Speaker 1: Hey, you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My
Speaker 1: name is Robert Lamb and.
Speaker 2: I am Joe McCormick, and it's Saturday, so we are
Speaker 2: heading into the vault for an older episode of Stuff
Speaker 2: to Blow Your Mind. This is part four of our
Speaker 2: series on the Diamond This originally aired January twenty fifth,
Speaker 2: twenty twenty four. Hope you enjoy.
Speaker 3: Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1: Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My
Speaker 1: name is Robert.
Speaker 2: Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and we're back with the
Speaker 2: fourth and final part in our series on diamonds. Now,
Speaker 2: if you haven't heard the other three parts, you might
Speaker 2: want to go back and listen to those first, though
Speaker 2: I guess this series is probably okay if you do
Speaker 2: them out of order. That we will refer to things
Speaker 2: we've already talked about in previous episodes. Brief recap of
Speaker 2: what we talked about in the parts that already aired.
Speaker 2: We addressed in the first episode the widely held belief
Speaker 2: that diamond fragments or diamond powder are poisonous if ingested,
Speaker 2: and we talked about some alleged attempted diamond poisonings in history.
Speaker 2: The short modern read on that is that it seems
Speaker 2: like diamond powder is probably not actually reliably poisonous, but
Speaker 2: just to be saved, we were still saying, you know,
Speaker 2: I probably wouldn't need it. We talked a bit about
Speaker 2: the conditions under which diamond's form. There's going to be
Speaker 2: some more about that today. We talked about their physical
Speaker 2: properties and a bit about their use in ancient cultures
Speaker 2: in ancient India, China, and the Roman Empire. In the
Speaker 2: last episode, we talked about some strange ancient beliefs recorded
Speaker 2: in the writings of plenty of the Elder and some
Speaker 2: other sources that in order to shatter a diamond, you
Speaker 2: must first soften it in the blood of a he goat.
Speaker 2: That's a good one. We also talked about the legend
Speaker 2: found in multiple cultures that there is this so called
Speaker 2: valley of Gems where diamonds litter the ground. But you
Speaker 2: can't just go down there and get them because there
Speaker 2: are I don't know, poisonous, venomous snakes or some kind
Speaker 2: of monster or beast or something down There's some kind
Speaker 2: of danger, so you've got to have clever ways of
Speaker 2: getting the diamonds up to the cliffs above. Our favorite
Speaker 2: method that we read about involved meat getting the meat.
Speaker 1: That's right, And so in today's episode we have a
Speaker 1: couple of other avenues we want to discuss. Later on
Speaker 1: in the podcast, I'm going to talk a little bit
Speaker 1: about diamond body modification, so we'll get back into this
Speaker 1: idea of diamonds and human bodies coming together. But before
Speaker 1: we get to that, Joe, I understand you want to
Speaker 1: return to something we touched on in the last episode.
Speaker 2: Well, that's right. So in the last episode I did
Speaker 2: a bit on the question of whether diamonds can burn,
Speaker 2: can they be fuel in a fire? The answer is yes,
Speaker 2: they are carbon based, and you can have a diamond fire,
Speaker 2: though they take higher temperature, they have higher ignition temperatures,
Speaker 2: and may require more oxygen supply than most normal fuels
Speaker 2: you'd have, like wood or coal. But this raised the
Speaker 2: question do diamonds actually come from coal?
Speaker 1: Now?
Speaker 2: As I said in the last episode, anecdotally, this seems
Speaker 2: to be a common belief. Unfortunately, this is one of
Speaker 2: those where I was reading about it before I actually
Speaker 2: checked my pre existing knowledge, so I don't know if
Speaker 2: I would have said that diamonds are formed out of
Speaker 2: coal or not? Rob, was this a belief banging around
Speaker 2: in your head?
Speaker 1: Yes, but only because that scene in Superman three. You know, yeah, Okay,
Speaker 1: Superman does it. Then I'm just assuming that he's correct,
Speaker 1: and who's going to doubt the Man of Steel.
Speaker 2: I cannot argue with you there. So anecdotally, it does
Speaker 2: seem to be a common belief, and it's easy to
Speaker 2: see why people would think this. Diamonds and coal are
Speaker 2: both types of compressed carbon dug up from underground, So
Speaker 2: you might just assume that when a coal formation undergoes
Speaker 2: intense heat and pressure, it gets pressed and compressed and
Speaker 2: compressed until it turns into diamonds, and that's where diamonds
Speaker 2: come from. And even some old books and authorities on
Speaker 2: diamonds do seem to suggest they believe this, that diamonds
Speaker 2: come from coal, but more recent sources argue that this
Speaker 2: is not the case, at least not for most diamonds.
Speaker 1: I should point out that this is something I'm sure
Speaker 1: came up for you as well, Joe, and your diamond
Speaker 1: research is that diamonds. This is the subject of diamonds.
