(via Gemological Digest, Vol.2, No.3, 1988) William J Sersen writes:
Abstract
There is today no standardized nomenclature for color-related terms in use in the jewelry industry. It seems that every dealer and colored stone grading system designer utilizes his own version of nomenclature, often defining the same term in different ways. The net result is a lack of communication within the industry on matters pertaining to the quality grading of colored stones.
After describing some of the difficulties that can do arise from nomenclature use/misuse, the author proposes a set of terms to standardize gemstone and color descriptions. Only by adopting a standardized color nomenclature will effective color communication in the gem trade become a reality.
Introduction
Imagine for a moment that you are listening to someone describe their pet. Judging from the words they choose, you assume it is a cat they are talking about. You are later shocked to discover that their pet is in fact a dog.
Unfortunately, the current state of color communication among gemstone buyers and sellers is at times not far removed from this cat versus dog analogy. Just suppose that you see a colored stone (any colored stone will do) described on a price list as ‘fine color’. Upon actually viewing the piece, you discover that the seller’s concept of ‘fine’ corresponds roughly with your concept of ‘good’, ‘fair’, or perhaps even ‘poor’. In other words, what you thought was going to be a pedigreed cat has turned out to be a rabid dog.
As this article will demonstrate, a standardized and well-defined nomenclature of color-related terms is necessary before there can be effective color communication in the jewelry industry.
Color Terms Now Used In The Trade
Of the many colored stone grading systems that have appeared over the past ten years, some have used the same terms (tone, pleochroism, etc) to communicate different or slightly different concepts. In addition, many in the trade have coined still other terms to describe color attributes of colored stones. This creates confusion when people try to compare one system with another, or communicate with a dealer in the language of a grading system with which he is not familiar. Attempts at comparing different colored stone grading systems have never been easy; the lack of nomenclature standards has made this task even more difficult.
Before effective color communication is a reality, there must be a common language of color related terms in use both by people in the gem trade and by those involved in designing and using grading systems. That is, nomenclature must be defined in a consistent manner, without overlap, inconsistency, vagueness or redundancy in meaning. A standardized nomenclature of this sort would facilitate user comparisons of different grading systems. Users could then learn more than one system (if desired) without having to tackle yet another ‘dialect’ of color terms.
Typical examples of terms used inconsistently or redundantly are ‘overtone’, ‘pleochroism’ and ‘secondary color’. Let’s apply those terms to red spinel and ruby. One colored stone grading (AGMS:Valente, 1986) would have us think of the orangy red presence seen on certain facets in many red spinels as pleochoism, despite the fact that the pleochroism is possible only in DR stones, spinel being SR (color differences on different facets in spinel and other singly refractive gems are actually due to differences in path length or color zoning, not pleochroism). Other people might label that orangy red presence ‘absorption color (GIA: 1983) or ‘overlay color’ (Huffer: 1983), as opposed to the red ‘dominant’ color, itself sometimes called ‘primary color’ (Huffer: 1981) or ‘main color’ (Huffer: 1983; Ramsey: 1985). True color differences due to pleochroism (seen face-up on many rubies) are variously called ‘secondary color’ (Huffer: 1981), ‘pleochroism’ (AIGS and GIA) and ‘overtone’ (Ramsey: 1985), the latter suggesting the orange is superimposed over the entire crown. Overtone has also been used to designate any colors that are seen in addition to the stone’s main color (Ramsey: 1985).
Matlins and Bonanno (1987) refer to the ‘purplish cast’ (in actuality, a low saturation red) on some Thai rubies as an ‘undertone’. One American dealer recently suggested to the author that this was an incorrect use of undertone, the proper designation being ‘overcast’.
Besides referring to pleochroic color differences, secondary color has at times been associated specifically with ‘girdle facet color’ (color on facets near the girdle, viewed face up) and ‘window color’ (color on facets which show a window, viewed face up; AGMS: Valente, 1986). Varley (1980) say of secondary color that ‘the term is largely obsolete.
‘Body color’ is a prime example of a term used differently by different people. It has been thought of as a window color (Ramsey: 1985), ‘pavilion color’ (the color seen on the pavilion when a gem is placed table down; Yu: 1980) and ‘overall crown color’. Ramsey (1985) goes so far as to say that body color can be assessed by window and pavilion color, an interesting comment in that with colored stones these two colors are usually quite different.
‘Tone’, which GemDialogue has called ‘zone’ (Huffer: 1983), is another word used inconsistently. As we will see later, tone (in gems) usually describes the degree of lightness to darkness of the overall stone when viewed face up. But, this word has been used to denote ‘the amount of total color in a stone,’ a definition that misleadingly overlaps in meaning with ‘saturation’.
‘Saturation’, by the way, is called ‘intensity’ by some (AIGS, formerly) and ‘chroma’ by others, though there are those who relate the effect to ‘modifier’ (AGMS: Valente, 1986). The latter term describes degrees of desaturation, as evident by the amount of existing ‘gray’. GemDialogue has used a similar desaturation concept, known as ‘color mask’ (Huffer: 1983). Color mask, together with ‘brightness’, equates roughly in that system with the GIA’s concept of saturation (GIA: 1983). Even so, while some systems associate desaturation with gray or brown (Huffer: 1983; GIA: 1983), others associate it with gray only (AGMS: Valente, 1986), contending that brown is not a desaturant.
Are you just a little bit confused at this point? To simplify matters, I have listed but a few of the terms currently in use. The list of candidates for inconsistent/vague/redundant nomenclature usage goes on and on….
Why Do Nomenclature Problems Arise?
Dealers and gemologists together have described/created a plethora of technical terms—many of which have been borrowed or adapted from terminology in use by color scientists—for their respective methods of grading colored stones. As such terms are not always defined in the same way, defined unclearly, or constitute synonyms, it is no wonder that color communication has suffered; it is inevitable that it would suffer under such circumstances.
