Harder-Than-Diamond Natural Carbon Crystals Found

HikingStick tips a piece from the science desk at MSNBC.com about a new, naturally occurring form of carbon found in a meteorite fragment. "Researchers were polishing a slice of the carbon-rich Havero meteorite that fell to Earth in Finland in 1971. When they then studied the polished surface they discovered carbon-loaded spots that were raised well above the rest of the surface — suggesting that these areas were harder than the diamonds used in the polishing paste... [G]raphite layers were shocked and heated enough to create bonds between the layers — which is exactly how humans manufacture diamonds... [The research] team took the next step and put the diamond-resistant crystals under the scrutiny of some very rigorous mineralogical analyzing instruments to learn how its atoms are lined up. That allowed them to confirm that they had, indeed, found a new 'phase' or polymorph of crystalline carbon as well as a type of diamond that had been predicted to exist decades ago, but had never been found in nature until now."

Comments

Re:How long

[inviolet]

I wouldn't bother. It turns out that it's less expensive than a diamond, so women won't be as happy with it.

Women are only that way because men are ever scheming to hit-and-run their womb space. Women need an un-fake-able signal of a man's seriousness, so the signal must take the form of something very (to the suitor) expensive.

That we use diamonds for this purpose is a benefit to the man, because DeBeers has made sure that there is no resale market. If there was a resale market that offered even 50% value, then the man would first need an un-fake-able signal of the woman's seriousness before passing the rock across the table.