Speaker 1: This is one other one of those areas where you
Speaker 1: have a lot of websites, often associated with jewelers, that
Speaker 1: are going after like search engine optimization, and so there's
Speaker 1: a lot of like diamond content dump going on. You
Speaker 1: see this with other businesses and areas as well. It
Speaker 1: occasionally turns up that I kept encountering that in my
Speaker 1: research sort of drove me out of the traditional search
Speaker 1: mode into some of the like a Google scholar and
Speaker 1: so forth. But there are a lot of websites out
Speaker 1: there that are clearly the main idea is like, let's
Speaker 1: just move up in the search for diamonds because we're
Speaker 1: trying to sell them exactly.
Speaker 2: Yeah, some jewel retailer who've got the pages on the
Speaker 2: website like interesting diamond facts or something, you know, and
Speaker 2: it's like they're not citing sources. You can't rely on this,
Speaker 2: so you gotta trudge through all that to get to
Speaker 2: something real.
Speaker 1: Some of it might be good, some of it might
Speaker 1: be good, but yeah, a lot of it is not
Speaker 1: sourced and so forth.
Speaker 2: But anyway, I guess that does now that we're talking
Speaker 2: about sources. So I found a number of books on
Speaker 2: geology and gems making the simple claim that no, diamonds
Speaker 2: do not come from coal, but usually without any further explanation.
Speaker 2: So I was looking for somebody to really explain, like,
Speaker 2: how do we know they don't come from coal? And
Speaker 2: the most extensive exploration of this that I turned up
Speaker 2: was on the good old geology dot com website, which
Speaker 2: I'm sure you've hit before, Rob, which does have solid
Speaker 2: articles that are well cited and you know, listing sources
Speaker 2: and all that. So it's one of these articles by
Speaker 2: the geologist Hobart King, who I think is the author
Speaker 2: of most of what's on geology dot com.
Speaker 1: Or what does the King have to say about this?
Speaker 2: Well, King seems to be in line with the modern
Speaker 2: consensus here that coal very rarely and possibly never plays
Speaker 2: a role in the formation of diamonds. How can we
Speaker 2: know this? One reason he cites, and I mentioned this
Speaker 2: briefly in the last episode, is that most diamonds that
Speaker 2: can be dated are older than most coal. So we
Speaker 2: can actually test the age of diamonds through radiometric dating,
Speaker 2: though it's a little bit complicated because of course we
Speaker 2: can't use carbon dating on them. The half life of
Speaker 2: carbon fourteen that you use to you test the decay
Speaker 2: of that in order to use carbon dating that's too
Speaker 2: short in time to accurately date materials that are on
Speaker 2: the order of millions of years old or more. This
Speaker 2: is why you can't use carbon dating for anything from
Speaker 2: the age of the dinosaurs or anything like that. Carbon
Speaker 2: dating is useful for carbon based remains that are on
Speaker 2: the scale of like thousands of years or tens of
Speaker 2: thousands of years old.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and as we discussed, diamonds are much older.
Speaker 2: Right, So if carbon dating isn't accurate for things as
Speaker 2: old as diamonds and diamonds are made of carbon, how
Speaker 2: can we test their age? Well, you can use different
Speaker 2: radioactive decay series tests on things such as mineral inclusions
Speaker 2: in diamonds, meaning occasionally you can find a diamond with
Speaker 2: bits of other minerals that are trapped inside it or
Speaker 2: trapped along with it. And when scientists do these tests,
Speaker 2: these radioactive decay series tests on diamond inclusions, it seems
Speaker 2: that most diamonds are more than a billion years old.
Speaker 2: The common range I've seen is that the youngest diamonds
Speaker 2: are just shy of a billion years old and the
Speaker 2: oldest are more than three billion years old. And that
Speaker 2: means that natural diamonds can be that the ones that
Speaker 2: can be dated are pretty much all older than the
Speaker 2: evolution of the first land plants. Plants first appeared in
Speaker 2: the Cambrian era roughly five hundred million years ago, and
Speaker 2: they didn't really flourish on land until later, with the
Speaker 2: big coal forming period being more like three hundred million
Speaker 2: years ago known as the Carboniferous period, which literally means
Speaker 2: like the coal forming period. Since land plants are the
Speaker 2: source of the carbon in most coal deposits, it is
Speaker 2: unlikely that diamonds would have formed one to three billion
Speaker 2: years ago out of a chain of metamorphosis that has
Speaker 2: to start with the type of organism that didn't exist yet.
Speaker 1: Wow, why isn't this in the diamond commercials?
Speaker 2: You'd think that would be an interesting selling point. Yeah, Like,
Speaker 2: if this is a diamond that came out of the
Speaker 2: Earth and wasn't like made in a lab or something,
Speaker 2: it probably is billions of years old. Is from a
Speaker 2: time when the only life on Earth was like single
Speaker 2: celled organisms. So that's one reason for thinking diamonds are
Speaker 2: generally not formed from coal. Another reason is that coal
Speaker 2: seams and diamonds are found in completely different geological contexts.
