Blingin' in the Afterlife
 

Not sure if this would really classify as news, but I thought it was interesting and this seemed the appropriate place for it.

Lifegem.com

Using carbon created during the cremation process or from a lock of your hair, the people at Lifegem can sqush 8 ounces of your incinerated remains into beautiful fake diamonds for your loved ones to wear. They are currently making Lifegems out of Ludwig Von Beethoven's hair (no, really) and they can also make them out of cremated pets.

Right now the only colors available are yellow and blue, but hopefully they'll have come up with some more by the time I kick the bucket.

That's kind of neat in a way.

Oh yeah, I heard about that. It's a real neat concept, but at the same time, it kind of makes me wonder who would come up with the idea to try and turn dead bodies into fake diamonds. It certainly seems more convenient than keeping some of the ashes in an urn on the mantle (although I don't know why people do that... I wouldn't want the ashes of a loved one sitting in my home like that, it's not them anymore, it's just the remains of their body). And then the person is, literally, always with you except for when you take the ring/necklace/jewlery off. Personally, I would still prefer to put the ashes someplace rather than keep them, in any form, but I can definately see the attractive quality these Lifegems have.

I heard of this ages ago on tv, and originally took this as a joke. I am surprised to find out its actually real. Though whether I think its a good idea is somthing I am not sure about =/.

I mean its pretty cool in some respect, yet at the same time =/....I just think its kinda silly.

Actually....this is pretty similar to the bone rings, where each partner has some of there bone extracted, and have a ring grown from it, then they exhange them as a kind of symbol in poscessing each others flesh. Sorry I dont have a link for that site.

Before I found out about Lifegem, my friends and I were actually discussing whether or not it would be possible to make a person into diamonds during Chemistry class, so I suppose it isn't too far-fetched an idea (or maybe we're just weird. ^_~)

Those bone rings sound kind of, um... painful. I don't want anybody anywhere near my bones unless they have to be.

Yeah. I think this is neat. Although is it temporary??? I wouldn't like it very much if it fell apart on me. I don't know exactly what I would do with my loved ones. But this idea does sound like a good one.

Wow, I didn't even think of that. That would be pretty depressing if it just broke all of a sudden or dissintegrated.

I don't think so. They're just the same as other laboratory-created gemstones, which use pretty much the same process as natural gemstones but in a controlled environment. So they should last a few thousand years, at least.

EDIT: Unless we're talking about the bone rings. I would think those would chip/get damaged kind of easily.