We can take some solace in fact that nomenclature problems are not limited to gemology and the gem trade. The development of meaningful semantic systems for describing sensory perceptions has long been a matter of concern in other fields as well, the audio and computer industries being notable examples. Let us take, for instance, the term ‘artificial intelligence’ as applied to the computer world. The question of whether it is misleading to use the word ‘intelligence’ in this context has been the object of much debate by computer people; at least one software engineer has suggested ‘artificial instinct’ as the more appropriate designation. If industries on the whole were always in agreement on the definitions and applications of technical terms, then there would be less need for organizations like ASTM (American Society For Testing And Materials), NBS (National Bureau Of Standards) or ANSI (American National Standards Institute).
Nomenclature problems in industry are further exacerbated by the tendency (often of marketing people) to believe that if the name of something is changed, it will somehow change or improve the products salability. Does the word ‘Bufferin’ sound better to you than just plain “Aspirin’? Is Tanzanite somehow more palatable than Blue Zoisite? Similarly, is ‘zone’ more appropriate than ‘tone’ for describing essentially the same thing?
Does The Answer Lie In Objective Grading?
Certain gemologists have stated that many of the present ills of colored stone grading will be removed once ‘objective (i.e.’machine’) grading is perfected. While such a goal is certainly desirable, can one really say that any color related term is objective? For that matter, does the often heard expression, ‘objective colored stone grading’, actually mean what is implies?
The Merriam Webster Dictionary (1974) defines objective as ‘…existing outside and independent of the mind….treating or dealing with facts without distortion by personal feelings or prejudices..’ Subjective is conversely defined by the same source as meaning ‘…..of, relating to, or arising within oneself or mind in contrast to what is outside…Personal…’
Now when someone makes a visual assessment of a gem’s color, is that not what a somewhat personal and hence, subjective analysis of the color? ‘Visual’ means the human eye/brain combination is a conditioning factor. Devices such as computers, image grabbers and high resolution color monitors may play the secondary role of electronically collecting, storing, sorting and ‘pigeon-holing’ color date; this does not, however, negate the eye’s role as a determinant or conditioning factor with the aid of which a grade is ultimately derived. While we certainly do look forward to the day when an electro-optical device can replace the human eye, such a day seems quite far off. That this is so is shown clearly by the fact that there is no color monitor or photographic apparatus available today which can approach the human eye/brain in its ability to resolve images. Has anyone ever seen a video image or photograph that was not immediately recognizable as such? If you have, then let us know. The fact is that the resolution ability of the eye is far greater than any device yet devised.
Can color scientists other professionals shed further light on the matter of the role of the eye? Yes they can. Many agree that people with so-called ‘normal color vision’ do not all perceive identically the full range of colors or more specifically, subtle color blends. Moreover, different ‘color normals’ vary in their aptitude to detect small color differences. The ASTM people (1987) go so far as to say that ‘persons employed in visually evaluating color differences should score near or within the ‘superior’ range of color aptitude (on Farnsworth-Munsell 100-Hue Test).
In other words, using the human eye to distinguish and assess subtle color differences does not appear to be an exercise in objectivity. We therefore submit that given the present state of colored stone grading, the phrase ‘objective colored stone grading’ should be avoided as it carries implications that are the least misleading. When instruments alone can accurately color grade gemstones with near 100% repeatability/reproducibility and without assistance from the human eye, then we can consider using the term ‘objective grading’. Unfortunately, this instrument does not yet exist. If and when it does appear, colored stone grading will become more a ‘science’ than ‘art’ and individual color terms can then assume a truly ‘objective’ status.
A Closer Look At The Main Terms
So, who is correct when assigning/defining color related terms for gem grading purposes? To help answer that question, let’s examine more closely the definitions of the major color attributes—the concepts of hue, tone and saturation—given by thirteen sources consisting of color scientists, gemological institutes, gemologists and trade journalists alike.
Hue
All sources use this term and agree on its broad meaning: ‘the position of a color on a color wheel’ (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, violet and purple, or colors intermediate between adjacent pairs of these). This ‘hue position’ includes pure spectral colors, color blends and so-called additional colors. Depending on the source, blends and additional colors are sometimes referred to as overtones, secondary colors or pleochroic colors. Some use the term pleochroism in the strict gemological sense (viz, GIA and AIGS); others (AGMS: Valente 1986) apply it more loosely. (The term ‘purity’ is often used in very different ways. Some (AIGS) use it to describe the location of a hue on a color wheel, with a pure red, for example, falling exactly midway between orange on the one side and purple on the other. Others use purity to denote the saturation of the hue; ‘pure’ red being slightly saturated red.)
Tone
Different sources use different terms to convey this concept. Six sources prefer using the word ‘tone’; four prefer ‘lightness’; three prefer ‘value’. Tone, lightness and value are at times used interchangeably.
Unfortunately, not all sources are consistent in the way they think of tone/value/lightness. The common and consistent denominator is relative darkness or lightness, with some (viz, Arem, Metheun and AIGS) describing the concept as a function of overall reflectance or transmittance (or conversely, overall absorption). Colorless (or white for opaque stones) would represent the lightness tone (zero), as none of the light striking the gem is absorbed. The greater the percentage of light absorbed, the darker the tone, with black having the darkest tone (100) as none of the light entering the gem is reflected back or transmitted through to the eye. As the term is used by AIGS, a zero tone (colorless or white) represents 100% absorption. All other colors would have tones between zero and 100.
In defining tone as the amount or quantity of total color in a stone, Huffer (1981, 1983) and Farrell & Thomas (1983) confuse the issue, as most people would associate that definition of tone with saturation than tone. Indeed, that definition of tone corresponds almost literally with Billmeyer & Saltzman’s (1981) definition of chroma (saturation).