Speaker 2: Coal is found in a sedimentary rocks formed by the
Speaker 2: deposition of layers of material on Earth's surface. These layers
Speaker 2: of material eventually get buried, they get horizontally compressed, and
Speaker 2: they harden into rock strata with the coal in traps
Speaker 2: there in the sedimentary rocks. Meanwhile, diamonds are usually found
Speaker 2: in vertical formations of igneous rocks. Igneous rocks are formed
Speaker 2: by fire. These are rocks that are created when magma
Speaker 2: cools and hardens into a solid. So coal and diamonds,
Speaker 2: you're gonna find them in totally different geological settings. King
Speaker 2: goes on to list the four known natural sources of
Speaker 2: diamonds and he says that these are formation in the
Speaker 2: Earth's mantle, formation in subduction zones, formation at impact sites,
Speaker 2: and formation in space. Now, we talked in the last
Speaker 2: episode about diamonds that are formed in space and occasionally
Speaker 2: found in meteorites, and we also talked about diamonds that
Speaker 2: are created by the incredible heat and pressure of space impacts. So,
Speaker 2: for example, if you have like a ten kilometer asteroid
Speaker 2: traveling at twenty kilometers per second, it enters Earth's atmosphere,
Speaker 2: it hits or explodes, there's going to it does that
Speaker 2: over an area with rocks bearing carbon, maybe rocks that
Speaker 2: have graphite in them, which is a form of carbon
Speaker 2: based mineral that's less dense than a diamond that impact,
Speaker 2: and that the heat and pressure there could turn the
Speaker 2: graphite in the rocks into diamonds. Now, King says, in
Speaker 2: this case, technically the carbon could also come from coal.
Speaker 2: So like the asteroid, maybe hits an area with exposed
Speaker 2: or near surface coal seams. But most diamonds are not
Speaker 2: formed by space impact, so that could happen, But most
Speaker 2: of the diamonds you come across are not going to
Speaker 2: be from this source. Instead, King says, basically, all the
Speaker 2: diamonds that are commercially mined on Earth are the kind
Speaker 2: that are created deep down in the forge of the
Speaker 2: Earth's mantle. Now, we already mentioned a bit about diamond
Speaker 2: formation in the mantle in a previous episode, but just
Speaker 2: to refresh, Scientists generally believe that the conditions of heat
Speaker 2: and pressure that you need in order to create a
Speaker 2: diamond only occur in certain areas, usually at a depth
Speaker 2: of about one hundred and fifty kilometers or greater from
Speaker 2: the surface, which is well below the crust deep into
Speaker 2: the mantle, and usually this would be around the interior
Speaker 2: of continental plates. That is, of course way too deep
Speaker 2: to mind. We do not have any minds that go
Speaker 2: down one hundred and fifty kilometers underground, so we can
Speaker 2: only mine diamonds that are brought closer to the surface somehow.
Speaker 2: And as we mentioned in I think part two, maybe
Speaker 2: we find these diamonds in and around these vertical pipes
Speaker 2: of igneous rock known as kimber light or lamprote pipes.
Speaker 2: And these are vertical columns of rock that were formed
Speaker 2: long ago by incredibly explosive volcanic eruptions from deep in
Speaker 2: the mantle. So magma from below flows up to the
Speaker 2: surface rapidly, and sometimes it breaks off pieces of the mantle,
Speaker 2: and these flows bring diamonds up to the surface with them.
Speaker 2: And one sort of cool and creepy thing that King
Speaker 2: mentions offhand is that no one in human history, as
Speaker 2: far as we know, has ever witnessed the kind of
Speaker 2: deep source volcanic eruption that brings diamonds to the surface.
Speaker 2: These are known as kimber light eruptions. They are rare
Speaker 2: compared to normal volcanic eruptions. They're very energetic and explosive,
Speaker 2: and most of the ones we know about took place
Speaker 2: long ago, so there are no historical records, like since
Speaker 2: the dawn of writing, of anybody ever describing or seeing
Speaker 2: one of these. And it seems like most of the
Speaker 2: ones that have taken place took place long, long ago.
Speaker 1: Again, why isn't this in the diamond commercials, Like doesn't
Speaker 1: your love deserve a diamond forged or not forged but
Speaker 1: brought to the surface towards the surface in a volcanic
Speaker 1: eruption so terrifyingly powerful that we've never seen its like
Speaker 1: in human history.
Speaker 2: You'd think that would be a selling point. You could
Speaker 2: combine them, actually, you could have that. You could have
Speaker 2: like the real science facts on one hand, and then
Speaker 2: like we said in the other episode that you know
Speaker 2: the value of the gym's legends, so like you you know,
Speaker 2: you've got to show using the meat to retrieve the diamonds.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, like dig into all that the content is there,
Speaker 1: use it.
Speaker 2: So we know that most diamonds that come from are
Speaker 2: formed deep in the mantle, So why should we not
Speaker 2: think coal is the source of the carbon in these diamonds.
