Newly discovered pendants and beads fashioned from the bones of "pig-deer" and monkey-like marsupials suggest that the Ice Age inhabitants of Indonesia had a flourishing artistic culture. A team of archaeologists from Australia and Indonesia discovered the artifacts at Leang Bulu Bettue, a cave and rock shelter on Sulawesi, the largest island in Wallacea. One […]
A star was born Tuesday when a 59.6-carat, flawless, fancy vivid pink diamond shattered the world record for the highest price ever paid for any gem at auction. The Pink Star's hammer price of $71.2 million at Sotheby’s Magnificent Jewels and Jadeite sale in Hong Kong easily surpassed the $57.5 million achieved in May of 2016 […]
Wrestling superstar John Cena proposed to longtime girlfriend and tag team partner, Nikki Bella, in front of a thrilled house at WrestleMania 33 on Sunday. After defeating The Miz and Maryse in a featured bout, Cena called Bella to the center of the ring, where the 6'1", 250 pound powerhouse went down on one knee and […]
In a video that's currently tearing up the internet, Culinary Institute of America student Alex O’Brien Yeatts redefines the term "rock candy" as he takes a hammer and cleaver to a giant chocolate geode. After five powerful hits, the boulder-like object cracks in half to reveal a gorgeous formation of sugar crystals that could easily be […]
Welcome to Music Friday when we often bring you golden oldies with jewelry, gemstones or precious metals in the title or lyrics. Today, we climb into our Wayback Machine and transport ourselves 60 years into the past, where a 17-year-old Ray Stevens has just signed a deal with Capitol Records' subsidiary, Prep Records. For his […]
Brawny, brazen thieves broke into Berlin's Bode Museum just after 3 a.m. on Monday and bolted with the "Big Maple Leaf," a Canadian-minted coin weighing 220 pounds and worth $4.4 million. Measuring 20.8 inches in diameter, the coin was unveiled in 2007 as the world's largest. While the original remained in a high-security vault in Ottawa, […]
In what has been labeled as a "true game-changer" for the colored-gemstone market, a Switzerland-based laboratory is using DNA-based nanoparticles to mark emeralds with an invisible imprint that will provide proof of their origin anywhere along the supply chain. The particles, which are smaller than 100 nanometers in size, will be applied to rough emerald crystals at […]
With the assistance of New York City sanitation workers, a desperate couple waded through 800 disgusting trash bags to find two "priceless" platinum rings that had been accidentally thrown away. "I felt really helpless," NYC apartment dweller Shannon Lombardo told WABC-TV. "It wasn't so much about the [value] of the rings. It was what they represented." […]
On Thursday, Australia Post will release a dazzling collection of colorful stamps illustrated with native gemstones — the golden sapphire, pink diamond, rhodonite and fluorite. The stamp issue is titled "The Rare Beauties: Extraordinary Gemstones." What all four gems have in common is that they are housed in the mineral collection of the Australian Museum in Sydney. […]
Welcome to Music Friday when we often bring you throwback songs with jewelry, gemstones or precious metals in the title or lyrics. Today we zoom back to the summer of 1965 — a time of hippies, bell bottoms, flower power and a chart-topping duo named Sonny & Cher singing "I Got You Babe." In this […]