Some associate tone/value/lightness intimately with saturation. Manson (1982) describes ‘tone’ a combination of saturation and blackness, though he elsewhere implies that tone is merely a synonym for blackness. AGMS (Valente, 1986) thinks of tone as the sum of value and ‘modifier’, the latter term meaning lack of saturation as evident by increasing presence of gray. Elsewhere, they note that tone is a combination of chroma and value. Varley (1980), in speaking of lightness compared with black or its darkest value…compared with white,’ is consistent with AGMS’(1986) definition of tone (=value + modifier).
Arem (1987) is one of the few who defines lightness/value without specific reference to chroma/saturation.
As if the issue were not complicated enough, the color scientists Overheim & Wagner (1982) observe that synonyms used for Munsell ‘value’ also include brightness, brilliance and luminosity. In the opinion of AIGS, there is a certain relationship between tone and saturation. In all cases it is correct to say that, if tone is defined in terms of overall reflectance or transmittance, increases in saturation always result in increases in tone, because higher saturation always result in increases in higher absorption. However, and it is here that confusion often exists, increases in tone do not always result in higher saturation. It is perfectly possible to have a very high tone (due to high absorption – low reflectance/transmittance), but still have a low saturation. Increasing saturation always result in increasing stone, but increasing tone does not always result in increasing saturation.
Saturation
Though the majority of sources prefer the term ‘saturation’ that term is often used interchangeably with intensity and chroma. The common denominator in most instances is the idea of color vividness. That is, how much color is present? How vivid is the color?
Some associate intensity/saturation/chroma with color purity, in the sense that the more pronounced the saturation, the more pure is the color. They think of ‘purity’ as freedom from color dilution. But, dilution by what? Here is where there is some disagreement.
Overheim & Wagner (1982) speak of dilution as freedom from black, white, gray. This is consistent with Varley (1980). However Brownlow (1983), in his article ‘Color Grading Terminology Unscrambled’, scrambles the issue somewhat when stating that a highly saturate color lacks dilution by white, black, gray and other colors. He gives as an example a yellowish green emerald, which is less saturate than a pure emerald green, saturation referring to the purity of a color. If saturation is just purity (in Brownlow’s sense of the word), then a pale yellow sapphire, with no color but yellow present, should be considered as having maximum saturation. The problem, of course, is that most people would not consider such a stone ‘vivid’ in color.
Many sources speak of saturation in a way that associates it with the absence or presence of gray, or in a few cases, gray or brown. Generally, the word gray simply refers to the amount of saturation. For example, the more gray a stone the less saturate or vivid is its color. AGMS (Valente, 1986) uses the word ‘modifier’ to describe relative degrees of color saturation in accordance with amount of gray present. Though not using the word ‘modifier’, the GIA (1983( similarly associates more ‘gray’ with the lower saturation levels.
For Metheun (1983), intensity or saturation means the density of hue present. ‘The denser the color appears, the more distinct is also the hue. A color with a distinct hue is described as being intense or saturated’. This is consistent with the AIGS definition of the term, ‘saturation’ referring to the vividness or intensity of the hue.
Analysis
With few exceptions, there is consensus on the definition and use of ‘hue’. But, there is inconsistency in how the concepts ‘tone’ and ‘saturation’ are defined. Specifically, the confusion seems to lie in defining the exact relationship of tone with saturation.
The GIA (1983b) says of tone:
‘Estimating the tone of low saturation stones can be frustrating at first. Because they tend to look grayer (or browner), it is natural to want to call them dark. Don’t confuse low saturation with dark tone. Instead, try to imagine low saturation stones as if you were looking at them on a black and white TV. Disregard the strength of hue and just ask yourself where the whole stone would fall on scale of light to dark.’
The statement: ‘don’t confuse low saturation with dark tone’ is simply not always true. Intensity/saturation/chroma—whatever you want to call it—refers to a scale of color vividness. Some ‘dirty green’ tourmalines, indicolites an many Australian blue sapphires have an overall dark appearance (= dark tone) and at the same time show color flashes of relatively low saturation. That is, the flashes are by no means strong or vivid.
Color plates or chips are useful for illustrating the concept of dark tone accompanied by low saturation. We start by selecting two plates, each containing the same amount of chromatic ink. The plates are chosen such that the first has little or no achromatic (gray) ink; the second plate is overprinted with so much gray ink as to give it a very dark (inky) appearance. The hue will appear less distinct or vivid on the second plate. The second plate is less saturate and of darker tone than the first.
It is true that three dimensional colored stones seldom display the same uniformity in color one finds with chips or plates. This is partly why one judges hue position and saturation from the flashes showing brilliancy and tone from the overall (face up) stone. With our green tourmaline, indicolite and sapphire examples, a very dark overall tone happens to correspond with relatively unsaturated brilliancy flashes. Type ‘D’ ruby exemplifies dark tone accompanying highly saturate brilliancy flashes.
Manson’s (1982) description of tone as the sum of saturation and blackness is a little confusing, in that many would think blackness and tone are the same anyway, as Manson himself seems to imply at one point in his article. So, do we infer from this that tone = saturation + tone? What exactly does that mean?
Conclusions
The research and development of colored stone grading systems is a fairly recent activity. Only the naïve would consider these systems—including that used at AIGS—as more than crude attempts at addressing the problems at hand: crude and very subjective. That so many color related terms have sprung up has a positive aspect. Marketing motives aside, new nomenclature does not arise without thought why that nomenclature is needed. This at least indicates that people are thinking of the subject. Regrettably, though, more people seem to think of the subject when colored stone prices are rising than during periods of price decline. Perhaps that is just a coincidence?
The jewelry trade must continue to research and develop colored stone grading techniques. Yet at the same time, efforts must be directed toward a standardized nomenclature so that these techniques/systems are more readily comparable and mutually translatable. Only when it becomes relatively easy to compare grading techniques will end users take the time to do so; and it is the end user who should have the final word on the matter. Standardized nomenclature will make the task all the more easy for that person.
A first step towards nomenclature standards is to get back to the basics. This means using terms that have a solid basis in color science, are familiar to the majority of gemologists, lend themselves minimally to misrepresentation and, ideally have prior acceptance by recognized color standards committees, such as ASTM.