Speaker 2: Based on I did some quick research on this, it
Speaker 2: seems to me that coal deposits are mostly in the
Speaker 2: top three kilometers of the Earth's crust. And remember, diamonds
Speaker 2: are formed one hundred and fifty or more kilometers down
Speaker 2: within the mantle. So the coal would have to somehow
Speaker 2: get from these locations in the top layer of the
Speaker 2: crust down to like fifty times their normal depth or
Speaker 2: more underneath a continental plate to supply the carbon to
Speaker 2: make the diamonds, and that seems kind of unlikely, or
Speaker 2: at least rare. King thinks a more likely origin for
Speaker 2: the carbon in diamonds is just carbon that has been
Speaker 2: present in Earth rocks since early in the planet's formation,
Speaker 2: and there are sources of carbon that you can find
Speaker 2: within the rocks of the Earth. Like I was reading
Speaker 2: another article about these incredibly explosive Kimber light eruptions, and
Speaker 2: one thing that seems to happen when these eruptions kick
Speaker 2: off is that there is like an expansion of CO
Speaker 2: two gas deep down in the mantle. Like CO two,
Speaker 2: there's an area where there's a lot of carbon in
Speaker 2: the mantle, and the CO two gas starts to come
Speaker 2: out of solution, much like what happens when you pop
Speaker 2: the top on a carbonated soda, it starts to come
Speaker 2: out of solution and turn into a gas and want
Speaker 2: to rise quickly to the surface, and this of course
Speaker 2: is extremely explosive and violent. However, to come back in
Speaker 2: the other direction and talk about an analogy to coal
Speaker 2: being the source of diamond formation, an analogy that is
Speaker 2: quite possible. King does acknowledge that very small diamonds are
Speaker 2: sometimes formed in what are called subduction zones, and this
Speaker 2: is where so you have different plates of the Earth's
Speaker 2: crust meeting. You have maybe an oceanic plate that is
Speaker 2: the part of the crust sitting underneath an ocean continental plate.
Speaker 2: That's where you would have a continent, and they meet
Speaker 2: at a sort of joint, and where they meet, the
Speaker 2: oceanic plate is pushed down underneath the continental plate at
Speaker 2: this joint where they meet. So in the case of subduction,
Speaker 2: sedimentary rocks formed on the ocean floor can indeed be
Speaker 2: shoved down into the mantle. And it does seem that
Speaker 2: the carbon in these rocks may sometimes form diamonds in
Speaker 2: extreme heat and pressure in this subduction zone. But the
Speaker 2: rocks in question here would probably not be coal. But
Speaker 2: King says instead other kinds of carbon bearing sediment based
Speaker 2: rocks that form mostly on the ocean floor, things like
Speaker 2: limestone and dolomite.
Speaker 1: Now, as we get into the final stretch here, I
Speaker 1: want to get back into this area of diamonds and
Speaker 1: the human body coming together again. We discussed various past
Speaker 1: beliefs about the dangers of ingesting diamonds, and this inspired
Speaker 1: me to look a little closer at diamonds and the flesh,
Speaker 1: and I wanted to start with one of the more
Speaker 1: recent and by some perspectives, more extreme examples of diamond
Speaker 1: at flesh unity. That is, of course, the forehead diamond
Speaker 1: implant of American hip hop performer lil uzi Vert born
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety five. Joe, are you familiar with the lil Uzivert.
Speaker 2: Only a little bit? I think maybe the main thing
Speaker 2: I know is from articles about the diamond implant.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this definitely made a splash. I think there are
Speaker 1: plenty of people who have not heard lil Uzivert's music,
Speaker 1: but they are familiar with the story of the diamond implant.
Speaker 1: I have not heard any of their music. My knowledge
Speaker 1: of mainstream hip hop is like fifteen to twenty years behind.
Speaker 1: I know some indie stuff here and there, but I
Speaker 1: don't know most of the current trends and acts, but
Speaker 1: it's hard to ignore this particular story. This all went
Speaker 1: down in twenty twenty one. It got a lot of
Speaker 1: media coverage. You might have heard something on late night
Speaker 1: comedy shows about this. In the way that it was described,
Speaker 1: I think the way I initially picked up on it too,
Speaker 1: it sounded red. I kind of got the impression that
Speaker 1: was something impulsive, you know, like here's a hip hop
Speaker 1: artist and maybe on the spur of the moment, they're like,
Speaker 1: I like that diamond, I want it in my forehead,
Speaker 1: and then they did it, you know, kind of like
Speaker 1: anybody else in the world might say, you know, get
Speaker 1: a drunken tattoo or something like that.
Speaker 2: But no, you're gonna say this is a more thought
Speaker 2: out diamond implant than that would suggest.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I had no idea, but I was reading about
Speaker 1: it on Rolling Stone. Rolling Stone has a really nice
Speaker 1: ride up on it. This is by jeffs and it
Speaker 1: gets into not only the case with Littl Luzivert, but
Speaker 1: other hip hop stars who have had implants similar. But
Speaker 1: the way it's described in this article, this all began
Speaker 1: like in twenty seventeen, they had to purchase the reported
Speaker 1: twenty four million dollar diamond, had to pay that off.
