Posted on 06/11/2021 11:51:04 AM PDT by Red Badger
At 563 carats, the Star of India is the world’s largest gem-quality blue star sapphire, and is approximately 2 billion years old. (Image credit: D. Finnin/Copyright AMNH)
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What does the legendary Star of India — a 563-carat star sapphire the size of a golf ball — have in common with a 35-million-year-old petrified redwood slab; a massive cluster of sword-like crystals that looks like it came from "Game of Thrones;" and a 5-ton (4.5-metric ton) stone pillar that can "sing?"
You can see all of them, along with 5,000 other amazing stones, in the newly renovated Mignone Hall of Gems and Minerals at the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) in New York City, which is reopening after a four-year closure on Saturday (June 12). There, one-of-a-kind precious gems appear alongside odd-looking rocks — some of which date to billions of years ago — that have been uniquely warped and twisted by extreme temperatures and pressures.
Individually and together, these objects tell a story of the diverse geologic processes that shape minerals on Earth's surface and deep inside our planet, beginning when the world was young and continuing to this day, museum representatives told Live Science.
Related: 13 mysterious and cursed gemstones
The Star of India, which formed about a billion years ago, was discovered in Sri Lanka in the 18th century. It is one of the best-known gems in the world, in part because it was famously and brazenly stolen from AMNH in 1964, along with several more of the museum's prized stones, by a pair of thieves named Jack "Murf the Surf" Murphy and Allan Kuhn, Smithsonian reported in 2014, on the heist's 50th anniversary. (The one-of-a-kind sapphire was recovered and went back on display in 1965).
(Excerpt) Read more at livescience.com ...
W00t!
A fork lift? YAY!! I want to drive a fork lift! :o])
All the kitteh colors!!
Good morning. I hope you slept well.
I think I’m still asleep. I don’t even know how to fix Instant Breakfast.
Now I’m going to go take a quick shower and start my day.
Good morning. Not bad, thanks, and I hope you are the same.
DP is up at last, so I can get dressed and roust the Youth. We have a busy day planned. I hope nothing catastrophic occurs!
w00t!
Good morning. Happy Friday!
Friday can be skeery.
My boss asked if I could be relieved of traveling into NYC every other week since I can’t hold face-to-face meetings while in town. She got permission. So I don’t have to start going in until it’s an every week thing. Yay!
Catastrophe is in the eye of the beholder. Just ask the current administration.
I don’t think there would be much use in asking the current administration the time of day.
Good news about your work-travel change!
Yes, it made everyone’s day here.
Every little bit helps.
David DeBonville
August 19 at 10:09 AM ·
This really got my attention, so I wanted to share it with anyone interested in history.
One of my friends told me about a powerful lesson in her daughter's high school class recently. They're learning about the Salem Witch Trials, and their teacher told them they were going to play a game.
"I'm going to come around and whisper to each of you whether you're a witch or a regular person. Your goal is to build the largest group possible that does NOT have a witch in it. At the end, any group found to include a witch gets a failing grade."
The teens dove into grilling each other. One fairly large group formed, but most of the students broke into small, exclusive groups, turning away anyone they thought gave off even a hint of guilt.
"Okay," the teacher said. "You've got your groups. Time to find out which ones fail. All witches, please raise your hands."
No one raised a hand.
The kids were confused and told the teacher he'd messed up the game. "Did I? Was anyone in Salem an actual witch? Or did everyone just believe what they'd been told?"
And that is how you teach kids how easy it is to divide a community.
Keep being welcoming, beautiful people. Shunning, scapegoating and dividing destroys far more than they protect. Do not allow the political elite to divide us. We must remain united against those who would do so.
I seem to have the S-L-O-W-S again today. I hope tomorrow is an improvement. I’ve done everything I can to start the healing process, but I’m still running a slight fever by noon.
A low profile and sluggish movement is in store, once again! I’m still here, though!
Good story!
I’m here, too. I think I have everything ready for the Envirothon meeting this afternoon. It will be hot!
I hope the event is successful!
From the movie “Blue Collar” which hit theaters in 1978.
They pit the lifers against the new boy and the young against the old. The black against the white. Everything they do is to keep us in our place.
I’m sure every meeting you’re a part of is hot, T-C.
Or were you talking about temperature?
Snert. Temperature. 90s.
Somehow, I missed that movie. Let’s see...that was the year we moved into our manufactured home in St Charles (only, they were still called “mobile homes” then) and life was extremely interesting that first year.
I don’t believe we went to any movies because for some reason, Igor preferred drive-in movies. Which I thought was strange, but.
So I don’t even recall the trailers for it.
It starred Richard Pryor but it was NOT funny.
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