Toward meeting these criteria, we suggest universal and consistent use of hue, lightness and saturation for describing the color appearance of gemstones, defined as follows:
Hue: The position of a color on a color wheel (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, violet, and purple, or colors intermediate between adjacent pairs of these).
Lightness: The relative darkness or lightness of the hue as a function of overall reflectance or transmittance (or conversely, overall absorption).
Saturation: The vividness or intensity of the hue.
All three terms are included in ASTM’s E-284 Standard Definitions of Terms Relating to Appearance of Materials. The majority of colored stone grading system designers and color scientists use hue, and we are generally consistent when defining it. Most of these same people prefer the term saturation to express the concept of color vividness. Lightness, it is true, is cited by only two of our gemological sources (Arem and Brownlow). But, the term is used extensively by color scientists, and does not lend itself to readily to the kind of misinterpretation one finds with tone, lightness being an almost self-explained term.
We propose that use be discouraged of terms like modifier, zone, overtone and body color. The first two are little more than synonyms for existing terms (saturation and lightness, respectively); the last two have always meant far too many things to too many people. None of the four have any widespread use in color science or are recognized by ASTM.
The term pleochroism or pleochroic color (s) seems preferable to other color descriptive designations like secondary color (which could refer to just about anything) to describe that color phenomenon. However, in keeping with standard gemological usage, pleochroism should be applied only to doubly refractive stones which do display visible pleochroism in the face-up position, as confirmed by examination through a calcite (not Polaroid) dichroscope.
It is the author’s firm belief that if progress is to be made in the field of colored stone grading, the gem trade must first take steps to standardize the terminology used in describing the color appearance of gemstones. Without a uniformly defined and applied color nomenclature, effective color communication will remain but a pipe dream.
Wednesday, May 09, 2007
Tuesday, May 08, 2007
Eleven Steps To A Better Brain
This article makes one think. Gemologists, lab gemologists, gem dealers, jewelers and consumers should read this article.
(via issue 2501 of New Scientist magazine, 28 May 2005, page 28) New Scientist writes:
It doesn't matter how brainy you are or how much education you've had - you can still improve and expand your mind. Boosting your mental faculties doesn't have to mean studying hard or becoming a reclusive book worm. There are lots of tricks, techniques and habits, as well as changes to your lifestyle, diet and behaviour that can help you flex your grey matter and get the best out of your brain cells. And here are 11 of them.
Smart drugs
Does getting old have to mean worsening memory, slower reactions and fuzzy thinking? AROUND the age of 40, honest folks may already admit to noticing changes in their mental abilities. This is the beginning of a gradual decline that in all too many of us will culminate in full-blown dementia. If it were possible somehow to reverse it, slow it or mask it, wouldn't you?
A few drugs that might do the job, known as "cognitive enhancement", are already on the market, and a few dozen others are on the way. Perhaps the best-known is modafinil. Licensed to treat narcolepsy, the condition that causes people to suddenly fall asleep, it has notable effects in healthy people too. Modafinil can keep a person awake and alert for 90 hours straight, with none of the jitteriness and bad concentration that amphetamines or even coffee seem to produce.
In fact, with the help of modafinil, sleep-deprived people can perform even better than their well-rested, unmedicated selves. The forfeited rest doesn't even need to be made good. Military research is finding that people can stay awake for 40 hours, sleep the normal 8 hours, and then pull a few more all-nighters with no ill effects. It's an open secret that many, perhaps most, prescriptions for modafinil are written not for people who suffer from narcolepsy, but for those who simply want to stay awake. Similarly, many people are using Ritalin not because they suffer from attention deficit or any other disorder, but because they want superior concentration during exams or heavy-duty negotiations.
The pharmaceutical pipeline is clogged with promising compounds - drugs that act on the nicotinic receptors that smokers have long exploited, drugs that work on the cannabinoid system to block pot-smoking-type effects. Some drugs have also been specially designed to augment memory. Many of these look genuinely plausible: they seem to work, and without any major side effects.
So why aren't we all on cognitive enhancers already? "We need to be careful what we wish for," says Daniele Piomelli at the University of California at Irvine. He is studying the body's cannabinoid system with a view to making memories less emotionally charged in people suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. Tinkering with memory may have unwanted effects, he warns. "Ultimately we may end up remembering things we don't want to."
Gary Lynch, also at UC Irvine, voices a similar concern. He is the inventor of ampakines, a class of drugs that changes the rules about how a memory is encoded and how strong a memory trace is - the essence of learning (see New Scientist, 14 May, p 6). But maybe the rules have already been optimised by evolution, he suggests. What looks to be an improvement could have hidden downsides.
Still, the opportunity may be too tempting to pass up. The drug acts only in the brain, claims Lynch. It has a short half-life of hours. Ampakines have been shown to restore function to severely sleep-deprived monkeys that would otherwise perform poorly. Preliminary studies in humans are just as exciting. You could make an elderly person perform like a much younger person, he says. And who doesn't wish for that?
Food for thought
You are what you eat, and that includes your brain. So what is the ultimate mastermind diet? YOUR brain is the greediest organ in your body, with some quite specific dietary requirements. So it is hardly surprising that what you eat can affect how you think. If you believe the dietary supplement industry, you could become the next Einstein just by popping the right combination of pills. Look closer, however, and it isn't that simple. The savvy consumer should take talk of brain-boosting diets with a pinch of low-sodium salt. But if it is possible to eat your way to genius, it must surely be worth a try.
First, go to the top of the class by eating breakfast. The brain is best fuelled by a steady supply of glucose, and many studies have shown that skipping breakfast reduces people's performance at school and at work.