Speaker 1: Then the implantation was handled by professional jewelers, and I
Speaker 1: think they're referring to a consult by an expert piercer
Speaker 1: or an expert in body modification. So it sounds like
Speaker 1: it was rather an ordeal to get to the point
Speaker 1: where the diamond was actually put in the forehead, but
Speaker 1: it was successfully implanted, and now reportedly lil Uzivert didn't
Speaker 1: keep the diamond implant. It came out during some crowdsurfing
Speaker 1: at a concert, but then they put it back in
Speaker 1: for a later concert, but then ultimately replaced it with
Speaker 1: a piercing. They still have the diamond though, so the
Speaker 1: way it was reported, a lot of late night shows
Speaker 1: had some fun with this idea too, that the diamond
Speaker 1: came out or was quote ripped out during a concert.
Speaker 1: That maybe made it sound like it was stolen, but
Speaker 1: that doesn't seem to be the case. I was also
Speaker 1: impressed that and again this is just based on some
Speaker 1: articles of looking up, but they said that that Vert
Speaker 1: is a huge fan of the animated series Stephen Universe,
Speaker 1: and this was an influence on the choice in getting
Speaker 1: a pink forehead diamond. So I am familiar with Steven Universe.
Speaker 1: Great show, so I would I got to say, great choice.
Speaker 2: I know nothing about that show except I know it
Speaker 2: has big fans. So is there a character with a
Speaker 2: diamond in their forehead on the show?
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, there there are some like there's some gemstone
Speaker 1: powers going on in that show. It's it's good. It's
Speaker 1: a it's a it's a family you know. Slash Kids
Speaker 1: animated series on cartoon has some great, you know, feel
Speaker 1: good energy to it. Highly recommend it nice. Now. While
Speaker 1: Lilo's Evert probably got the most attention for their diamond implant,
Speaker 1: they were not the first. The Rolling Stone article points
Speaker 1: out that rapper Young Thug had a diamond tear drop
Speaker 1: implanted on his face in twenty sixteen. I couldn't find
Speaker 1: out much else about that one. Also, there is a
Speaker 1: rapper by the name of Sauce Walka who had a
Speaker 1: diamond facial implant, and another rapper, Little Pump, also had
Speaker 1: or has a diamond facial implant. So this seems to
Speaker 1: be a This is not a trend that's isolated to
Speaker 1: a single individual. We have multiple individuals out there in
Speaker 1: the world who have or have had this procedure. Now,
Speaker 1: that Rolling Stone article includes some comments from Simon Bobev
Speaker 1: speaking on behalf of the New York based jewelers Eleante
Speaker 1: and Company that were involved with this particular forehead diamond,
Speaker 1: the pink diamond of Liloozi Vert, and he says the
Speaker 1: following quote. In the body modification world, they usually do
Speaker 1: everything in stainless steel or surgical grade steel, but in
Speaker 1: our case, we did everything with precious metals. We engineered
Speaker 1: a specific mounting that clips and locks in place. There's
Speaker 1: a whole mechanism involved. It's not a standard piercing, a
Speaker 1: specific piece and part. We're both engineered with millimeter precision
Speaker 1: to get this put on little loosey vert. So again,
Speaker 1: I think an important takeaway from this is the diamond
Speaker 1: is not set directly in the forehead. It's not certainly
Speaker 1: not set in the skull or anything like that. When
Speaker 1: it came out, a lot of people made jokes referring
Speaker 1: to a scene in one of the Avengers films in
Speaker 1: which like an Android character's jim stone is ripped out
Speaker 1: of their forehead, and you know, it's not quite the same,
Speaker 1: And then so it's ultimately mounted in metal, and then
Speaker 1: that metal is implanted in the flesh, much like a
Speaker 1: diamond is mounted in a ring, and like a diamond
Speaker 1: is mounted in an ear ring, which of course is
Speaker 1: then mounted in the flesh. Okay, so you know, obviously,
Speaker 1: given the price tag on some of these diamonds, this
Speaker 1: is all extravagant, though in the end, perhaps not all
Speaker 1: that weirder than any other form of body modification, including
Speaker 1: more mainstream forms that we take for granted and don't
Speaker 1: even necessarily think of as body modification, like a standard
Speaker 1: ear piercing is so mainstream that you don't necessarily think
Speaker 1: of it as body modification. But again, coming back to
Speaker 1: the idea of a diamond earring, in comparison, a diamond
Speaker 1: mounted in a piece of metal jewelry that is then
Speaker 1: secured to the human ear by one of several traditional methods,
Speaker 1: but most often via a hole punched in the ear lobe.
Speaker 2: Right, I mean that absolutely is body modification. I guess
Speaker 2: for some reason, this phrase evokes associations of less common
Speaker 2: body modifications.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and of course a lot of that just has
Speaker 1: to do with like what culture one is in. You know,
Speaker 1: there's so many forms of piercing and body modification that
Speaker 1: are thought of as new and counterculture today, and they
Speaker 1: may very you know, they are generally perhaps counter to
Speaker 1: the mainstream culture, at least at least in Western nations,
Speaker 1: but they are often based on older traditions in other cultures,
Speaker 1: you know, traditions that were more standard and would not
Speaker 1: have been thought of his counterculture in those specific cultures.
