empire, including Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Cape Colony, would be represented in the British Parliament. Rhodes included Americans in the Rhodes scholarships and said that he wanted to breed an American elite of philosopher-kings who would have the USA rejoin the British Empire. Rhodes also respected the Germans and admired the Kaiser, and allowed Germans to be included in the Rhodes scholarships. He believed that eventually Great Britain, the USA and Germany together would dominate the world and ensure peace together.
Read more... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cecil_rhodes)
Is it the hideous pan-Africanness of the trinkets? They are not true representations of any African culture or specific tribe. I would bet that the pendants' designer knows nothing of the animal spirit masks of Burkina Faso, or the religious, ceremonial masks of the Yoruba or Igbo. DeBeers is offering diamond-encrusted, co-opted culture--exoticized and commodified. The company is selling generic baubles to be worn (let's be honest) by people with no African heritage and no interest in the plight of the continent.
No...no...I think the worst part of this is the hypocrisy of DeBeers, a company that has played a major role in the bloody history of diamond mining and its devasting affect on African nations and peoples, trafficking in Africanized diamond trinkets. Says Dodai at Jezebel:
But De Beers (which controls about 40% of the world diamond market) built its company on the backs of "poorly-paid, abominably treated native African workers," and is often accused of human rights violations and illegal mining operations. Diamond purveyor DeBeers wants you to get your Africa-inspired bling on. The September issue of Elle magazine features the company... more -
Diamonds May Have Jumpstarted Life on Earth
One of the greatest mysteries in science is how life began. Now one group of researchers says diamonds may have been life's best friend.
Scientists have long theorized that life on Earth got going in a primordial soup of precursor chemicals. But nobody knows how these simple amino acids, known to be the building blocks of life, were assembled into complex polymers needed as a platform for genesis. One of the greatest mysteries in science is how life began. Now one group of researchers says diamonds may have been life's best ... more -
Diamonds Sparked Life on Earth?
One of the greatest mysteries in science is how life began. Now one group of researchers says diamonds may have been life's best friend.
Scientists have long theorized that life on Earth got going in a primordial soup of precursor chemicals. But nobody knows how these simple amino acids, known to be the building blocks of life, were assembled into complex polymers needed as a platform for genesis.
Diamonds are crystallized forms of carbon that predate the oldest known life on the planet. In lab experiments aimed to confirm work done more than three decades ago, researchers found that when treated with hydrogen, natural diamonds formed crystalline layers of water on the surface. Water is essential for life as we know it. Also, the tests found electrical conductivity that could have been key to forcing chemical reactions needed to generate the first birth.
When primitive molecules landed on the surface of these hydrogenated diamonds in the atmosphere of early Earth, a few billion years ago, the resulting reaction may have been sufficient enough to generate more complex organic molecules that eventually gave rise to life, the researchers say.
The research, by German scientists Andrei Sommer, Dan Zhu, and Hans-Joerg Fecht at the University of Ulm, is detailed in the Aug. 6 issue of the American Chemical Society's journal Crystal Growth & Design. Funding was provided by the Landesstiftung Baden-Wurttemberg Bionics Network.
[Credit: Robert Roy Britt, Live Science; Photo: michaelcfina.com] One of the greatest mysteries in science is how life began. Now one group of researchers says diamonds may have been life's best ... more -
Diamonds hint at Life on newborn Earth
Ancient diamond crystals may show traces of life a staggering 750 Million years ealier than previously thought.
Analysis of the crystals, contained in zircons from Western Australia formed more than 4.25 Billion years ago, showed the presence of 'carbon-12', a 'light' isotope of carbon which is most commonly produced by plants and bacteria. Writing in the journal Nature one of the authors, Dr. Martin Whitehouse, believes that the carbon-12 found in the diamonds "could be interpreted as biogenic because we know that biological processes do generate light carbon isotopes.".
However these findings, while intriguing, are far from conclusive, as there are other non-biological processes which can form carbon-12. Furthermore, sceptics are worried that the carbon may be the result of later contamination, or even that it may not even be terrestrial, but rather was brought to earth on a meteorite.
But mineralogist Thorsten Geisler, from the University of Münster, is more optimistic; arguing that while non-biogenic chemical reactions can create carbon-12, the relative abundance observed in the diamonds is not what would be expected for a completely non-biogenic origin..
While these observations alone cannot prove the existence of life absolutely, it does offer a tantalising possibility: that life on Earth was already underway in what Geologists refer to as the 'Hadean' period (see image); a time when the planet was still cooling, and was under constant bombardment from meteorites. It was previously thought that life could not possibly have originated in such a hostile environment. Furthermore, this discovery could reduce the amount of time that life had to originate after the Earth was formed, which now could be as little as 300 Million years, where before it was thought to be at least a billion.
This discovery also does not rule out the possibility that rather than originating here, life on Earth was actually 'seeded' by being carried onboard a meteorite. Ancient diamond crystals may show traces of life a staggering 750 Million years ealier than previously thought. ... more -
Diamonds hint at 'earliest life'
A diamond is FOREVER!
From the report:
slivers of diamond forged on an infant Earth may contain the earliest traces of life, a study has shown.
Analysis of the crystals showed they contain a form of carbon often associated with plants and bacteria.
The rare gems were found inside zircon crystals, formed a few hundred million years after the Earth came into being.
Writing in the journal Nature, the researchers caution that their results are not definitive proof of early life but do "not exclude" the possibility.