But it isn't simply a matter of getting some calories down. According to research published in 2003, kids breakfasting on fizzy drinks and sugary snacks performed at the level of an average 70-year-old in tests of memory and attention. Beans on toast is a far better combination, as Barbara Stewart from the University of Ulster, UK, discovered. Toast alone boosted children's scores on a variety of cognitive tests, but when the tests got tougher, the breakfast with the high-protein beans worked best. Beans are also a good source of fibre, and other research has shown a link between a high-fibre diet and improved cognition. If you can't stomach beans before midday, wholemeal toast with Marmite makes a great alternative. The yeast extract is packed with B vitamins, whose brain-boosting powers have been demonstrated in many studies.
A smart choice for lunch is omelette and salad. Eggs are rich in choline, which your body uses to produce the neurotransmitter acetylcholine. Researchers at Boston University found that when healthy young adults were given the drug scopolamine, which blocks acetylcholine receptors in the brain, it significantly reduced their ability to remember word pairs. Low levels of acetylcholine are also associated with Alzheimer's disease, and some studies suggest that boosting dietary intake may slow age-related memory loss.
A salad packed full of antioxidants, including beta-carotene and vitamins C and E, should also help keep an ageing brain in tip-top condition by helping to mop up damaging free radicals. Dwight Tapp and colleagues from the University of California at Irvine found that a diet high in antioxidants improved the cognitive skills of 39 ageing beagles - proving that you can teach an old dog new tricks.
Round off lunch with a yogurt dessert, and you should be alert and ready to face the stresses of the afternoon. That's because yogurt contains the amino acid tyrosine, needed for the production of the neurotransmitters dopamine and noradrenalin, among others. Studies by the US military indicate that tyrosine becomes depleted when we are under stress and that supplementing your intake can improve alertness and memory.
Don't forget to snaffle a snack mid-afternoon, to maintain your glucose levels. Just make sure you avoid junk food, and especially highly processed goodies such as cakes, pastries and biscuits, which contain trans-fatty acids. These not only pile on the pounds, but are implicated in a slew of serious mental disorders, from dyslexia and ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) to autism. Hard evidence for this is still thin on the ground, but last year researchers at the annual Society for Neuroscience meeting in San Diego, California, reported that rats and mice raised on the rodent equivalent of junk food struggled to find their way around a maze, and took longer to remember solutions to problems they had already solved.
It seems that some of the damage may be mediated through triglyceride, a cholesterol-like substance found at high levels in rodents fed on trans-fats. When the researchers gave these rats a drug to bring triglyceride levels down again, the animals' performance on the memory tasks improved.
Brains are around 60 per cent fat, so if trans-fats clog up the system, what should you eat to keep it well oiled? Evidence is mounting in favour of omega-3 fatty acids, in particular docosahexaenoic acid or DHA. In other words, your granny was right: fish is the best brain food. Not only will it feed and lubricate a developing brain, DHA also seems to help stave off dementia. Studies published last year reveal that older mice from a strain genetically altered to develop Alzheimer's had 70 per cent less of the amyloid plaques associated with the disease when fed on a high-DHA diet.
Finally, you could do worse than finish off your evening meal with strawberries and blueberries. Rats fed on these fruits have shown improved coordination, concentration and short-term memory. And even if they don't work such wonders in people, they still taste fantastic. So what have you got to lose?
The Mozart effect
Music may tune up your thinking, but you can't just crank up the volume and expect to become a genius. A DECADE ago Frances Rauscher, a psychologist now at the University of Wisconsin at Oshkosh, and her colleagues made waves with the discovery that listening to Mozart improved people's mathematical and spatial reasoning. Even rats ran mazes faster and more accurately after hearing Mozart than after white noise or music by the minimalist composer Philip Glass. Last year, Rauscher reported that, for rats at least, a Mozart piano sonata seems to stimulate activity in three genes involved in nerve-cell signaling in the brain.
This sounds like the most harmonious way to tune up your mental faculties. But before you grab the CDs, hear this note of caution. Not everyone who has looked for the Mozart effect has found it. What's more, even its proponents tend to think that music boosts brain power simply because it makes listeners feel better - relaxed and stimulated at the same time - and that a comparable stimulus might do just as well. In fact, one study found that listening to a story gave a similar performance boost.
There is, however, one way in which music really does make you smarter, though unfortunately it requires a bit more effort than just selecting something mellow on your iPod. Music lessons are the key. Six-year-old children who were given music lessons, as opposed to drama lessons or no extra instruction, got a 2 to 3-point boost in IQ scores compared with the others. Similarly, Rauscher found that after two years of music lessons, pre-school children scored better on spatial reasoning tests than those who took computer lessons.
Maybe music lessons exercise a range of mental skills, with their requirement for delicate and precise finger movements, and listening for pitch and rhythm, all combined with an emotional dimension. Nobody knows for sure. Neither do they know whether adults can get the same mental boost as young children. But, surely, it can't hurt to try.
Bionic brains
If training and tricks seem too much like hard work, some technological short cuts can boost brain function.
Gainful employment
Put your mind to work in the right way and it could repay you with an impressive bonus. UNTIL recently, a person's IQ - a measure of all kinds of mental problem-solving abilities, including spatial skills, memory and verbal reasoning - was thought to be a fixed commodity largely determined by genetics. But recent hints suggest that a very basic brain function called working memory might underlie our general intelligence, opening up the intriguing possibility that if you improve your working memory, you could boost your IQ too.
Working memory is the brain's short-term information storage system. It's a workbench for solving mental problems. For example if you calculate 73 - 6 + 7, your working memory will store the intermediate steps necessary to work out the answer. And the amount of information that the working memory can hold is strongly related to general intelligence.
A team led by Torkel Klingberg at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden, has found signs that the neural systems that underlie working memory may grow in response to training. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) brain scans, they measured the brain activity of adults before and after a working-memory training programme, which involved tasks such as memorising the positions of a series of dots on a grid. After five weeks of training, their brain activity had increased in the regions associated with this type of memory (Nature Neuroscience, vol 7, p 75).