Speaker 1: So humans have engaged in ear piercing since very ancient times,
Speaker 1: I mean the origins of the practice are ultimately lost
Speaker 1: to the mists of prehistory. Let's see the Iceman, for instance,
Speaker 1: lived who live between thirty three fifty and thirty one
Speaker 1: oh five BCE. This is what we've talked about before,
Speaker 1: with his well preserved body and articles on his body
Speaker 1: that have provided a great deal of evidence about what
Speaker 1: life was like or may have been like for individuals
Speaker 1: during this time period. There is also evidence that he
Speaker 1: had a pierced ear and an ear ring. We also
Speaker 1: have Sumerian graves from Earth that give us evidence of
Speaker 1: pierced ears from around twenty five hundred BCE. We have
Speaker 1: Egyptian ear piercings. This pushes the evidence in this case
Speaker 1: back to sixteen hundred BCE. We have Chinese examples that
Speaker 1: go back to one thousand BCE. South American examples date
Speaker 1: back to between eighteen hundred BC and three thousand BCE.
Speaker 1: Plus just a lot of the literature of the ancient
Speaker 1: world makes at least passing mention of the ear rings
Speaker 1: of the air piercings. So there's a rich and varied
Speaker 1: history here of poking a hole through part of the
Speaker 1: ear lobe or parts of the ear lobe and inserting
Speaker 1: things for decorative purposes. But of course we're not just
Speaker 1: talking about piercings and earrings in general. Here, we're talking
Speaker 1: about diamonds. We're talking about ultimately mounting a diamond in
Speaker 1: your flesh. And when we get back into diamonds, you
Speaker 1: can probably guess where some of the oldest evidence of
Speaker 1: diamond ear rings is going to take us. It's of
Speaker 1: course going to take us to India.
Speaker 2: Right. So, as we discussed in previous episodes in the series,
Speaker 2: it seems that in the ancient world, India was a
Speaker 2: real high spot of diamond mining and diamond use in culture.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, and definitely a place where, yeah, they had
Speaker 1: diamonds the longest and a place where diamonds were upgraded
Speaker 1: to gym status earlier than you know than other places.
Speaker 1: So yeah, and again to drive home, like for the
Speaker 1: for the longest, like diamonds in the world came from India. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so Jack Ogden in Diamonds in Early History of the
Speaker 1: King of Gems, which we referenced in the earlier episodes
Speaker 1: as well, he points out a couple of examples of
Speaker 1: of of these old diamond ear rings. He includes in
Speaker 1: his book an ear decoration from the tenth to eleventh
Speaker 1: century CE. This is diamond and pink sapphire to be specific,
Speaker 1: set in gold, and Ogden adds that it's probably an
Speaker 1: ear ring, but similar artifacts from Java were actually vervals.
Speaker 1: These are decorative rings that went on a hawk or
Speaker 1: a pet bird's leg. Whoa so interesting ambiguity regarding some
Speaker 1: of these things. But he also includes an example of
Speaker 1: a golden ear ring from the first century BCE from
Speaker 1: India classified as an early earring fragment. So suffice to
Speaker 1: say that we've been combining diamonds with our anatomy for
Speaker 1: more than two thousand years, But how long have we
Speaker 1: been using them for our teeth? Because you know, I've
Speaker 1: already mentioned musical performers, but also you have athletes, you
Speaker 1: have other celebrities who sometimes show up with diamond implants
Speaker 1: on their teeth, some sort of diamond dental work going
Speaker 1: on grills and so forth. I was looking into this
Speaker 1: a little bit. We talked about, like, you know, some
Speaker 1: of these older ideas about, you know, don't put a
Speaker 1: diamond in your mouth because like the venom of the
Speaker 1: snakes from the Valley of Gems will will kill you,
Speaker 1: and other ideas. Health Wise, the main concerns and there
Speaker 1: don't seem to be a lot of like overt health
Speaker 1: concerns with grills, for example, most of the health concerns
Speaker 1: at all seem to relate to things like prolonged usage,
Speaker 1: like these are not things that are seemingly designed to
Speaker 1: just be worn day in day out. These are for
Speaker 1: special occasions, These are for concerts, these are for media
Speaker 1: appearances or what have you. And on top of that,
Speaker 1: potential allergic reactions to base metals and if they're actually
Speaker 1: used and said grill, and also just the responsibility of
Speaker 1: keeping something that goes into your mouth clean and so forth.