"We're all a little sceptical," said Dr Martin Whitehouse of the Swedish Museum of Natural History and one of the authors of the paper.
If the carbon was derived from primitive organisms, it would push back the date for life appearing on Earth by around 500 million years, to beyond 4.25 billion years ago. The Earth itself is just 4.6 billion years old.
"When you look at the carbon isotopes, they could be interpreted as biogenic because we know that biologic processes do generate light carbon isotopes. But of course there are other processes that can do that," Dr Whitehouse told BBC News.
"The most common way to form light carbon on the modern Earth is photosynthesis
Alexander Nemchin
Other possibilities include chemical reactions involving carbon oxides or even the material being delivered from space by meteorites.
However, some observers have raised the possibility that the diamonds may be contamination, introduced during polishing of the zircons.
"If you look at the photos that they present, you always see these diamonds sat in cracks and fissures and cavities," Professor Minik Rosing of the University of Copenhagen told BBC News.
If they were original features, he said, you would expect at least some to be embedded within the structure of the crystals.
"There is always fear that they might actually not be primary."
However, Dr Rosing explained, the possibility that the signatures were from early Life was "tantalising".
Time capsules
The tiny zircon crystals - just 0.3mm across - were found in the Jack Hills of Western Australia. They are the tough remnants of ancient rocks that have long since disappeared.
Map of Jack hills (BBC)
"We don't have the rocks. These zircons are just little fragments of something that was broken up, weathered and redeposited as sediments," explained Dr Whitehouse.
Radioactive dating has suggested that some of the crystals formed as far back as 4.4 billion years ago.
Scientists describe this phase in Earth history as the Hadean, and it has long been thought that it would be impossible for life to begin at this time because of the inhospitable conditions on the young planet.
But the Jack Hills zircons have begun to cast doubt on this theory.
Earlier work raised the intriguing possibility that the infant Earth would have been cooler and wetter than previously thought as the crystals show evidence of growing out of a low-temperature magma that had been in contact with water.
The new analysis of the diamond and graphite inclusions in the crystals could lend further weight to this theory.
"I think there is an interesting possibility here," said Dr Whitehouse. A diamond is FOREVER! From the report: ... more -
Jacob The Jeweler Sentenced To 2 1/2 Years
High profile jeweler Jacob Arabov, better known in the Hip Hop community as Jacob The Jeweler, was sentenced to 2 1/2 yeas in prison and fined $50,000 in federal court in Detroit today (June 24).
According to the Detroit Free Press, Jacob was convicted of lying to federal agents about owning jewelry seized from a major cocaine trafficker.
Jacob plead guilty in October to concealing ownership of jewelry seized from Terry Flenory, a drug suspect currently serving a 30 month drug sentence.
"I feel ashamed that I broke the law of this country that's been so good to me and my family," said Jacob to U.S. District Judge Avern Cohn.
Arabov came to the United states a Jewish refugee from Uzbekistan as a teenager, and became a jeweler. Eventually, he opened Jacob and Co., a Manhattan jewelry store whose clients include countless entertainers and celebrities.
Read the rest here......
http://www.hiphopdx.com/index/news/id.7182 High profile jeweler Jacob Arabov, better known in the Hip Hop community as Jacob The Jeweler, was sentenced to 2 1/2 yeas in prison a... more -
Diamonds on Demand
A Massachusetts company is attempting to create jewelry-worthy diamonds in a lab.
Could this be the thing that kills off the brutal and bloody diamond cartels?
I place the .38 carat, princess-cut stone in front of Virgil Ghita in Ghita's narrow jewelry store in downtown Boston. With a pair of tweezers, he brings the diamond up to his right eye and studies it with a jeweler's loupe, slowly turning the gem in the mote-filled afternoon sun. "Nice stone, excellent color. I don't see any imperfections," he says. "Where did you get it?"
"It was grown in a lab about 20 miles from here," I reply.
He lowers the loupe and looks at me for a moment. Then he studies the stone again, pursing his brow. He sighs. "There's no way to tell that it's lab-created." A Massachusetts company is attempting to create jewelry-worthy diamonds in a lab. ... more -
When diamonds become girls' worst friends
"LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Diamonds may be forever. But what's a girl to do when she gets dumped or divorced and those rings, necklaces and love gifts lose their emotional sparkle?
Help is just a click away on new Web sites that provide an outlet for selling jewelry from past relationships, sharing break-up stories and helping broken hearts heal." "LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Diamonds may be forever. But what's a girl to do when she gets dumped or divorced and those rings, ... more -
Mining for Bling
Christof Putzel traces gold to its origins in one of Africas biggest gold mines in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
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$500,000 diamond pendant found in car wash.
ST PETERSBURG, Russia (Reuters) - Car cleaners at a Russian firm got a surprise when they cleaned out a vacuum cleaner this week: a diamond pendant worth up to 300,000 euros ($475,400).
"I didn't know how much it was worth at first so I got a jeweler to come around and he said it was worth as much as 300,000 euros," Vladimir Shapiro, owner of the car cleaning firm in Russia's northern city of St Petersburg, told Reuters. ST PETERSBURG, Russia (Reuters) - Car cleaners at a Russian firm got a surprise when they cleaned out a vacuum cleaner this week: a di... more -
Children in the diamond mines
Children are working in the diamond mines in Sierra Leone to pay their school fees.
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Diamonds