Perhaps more significantly, when the group studied children who had completed these types of mental workouts, they saw improvement in a range of cognitive abilities not related to the training, and a leap in IQ test scores of 8 per cent (Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, vol 44, p 177). It's early days yet, but Klingberg thinks working-memory training could be a key to unlocking brain power. "Genetics determines a lot and so does the early gestation period," he says. "On top of that, there is a few per cent - we don't know how much - that can be improved by training."
Memory marvels
Mind like a sieve? Don't worry. The difference between mere mortals and memory champs is more method than mental capacity. AN AUDITORIUM is filled with 600 people. As they file out, they each tell you their name. An hour later, you are asked to recall them all. Can you do it? Most of us would balk at the idea. But in truth we're probably all up to the task. It just needs a little technique and dedication.
First, learn a trick from the "mnemonists" who routinely memorise strings of thousands of digits, entire epic poems, or hundreds of unrelated words. When Eleanor Maguire from University College London and her colleagues studied eight front runners in the annual World Memory Championships they did not find any evidence that these people have particularly high IQs or differently configured brains. But, while memorising, these people did show activity in three brain regions that become active during movements and navigation tasks but are not normally active during simple memory tests.
This may be connected to the fact that seven of them used a strategy in which they place items to be remembered along a visualised route (Nature Neuroscience, vol 6, p 90). To remember the sequence of an entire pack of playing cards for example, the champions assign each card an identity, perhaps an object or person, and as they flick through the cards they can make up a story based on a sequence of interactions between these characters and objects at sites along a well-trodden route.
Actors use a related technique: they attach emotional meaning to what they say. We always remember highly emotional moments better than less emotionally loaded ones. Professional actors also seem to link words with movement, remembering action-accompanied lines significantly better than those delivered while static, even months after a show has closed.
Helga Noice, a psychologist from Elmhurst College in Illinois, and Tony Noice, an actor, who together discovered this effect, found that non-thesps can benefit by adopting a similar technique. Students who paired their words with previously learned actions could reproduce 38 per cent of them after just 5 minutes, whereas rote learners only managed 14 per cent. The Noices believe that having two mental representations gives you a better shot at remembering what you are supposed to say.
Strategy is important in everyday life too, says Barry Gordon from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland. Simple things like always putting your car keys in the same place, writing things down to get them off your mind, or just deciding to pay attention, can make a big difference to how much information you retain. And if names are your downfall, try making some mental associations. Just remember to keep the derogatory ones to yourself.
Sleep on it
Never underestimate the power of a good night's rest. SKIMPING on sleep does awful things to your brain. Planning, problem-solving, learning, concentration, working memory and alertness all take a hit. IQ scores tumble. "If you have been awake for 21 hours straight, your abilities are equivalent to someone who is legally drunk," says Sean Drummond from the University of California, San Diego. And you don't need to pull an all-nighter to suffer the effects: two or three late nights and early mornings on the trot have the same effect.
Luckily, it's reversible - and more. If you let someone who isn't sleep-deprived have an extra hour or two of shut-eye, they perform much better than normal on tasks requiring sustained attention, such taking an exam. And being able to concentrate harder has knock-on benefits for overall mental performance. "Attention is the base of a mental pyramid," says Drummond. "If you boost that, you can't help boosting everything above it."
These are not the only benefits of a decent night's sleep. Sleep is when your brain processes new memories, practices and hones new skills - and even solves problems. Say you're trying to master a new video game. Instead of grinding away into the small hours, you would be better off playing for a couple of hours, then going to bed. While you are asleep your brain will reactivate the circuits it was using as you learned the game, rehearse them, and then shunt the new memories into long-term storage. When you wake up, hey presto! You will be a better player. The same applies to other skills such as playing the piano, driving a car and, some researchers claim, memorising facts and figures. Even taking a nap after training can help, says Carlyle Smith of Trent University in Peterborough, Ontario.
There is also some evidence that sleep can help produce moments of problem-solving insight. The famous story about the Russian chemist Dmitri Mendeleev suddenly "getting" the periodic table in a dream after a day spent struggling with the problem is probably true. It seems that sleep somehow allows the brain to juggle new memories to produce flashes of creative insight. So if you want to have a eureka moment, stop racking your brains and get your head down.
Body and mind
Physical exercise can boost brain as well as brawn. IT'S a dream come true for those who hate studying. Simply walking sedately for half an hour three times a week can improve abilities such as learning, concentration and abstract reasoning by 15 per cent. The effects are particularly noticeable in older people. Senior citizens who walk regularly perform better on memory tests than their sedentary peers. What's more, over several years their scores on a variety of cognitive tests show far less decline than those of non-walkers. Every extra mile a week has measurable benefits.
It's not only oldies who benefit, however. Angela Balding from the University of Exeter, UK, has found that schoolchildren who exercise three or four times a week get higher than average exam grades at age 10 or 11. The effect is strongest in boys, and while Balding admits that the link may not be causal, she suggests that aerobic exercise may boost mental powers by getting extra oxygen to your energy-guzzling brain.
There's another reason why your brain loves physical exercise: it promotes the growth of new brain cells. Until recently, received wisdom had it that we are born with a full complement of neurons and produce no new ones during our lifetime. Fred Gage from the Salk Institute in La Jolla, California, busted that myth in 2000 when he showed that even adults can grow new brain cells. He also found that exercise is one of the best ways to achieve this.
In mice, at least, the brain-building effects of exercise are strongest in the hippocampus, which is involved with learning and memory. This also happens to be the brain region that is damaged by elevated levels of the stress hormone cortisol. So if you are feeling frazzled, do your brain a favour and go for a run.
Even more gentle exercise, such as yoga, can do wonders for your brain. Last year, researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles, reported results from a pilot study in which they considered the mood-altering ability of different yoga poses. Comparing back bends, forward bends and standing poses, they concluded that the best way to get a mental lift is to bend over backwards.
And the effect works both ways. Just as physical exercise can boost the brain, mental exercise can boost the body. In 2001, researchers at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation in Ohio asked volunteers to spend just 15 minutes a day thinking about exercising their biceps. After 12 weeks, their arms were 13 per cent stronger.
