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Lars_H
SFN Regular
Germany
630 Posts |
 Posted - 08/21/2002 : 00:55:27 [Permalink]
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More information about the diamond-afterlife for those, who are interested:
From the Chicago Tribune
Anyone can sparkle in the afterlife
By Christine Tatum
Chicago Tribune staff reporter
August 20, 2002
Now you can be brilliant and flawless forever. But you have to be cremated first. A company based in the Chicago suburb of Elk Grove Village has accepted its first deposit for manufactured diamonds made from carbon captured during the cremation process so that loved ones -- family members or even pets -- could be mounted into a ring, pendant or other jewelry.
A small number of U.S. funeral homes, including four in the Chicago area, have signed up to offer memorial diamonds produced by Life Gem. The cost will depend on the size of the gem, starting at $4,000 for a quarter-carat.
Already, a Joliet man who is seriously ill with emphysema says his family plans to place an order when the time comes. Jack French said he doesn't want to be Life Gem's first customer, but that he would like his remains fashioned into diamonds so that his wife and five children will have something far more intimate to pass down than his few personal possessions.
"This will be something that is beautiful, has value and comes right from me," he said.
Greg Herro, chief executive officer of the company, acknowledges that some people will consider Life Gems a "pretty wacky idea." But, he says, "that's exactly the way revolutionary innovation often happens." At the moment, Herro is the only full-time employee. Three partners work part-time with Herro and have other jobs.
The company uses a well-established manufacturing process, and Herro says his company hopes the increasing number of U.S. cremations will provide a growing market for the product. The Cremation Association of North America reports that about 26 percent of the 2.3 million U.S. residents who died last year were cremated, and predicts that the nation's cremation rate will jump to nearly 40 percent by 2010.
Herro said the company also wants to begin marketing its service in Japan, where the national cremation rate is more than 98 percent, and in veterinarians' offices across the U.S.
"People would wear a Life Gem to show off the love, light and energy that came from their animals too," he said.
When left to natural forces, the creation of the world's hardest substance can take millions of years. But since General Electric introduced diamond-making to the world in the 1950s, the manufacturing of the stones for industrial purposes--everything from coating drill bits to building better computer chips--has broadened to include synthetic diamonds for jewelry.
There's no reason why Life Gem's process shouldn't work, said Kenneth Poeppelmeier, a chemistry professor at Northwestern University.
"At first I thought, `This is odd, but it's a well-developed science,'" he said. "Then the more I thought about it, the more I realized that this is an odd, well-developed science a lot of people would appreciate. I suspect many people in the lab will wish that they had thought of it first."
Life Gem's chief operating officer, Rusty VandenBiesen, said he came up with the idea three years ago after deciding that he didn't want his final resting place to be in a cemetery or in an urn left on a fireplace mantle.
VandenBiesen said he didn't know much about biochemistry or manufactured diamonds when he began his research. Given that the body is largely made up of carbon and that diamonds are made from carbon, VandenBiesen figured that if there were a way to retain the element from cremated remains, it should be possible to produce the stone.
Up to 50 stones
After three years of trial and error using the cremated remains of several animals and a cadaver, VandenBiesen said, a diamond- manufacturing laboratory outside of Munich, Germany, reported success in April. The lab, owned by an American company, said that one human body could yield up to 50 stones of varying sizes, VandenBiesen said.
The company's owner, a well-known executive in the diamond- manufacturing industry, confirmed that the German lab created diamonds for Life Gem from carbon extracted from animal and human bone. The executive spoke only on the condition of anonymity to protect the lab's location and work and "because we're not sure how we want to be affiliated with Life Gem just yet." The executive also said the lab would continue producing the stones while Life Gem plans to build its own diamond-making facility in the United States.
Doug Ahlgrim, director of Ahlgrim & Sons Funeral Services' four locations in the Northwest suburbs, said he is training his staff to explain the new product to customers. Two funeral homes in New York and one in Wisconsin also have agreed to be vendors, Life Gem said.
"This is sorely needed for families who choose cremation," Ahlgrim said. "An urn is beautiful in its own right, but you certainly can't take it wherever you go."
Life Gem says the diamonds will take about eight weeks to produce. The company is selling blue diamonds and plans to offer other colors. A .25-carat gem is $4,000 (the company requires a minimum order of two stones), and a 1-carat gem is $22,000. Life Gem said it will make only as many stones as are ordered. The company applied for a U.S. patent on the process in March.
The notion of having a constant reminder of her husband that dangles from her neck comforts Jacki French of Joliet. She said she cringed when her husband, Jack, announced that he'd like his ashes scattered in the woods where he often played as a boy.