Speaker 1: But I didn't run across any concerns related specifically to
Speaker 1: the presence of diamonds themselves. Now, it's worth noting that
Speaker 1: while a lot of current of the current popularity of
Speaker 1: elaborate grills has its roots seemingly in like nineteen eighties
Speaker 1: hip hop culture, I think a lot of it coming
Speaker 1: out of like New York. And there's of course a
Speaker 1: strong connection here to dental procedures that replace teeth or
Speaker 1: portions of teeth with precious metals and or jewelry. But
Speaker 1: the use of gold dental appliances goes back centuries and
Speaker 1: one of the most fascinating examples are the dental appliances
Speaker 1: of the etruscans. These go back as far as six
Speaker 1: thirty BCE. There's a really good article this was published
Speaker 1: on Vice back in twenty fourteen, called the title The
Speaker 1: Ancient History of Grills by Lauren Schwarzburg. I highly recommend
Speaker 1: given this a read. It goes into a lot more
Speaker 1: depth than I'm going to cover here, but just to
Speaker 1: hit on some of the main points that the author
Speaker 1: brings out that relate to what we're talking about. First
Speaker 1: of all, there's a pervasive idea that grills originated in
Speaker 1: ancient Egypt, and I think this is something you can
Speaker 1: probably find like repeated on certain websites, Like we were saying,
Speaker 1: but this was apparently due to an early twentieth century
Speaker 1: archaeological find that consisted of two teeth, two human teeth,
Speaker 1: actual teeth woven together with a gold wire and this
Speaker 1: was dated to twenty five hundred BCE, and this was
Speaker 1: in Giza. Early interprettions of this artifact were that this
Speaker 1: wire work was done while the individual was still alive,
Speaker 1: that this was some sort of a dental procedure. But
Speaker 1: the more popular interpretation, the more recent interpretation, is that
Speaker 1: these teeth probably came out, you know, fell out or
Speaker 1: had to be pulled out, and were kept as a pendant,
Speaker 1: you know, worn around the neck or something, and then
Speaker 1: the individual was buried with them. So, as schwartz Bird
Speaker 1: points out, there does not seem to be strong evidence
Speaker 1: for ancient Egyptian gold or metal teeth.
Speaker 2: Okay, So this would just be that the gold wire
Speaker 2: is used to hold together the teeth that the person
Speaker 2: is perhaps keeping after they've they've come out of their
Speaker 2: mouth for whatever reason magical or otherwise.
Speaker 1: Right. But indeed, as Schwartzburg points out, the etruscans of
Speaker 1: ancient Italy from around eight hundred BCE to two hundred
Speaker 1: BCE did have gold dental appliances teeth woven with delicate
Speaker 1: golden wire, and apparently this would have been the domain
Speaker 1: of high status women that apparently would actually have some
Speaker 1: front teeth removed in order to make room for like
Speaker 1: this gold band appliance that would be inserted with either
Speaker 1: replacement or reused teeth. So to be clear, though, this
Speaker 1: was not functional, This is not something that you could
Speaker 1: they could have apparently eaten with, but it was decorative
Speaker 1: and it was a status symbol.
Speaker 2: So you would be am I understanding this right then
Speaker 2: this would mean you're sort of giving up some of
Speaker 2: your mouth's eating power in order to have this decorative item.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, So the author here cites Jeene McIntosh Turfa,
Speaker 1: who wrote a book called The Golden Smile, The Etruscans
Speaker 1: and the History of Dentistry cited in this article, and yeah,
Speaker 1: apparently this it was a mark of freedom and power.
Speaker 1: Like so this wasn't something I mean, you can get
Speaker 1: into probably complex analysis of societal pressure for various beauty
Speaker 1: trends and so forth, but for the most part, it
Speaker 1: sounds like this was something that that the women in
Speaker 1: question did because it established their status and it said, hey,
Speaker 1: I don't need functional front teeth like I have. I
Speaker 1: have cooks that will cook food for me that I
Speaker 1: that I can eat regardless of what my the functionality
Speaker 1: of my teeth. This is about, you know, showing that
Speaker 1: that I have this heightened status. You know, I have wealth,
Speaker 1: I have power, and I do not have to live
Speaker 1: like common people.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 1: Yeah, now we've We've mentioned Etruscans before because a lot
Speaker 1: of there are a number of ideas that the Romans
Speaker 1: ran with that they got from the Etruscans. I mean
Speaker 1: the Romans, as we've discussed many times, they they were
Speaker 1: not shy about taking technologies as well as beliefs and
Speaker 1: fads from the cultures that they conquered and absorbed. But
Speaker 1: the grills did not transfer and then they and they
Speaker 1: did not remain a popular aspect of Etruscan culture under
Speaker 1: the Romans, or they were and they were also not
Speaker 1: absorbed into Roman culture either. Now in terms of putting
Speaker 1: gin and teeth, and we see this today again with
Speaker 1: diamond dental implants. I'm not going to run through all
Speaker 1: the very you can find lists online of all the
Speaker 1: various musical artists and celebrities who have diamonds and other
Speaker 1: gems in their mouth of one designer another. But Schwarzberg
Speaker 1: does point out that we have an example from Mayan
Speaker 1: civilization during the Classic period three hundred and nine hundred CE.
Speaker 1: Mayan royalty would often have these small holes drilled into
Speaker 1: their upper teeth, and then they would have round pieces
Speaker 1: of jade implanted into those teeth, again as a status symbol.