Nuns on a run
If you don't want senility to interfere with your old age, perhaps you should seek some sisterly guidance. THE convent of the School Sisters of Notre Dame on Good Counsel Hill in Mankato, Minnesota, might seem an unusual place for a pioneering brain-science experiment. But a study of its 75 to 107-year-old inhabitants is revealing more about keeping the brain alive and healthy than perhaps any other to date. The "Nun study" is a unique collaboration between 678 Catholic sisters recruited in 1991 and Alzheimer's expert David Snowdon of the Sanders-Brown Center on Aging and the University of Kentucky in Lexington.
The sisters' miraculous longevity - the group boasts seven centenarians and many others well on their way - is surely in no small part attributable to their impeccable lifestyle. They do not drink or smoke, they live quietly and communally, they are spiritual and calm and they eat healthily and in moderation. Nevertheless, small differences between individual nuns could reveal the key to a healthy mind in later life.
Some of the nuns have suffered from Alzheimer's disease, but many have avoided any kind of dementia or senility. They include Sister Matthia, who was mentally fit and active from her birth in 1894 to the day she died peacefully in her sleep, aged 104. She was happy and productive, knitting mittens for the poor every day until the end of her life. A post-mortem of Sister Matthia's brain revealed no signs of excessive ageing. But in some other, remarkable cases, Snowdon has found sisters who showed no outwards signs of senility in life, yet had brains that looked as if they were ravaged by dementia.
How did Sister Matthia and the others cheat time? Snowdon's study, which includes an annual barrage of mental agility tests and detailed medical exams, has found several common denominators. The right amount of vitamin folate is one. Verbal ability early in life is another, as are positive emotions early in life, which were revealed by Snowdon's analysis of the personal autobiographical essays each woman wrote in her 20s as she took her vows. Activities, crosswords, knitting and exercising also helped to prevent senility, showing that the old adage "use it or lose it" is pertinent. And spirituality, or the positive attitude that comes from it, can't be overlooked. But individual differences also matter. To avoid dementia, your general health may be vital: metabolic problems, small strokes and head injuries seem to be common triggers of Alzheimer's dementia.
Obviously, you don't have to become a nun to stay mentally agile. We can all aspire to these kinds of improvements. As one of the sisters put it, "Think no evil, do no evil, hear no evil, and you will never write a best-selling novel."
Attention seeking
You can be smart, well-read, creative and knowledgeable, but none of it is any use if your mind isn't on the job. PAYING attention is a complex mental process, an interplay of zooming in on detail and stepping back to survey the big picture. So unfortunately there is no single remedy to enhance your concentration. But there are a few ways to improve it.
The first is to raise your arousal levels. The brain's attentional state is controlled by the neurotransmitters dopamine and noradrenalin. Dopamine encourages a persistent, goal-centred state of mind whereas noradrenalin produces an outward-looking, vigilant state. So not surprisingly, anything that raises dopamine levels can boost your powers of concentration.
One way to do this is with drugs such as amphetamines and the ADHD drug methylphenidate, better known as Ritalin. Caffeine also works. But if you prefer the drug-free approach, the best strategy is to sleep well, eat foods packed with slow-release sugars, and take lots of exercise. It also helps if you are trying to focus on something that you find interesting.
The second step is to cut down on distractions. Workplace studies have found that it takes up to 15 minutes to regain a deep state of concentration after a distraction such as a phone call. Just a few such interruptions and half the day is wasted.
Music can help as long as you listen to something familiar and soothing that serves primarily to drown out background noise. Psychologists also recommend that you avoid working near potential diversions, such as the fridge.
There are mental drills to deal with distractions. College counsellors routinely teach students to recognise when their thoughts are wandering, and catch themselves by saying "Stop! Be here now!" It sounds corny but can develop into a valuable habit. As any Zen meditator will tell you, concentration is as much a skill to be lovingly cultivated as it is a physiochemical state of the brain.
Positive feedback
Thought control is easier than you might imagine. IT SOUNDS a bit New Age, but there is a mysterious method of thought control you can learn that seems to boost brain power. No one quite knows how it works, and it is hard to describe exactly how to do it: it's not relaxation or concentration as such, more a state of mind. It's called neurofeedback. And it is slowly gaining scientific credibility.
Neurofeedback grew out of biofeedback therapy, popular in the 1960s. It works by showing people a real-time measure of some seemingly uncontrollable aspect of their physiology - heart rate, say - and encouraging them to try and change it. Astonishingly, many patients found that they could, though only rarely could they describe how they did it.
More recently, this technique has been applied to the brain - specifically to brain wave activity measured by an electroencephalogram, or EEG. The first attempts were aimed at boosting the size of the alpha wave, which crescendos when we are calm and focused. In one experiment, researchers linked the speed of a car in a computer game to the size of the alpha wave. They then asked subjects to make the car go faster using only their minds. Many managed to do so, and seemed to become more alert and focused as a result.
This early success encouraged others, and neurofeedback soon became a popular alternative therapy for ADHD. There is now good scientific evidence that it works, as well as some success in treating epilepsy, depression, tinnitus, anxiety, stroke and brain injuries.
And to keep up with the times, some experimenters have used brain scanners in place of EEGs. Scanners can allow people to see and control activity of specific parts of the brain. A team at Stanford University in California showed that people could learn to control pain by watching the activity of their pain centres (New Scientist, 1 May 2004, p 9).
But what about outside the clinic? Will neuro feedback ever allow ordinary people to boost their brain function? Possibly. John Gruzelier of Imperial College London has shown that it can improve medical students' memory and make them feel calmer before exams. He has also shown that it can improve musicians' and dancers' technique, and is testing it out on opera singers and surgeons.
