Smithsonian Magazine covers Lab Grown Diamonds. Very interesting. Here’s a blurb:

“This is a virtual diamond mine,” says Apollo CEO Bryant Linares when I arrive at the company’s secret location, where diamonds are made. “If we were in Africa, we’d have barbed wire, security guards and watch towers. We can’t do that in Massachusetts.” Apollo’s directors worry about theft, corporate spies and their own safety. When Linares was at a diamond conference a few years ago, he says, a man he declines to describe slipped behind him as he was walking out of a hotel meeting room and said someone from a natural diamond company just might put a bullet in his head. “It was a scary moment,” Linares recalls.

The nice folks at Scrubs helped an enterprising young groom to propose to his girlfriend in a unique way. I don’t know who wrote the script, but I do remember seeing an episode using that closet before…

See the full YouTube video.

No, this is not the same as turning your dead pet into a diamond. Buzzfeed has a meme about jewelry made from living things. Seriously.

The NY Times recently covered the difficulties Christies has had in auctioning an important diamond ring. Fred Leighton was involved as well:

“EVEN a 14-carat pink diamond ring can start looking tarnished if it is immersed in muck. That rose-gold ring, worth up to $15 million by one estimate, was to be the centerpiece of a Christie’s auction last week, until legal actions in Manhattan scuttled the sale minutes before it was to start — on two successive evenings.

On Wednesday, the second night, lawyers for a Wall Street bank that was trying to sell the ring and more than 100 other pieces of stunning antique jewelry to recoup part of a $187 million debt owed by a prominent collector were awaiting a judge’s ruling on the collector’s effort to stop the auction. Christie’s had spent a small fortune promoting the sale, sending the gems on a world tour to Geneva, Moscow and Dubai for potential buyers to savor.

A few minutes after 6, when the auction had been set to start, the cellphone of François Curiel, the director of Christie’s jewelry department, rang. He listened, said thank you and hung up.

“There is no auction tonight,” he announced to a small group of international jewelry dealers gathered at Christie’s Rockefeller Center rooms.

“Disgusting!” cried a prominent London dealer, who grabbed his coat and stormed out.“

Sad story on Yahoo! News:
Honey, will you marry… Oh. Never mind…

“It is the one moment every man wants to get right — and which London floor-fitter Lefkos Hajji could hardly have got more wrong.

The luckless 28 year-old’s dreams of giving his sweetheart, Leanne, 26, the ultimate proposal have literally vanished into thin air.

Hajji, of Hackney, east London, had concealed a $12,000 engagement ring inside a helium balloon. The idea was that she would pop the balloon as he popped the question.

But as he left the shop, a gust of wind pulled the balloon from his hand and he watched the ring — and quite possibly the affections of his girlfriend — sailing away over the rooftops.

“I couldn’t believe it,” he told The Sun newspaper.

“I just watched as it went further and further into the air.

“I felt like such a plonker. It cost a fortune and I knew my girlfriend would kill me.”

Hajji spent two hours in his car trying to chase and find the balloon, without success.

“I thought I would give Leanne a pin so I could literally pop the question,” he said.

“But I had to tell her the story — she went absolutely mad. Now she is refusing to speak to me until I get her a new ring.”

He is hoping the ring will still turn up.

“It would be amazing if someone found it,” he added.

(Reporting by Peter Apps. Editing by Steve Addison)”

Take home message? While it’s romantic to put an engagement ring in a unique place as a surprise for your girl, it won’t be romantic if the ring gets lost. Nothing wrong with using a CZ in a setting as a temporary ring, even if you have to attach a sticker saying this ring is redeemable with a real diamond upon saying yes. Use your imagination, but be smart

Hot new designer, buji bijoux is starting to make some waves. They made the February 2008 edition of inStyle Magazine with their honeysuckle rose earrings. Their all a-flutter hoop earrings are now the “essential item” in OK Magazine, and on the red carpet, their jewelry has been seen on Hilary Duff and is going to make a cameo in Get Smart the movie. Definitely a designer to watch!

Impressive diamond is going on Auction soon. It is an exquisite 72 carat pear-shaped D Flawless. Here is Yahoo’s take on the story:

“NEW YORK - A 72.22-carat diamond, so large it could fill a tablespoon, is expected to bring up to $13 million when it goes on auction next month.

Cut from an original rough diamond, the D-color, flawless gem is prized for its pear shape and GIA-graded excellent polish and symmetry. D-color is actually colorless and considered the most highly valued.

It was previewed in Manhattan on Monday and will be offered on April 10 at Sotheby’s Hong Kong galleries, which estimates its value at $10 million to $13 million. The buyer has the privilege of naming the stone.

Sotheby’s said the most expensive diamond and jewel sold at auction, the pear-shaped, 100.10 carat Star of Season, brought $16.5 million in May 1995.”

I was reading the latest news from my feeds and noticed a story about Diamonds from an unlikely source. Robert Scoble, formerly of Microsoft. He met some cool technologists at Davos who told him about their work.

I was never into fart jokes, so I did not repeat his headline in reporting the story, but our readers should find the story interesting. Dig in.

From the NY Times comes news that researchers at the University of Rochester can use a tabletop laser to turn aluminum into gold.

Neat trick