Speaker 1: The article goes into again more depth, more ancient history,
Speaker 1: but also a lot more recent history of dental augmentations
Speaker 1: like this. The author does point out that in the
Speaker 1: Philippines there were also traditions that go back I think
Speaker 1: around the thirteen hundred CE, in which you would have
Speaker 1: gold wrappings and gold pegs in teeth as another form
Speaker 1: of dental augmentation, again to announce one's status more than
Speaker 1: anything else. All Right, I have one final area to
Speaker 1: touch on here on the fusion of the human body
Speaker 1: with diamond and that concerns the proposition of diamond hip replacements.
Speaker 1: So I ran across this. I was looking at articles
Speaker 1: about this that date back to at least the late
Speaker 1: nineteen nineties, and then a more recent paper published in
Speaker 1: a twenty twenty two issue of ACS Applied Materials and
Speaker 1: Interfaces that continues to discuss the possibility.
Speaker 2: Of diamond hip replacements. So what would be the advantage
Speaker 2: of using diamond in an artificial hip.
Speaker 1: Well, traditional hip replacements tend to be made out of titanium.
Speaker 1: And yes, titanium's great. It almost has that status of
Speaker 1: fictional adamantium, at least in casual usage. Right. But the
Speaker 1: idea here is that there are still limitations to titanium.
Speaker 1: But you could enhance the titanium or some other traditional
Speaker 1: metal by covering it with a kind of diamond coating
Speaker 1: that would even better. Be even better. This would provide
Speaker 1: lower friction, higher wear and corrosion resistance, as well as
Speaker 1: an improved bonding surface to the bone, So you know,
Speaker 1: in not only making it more durable, but also just
Speaker 1: like letting it interface with bone a little easier. Hmm okay, yeah, So,
Speaker 1: according to zellcas at All in the twenty twenty two
Speaker 1: ACS paper, quote, despite the excellent biocompatibility and superior mechanical properties,
Speaker 1: the major challenge of using diamond for implants such as
Speaker 1: those used in hip arthroplasty is the limitation of microwave
Speaker 1: plasma chemical vapor deposition or CVD techniques to synthesize diamond
Speaker 1: on complex shaped objects. So what they're talking about this process,
Speaker 1: this is a process that involves depositing a solid material
Speaker 1: from a gaseous phase, and they go in to present
Speaker 1: a new CBD technique to apply diamond coating. I'm not
Speaker 1: going to get in at all the technical details of this,
Speaker 1: some of it kind of washed over me, to be honest,
Speaker 1: But like the general idea is that there seem to
Speaker 1: be a lot of experts out there who think like
Speaker 1: this could be the way that we enhance and improve
Speaker 1: the functionality of hip replacements, these hip implants. But we're
Speaker 1: just not quite there, it seems, when it comes to
Speaker 1: figuring out the best way to apply said diamonds. HM.
Speaker 1: And again, it don't if you're imagining like a sort
Speaker 1: of blinged out human hip ry hip replacement, I don't
Speaker 1: think that's quite what it would look like. We're again
Speaker 1: talking more in the world of like you know, micro
Speaker 1: and nanodiamonds that are suspended and so forth. It's like
Speaker 1: a coating. But I think it's interesting how these ideas
Speaker 1: kind of come back to some of the the ideas
Speaker 1: we were discussing earlier. You know, diamonds implanted in the body,
Speaker 1: but not as mere decoration in this case, but as
Speaker 1: a functional coating for a metal implant. And it also
Speaker 1: gets us close, maybe a little bit to that fictional
Speaker 1: idea of Wolverine and his adamantium coated bones or diamond
Speaker 1: patch and his presumably diamond based skeleton.
Speaker 2: If only ben Venudo Cellini could know that, we'd have
Speaker 2: medical science talking about diamond based coatings for implants in
Speaker 2: the human body. Yeah, after his soliloquy on how they
Speaker 2: cut your guts apart?
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, And in this case, diamonds essentially put inside
Speaker 1: the human body as a way to improve the functionality
Speaker 1: of a medical implants.
Speaker 2: It's pretty amazing, all right. Should we cap our exploration
Speaker 2: of diamonds there?
Speaker 1: I believe. So, you know, it's possible some other stuff's
Speaker 1: going to come up in listener mail, and in which case,
Speaker 1: you know, write in tell us about it. We'd love
Speaker 1: to hear from you. A lot of you have certainly
Speaker 1: a more experience with diamonds than we do. You might
Speaker 1: be aware of some other nuggets from diamond culture around
Speaker 1: the world, from diamond mythologies around the world. We're always
Speaker 1: game to learn more. As we close out here, just
Speaker 1: a reminder that Stuff to Blow Your Mind is primarily
Speaker 1: a science podcast, with core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
Speaker 1: On Mondays we do listener mail, On Wednesdays we do
Speaker 1: a short form episode, and on Fridays we set us
Speaker 1: out most serious concerns to just talk about a weird
Speaker 1: film on Weird House Cinema.
Speaker 2: Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer JJ Posway.
Speaker 2: If you would like to get in touch with us
Speaker 2: with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest
Speaker 2: a topic for the future, or just to say hello,
Speaker 2: you can email us at contact at stuff to Blow
Speaker 2: your Mind dot com.
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