"I don't even know where those woods are, and that's not where I would go to remember him," she said. "And I don't do cemeteries real well. I only go because I feel like it's something I'm supposed to do."
The Frenches' son, Dave, said he found out about Life Gem from a colleague at work, where VandenBiesen also is employed.
The French family has deposited a small amount of money with Life Gem for the service.
Something to keep
One expert on death and dying said that survivors who scatter a loved one's ashes sometimes have more difficulty coping with death because they don't have personal mementos to cherish--a gravesite to visit or a vessel to hold onto.
"There is a strong human need to have something tangible because memories fade and float away," said Kyle Nash, a grief counselor for physicians at the University of Chicago.
Life Gem officials acknowledge they are bracing for skeptics. In response, they say they would allow customers to view any part of the diamond-making process. Life Gem also will provide a certificate from the European Gemological Laboratory in New York identifying the stone as a man-made diamond, said Herro, who sold his Rockford consulting firm in 2000 to work full-time on Life Gem.
For customers who want to make sure the rock they receive is indeed made from their loved one's carbon, the company is working with the lab in Germany to develop isotopes, or chemical markers, that can be attached to the collected carbon and identified in the finished product by an expert.
Collecting body's carbon
Life Gem officials say the process begins when technicians control oxygen levels during cremation to prevent carbon in the body from converting to carbon dioxide. The incineration is interrupted so the technician can collect the body's carbon in the form of a dark powder.
The powder then is sent to a Pennsylvania company where it is heated in a vacuum at extreme temperatures to produce graphite. Only about a thimbleful is needed to produce a stone, Herro said. The graphite is sent to the German lab and placed into autoclaves that simulate the intense pressure and temperature nee |
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Badger
Skeptic Friend
Canada
257 Posts |
Posted - 08/23/2002 : 18:48:59 [Permalink]
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I've stuck a bunch of relatives in the ground, and it sucks. So Mr Spock, my heart goes out to you. It's always sad when a person we love, dies. I guess it's even harder for a skeptic, knowing that's it...there ain't no more. I know it shakes me to my foundations, every time I plant another relative.
But, as Gorgo indicated, Death is a part of life. If one is looking for immortality, one can achieve it only by being a good example, in my humble opinion.
I like the idea of the diamond, though. I'm thinking some sort of family cup....gold with people linked by little platinum lines. Passed from generation to generation....
Like Slater, though, I've chosen not to die. There's too much to see and do!
To try to extend this, would you download your brain to a chip, and live as an "android" of some sort, or exist in computer memory only?
I'd like to be the brain of a star explorer, myself. Sent on a quest to see as much as I could see. My little chip brain running the ship that will take me there.
What do you guys feel about this? Better than diamonds?
If you think it's work, you're doing it wrong. |
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Snake
SFN Addict
USA
2511 Posts |
Posted - 08/23/2002 : 23:52:45 [Permalink]
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quote:
I'd like to be the brain of a star explorer, myself. Sent on a quest to see as much as I could see. My little chip brain running the ship that will take me there.
What do you guys feel about this? Better than diamonds?
Yes, cool idea. Of course there have been Sci-fi movies about similar situations.
I think 'all that we are' is what is in our minds. Spirit...that thing in our brain that makes us what and who we are, does live on, in the rememberances of the people we have 'touched'.
For example, Picasco and those of his stature live on from what they've created. Teachers live on from the knowledge they've imparted. Everyone has an affect on someone.
In a way like what happened in Fahrenheit 451, the books lived on because one person told another.
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*Carabao forever
*SAN FERNANDO VALLEY SECESSION - YES
*All lives are movie settings, it's what channel you're on that counts. Zatikia
*Just because I don't care, doesn't mean I don't understand.
Homer Jaye S. |
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ktesibios
SFN Regular
USA
505 Posts |
Posted - 09/11/2002 : 01:50:37 [Permalink]
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Well,if my luck runs true to form I shall probably fetch up in the local potter's field, but if I get my druthers...
Loft party. Two bands: edo & Todd Young and his Rock Band (yes, I know you've never heard of either; unlucky you.). If my remains are presentable, prop my carcass up behind the board and make sure I'm wearing my mirror ball hat and there's a beer at my elbow. The set lists must include "This is Your Life, Boris Karloff" and "Facing the Pig".
Afterwards, I'd like to be cremated and the ashes scattered around Newton Lake back where I grew up, so my mineral content can feed the grass and the trees.
If I leave any financial assets behind they'll go to some suitable entity (the JREF comes to mind), and we'll hold a potlatch with my personal possessions- have all my friends over and let each appropriate what strikes their fancy.
"All things foul and ugly, All creatures short and squat. Putrid, foul and gangrenous, the Lord God made the lot." -Monty Python |
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