Neils Birbaumer from the University of Tübingen in Germany wants to see whether neurofeedback can help psychopathic criminals control their impulsiveness. And there are hints that the method could boost creativity, enhance our orgasms, give shy people more confidence, lift low moods, alter the balance between left and right brain activity, and alter personality traits. All this by the power of thought.
(via issue 2501 of New Scientist magazine, 28 May 2005, page 28) New Scientist writes:
It doesn't matter how brainy you are or how much education you've had - you can still improve and expand your mind. Boosting your mental faculties doesn't have to mean studying hard or becoming a reclusive book worm. There are lots of tricks, techniques and habits, as well as changes to your lifestyle, diet and behaviour that can help you flex your grey matter and get the best out of your brain cells. And here are 11 of them.
Smart drugs
Does getting old have to mean worsening memory, slower reactions and fuzzy thinking? AROUND the age of 40, honest folks may already admit to noticing changes in their mental abilities. This is the beginning of a gradual decline that in all too many of us will culminate in full-blown dementia. If it were possible somehow to reverse it, slow it or mask it, wouldn't you?
A few drugs that might do the job, known as "cognitive enhancement", are already on the market, and a few dozen others are on the way. Perhaps the best-known is modafinil. Licensed to treat narcolepsy, the condition that causes people to suddenly fall asleep, it has notable effects in healthy people too. Modafinil can keep a person awake and alert for 90 hours straight, with none of the jitteriness and bad concentration that amphetamines or even coffee seem to produce.
In fact, with the help of modafinil, sleep-deprived people can perform even better than their well-rested, unmedicated selves. The forfeited rest doesn't even need to be made good. Military research is finding that people can stay awake for 40 hours, sleep the normal 8 hours, and then pull a few more all-nighters with no ill effects. It's an open secret that many, perhaps most, prescriptions for modafinil are written not for people who suffer from narcolepsy, but for those who simply want to stay awake. Similarly, many people are using Ritalin not because they suffer from attention deficit or any other disorder, but because they want superior concentration during exams or heavy-duty negotiations.
The pharmaceutical pipeline is clogged with promising compounds - drugs that act on the nicotinic receptors that smokers have long exploited, drugs that work on the cannabinoid system to block pot-smoking-type effects. Some drugs have also been specially designed to augment memory. Many of these look genuinely plausible: they seem to work, and without any major side effects.
So why aren't we all on cognitive enhancers already? "We need to be careful what we wish for," says Daniele Piomelli at the University of California at Irvine. He is studying the body's cannabinoid system with a view to making memories less emotionally charged in people suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. Tinkering with memory may have unwanted effects, he warns. "Ultimately we may end up remembering things we don't want to."
Gary Lynch, also at UC Irvine, voices a similar concern. He is the inventor of ampakines, a class of drugs that changes the rules about how a memory is encoded and how strong a memory trace is - the essence of learning (see New Scientist, 14 May, p 6). But maybe the rules have already been optimised by evolution, he suggests. What looks to be an improvement could have hidden downsides.
Still, the opportunity may be too tempting to pass up. The drug acts only in the brain, claims Lynch. It has a short half-life of hours. Ampakines have been shown to restore function to severely sleep-deprived monkeys that would otherwise perform poorly. Preliminary studies in humans are just as exciting. You could make an elderly person perform like a much younger person, he says. And who doesn't wish for that?
Food for thought
You are what you eat, and that includes your brain. So what is the ultimate mastermind diet? YOUR brain is the greediest organ in your body, with some quite specific dietary requirements. So it is hardly surprising that what you eat can affect how you think. If you believe the dietary supplement industry, you could become the next Einstein just by popping the right combination of pills. Look closer, however, and it isn't that simple. The savvy consumer should take talk of brain-boosting diets with a pinch of low-sodium salt. But if it is possible to eat your way to genius, it must surely be worth a try.
First, go to the top of the class by eating breakfast. The brain is best fuelled by a steady supply of glucose, and many studies have shown that skipping breakfast reduces people's performance at school and at work.
But it isn't simply a matter of getting some calories down. According to research published in 2003, kids breakfasting on fizzy drinks and sugary snacks performed at the level of an average 70-year-old in tests of memory and attention. Beans on toast is a far better combination, as Barbara Stewart from the University of Ulster, UK, discovered. Toast alone boosted children's scores on a variety of cognitive tests, but when the tests got tougher, the breakfast with the high-protein beans worked best. Beans are also a good source of fibre, and other research has shown a link between a high-fibre diet and improved cognition. If you can't stomach beans before midday, wholemeal toast with Marmite makes a great alternative. The yeast extract is packed with B vitamins, whose brain-boosting powers have been demonstrated in many studies.
A smart choice for lunch is omelette and salad. Eggs are rich in choline, which your body uses to produce the neurotransmitter acetylcholine. Researchers at Boston University found that when healthy young adults were given the drug scopolamine, which blocks acetylcholine receptors in the brain, it significantly reduced their ability to remember word pairs. Low levels of acetylcholine are also associated with Alzheimer's disease, and some studies suggest that boosting dietary intake may slow age-related memory loss.
A salad packed full of antioxidants, including beta-carotene and vitamins C and E, should also help keep an ageing brain in tip-top condition by helping to mop up damaging free radicals. Dwight Tapp and colleagues from the University of California at Irvine found that a diet high in antioxidants improved the cognitive skills of 39 ageing beagles - proving that you can teach an old dog new tricks.
Round off lunch with a yogurt dessert, and you should be alert and ready to face the stresses of the afternoon. That's because yogurt contains the amino acid tyrosine, needed for the production of the neurotransmitters dopamine and noradrenalin, among others. Studies by the US military indicate that tyrosine becomes depleted when we are under stress and that supplementing your intake can improve alertness and memory.
Don't forget to snaffle a snack mid-afternoon, to maintain your glucose levels. Just make sure you avoid junk food, and especially highly processed goodies such as cakes, pastries and biscuits, which contain trans-fatty acids. These not only pile on the pounds, but are implicated in a slew of serious mental disorders, from dyslexia and ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) to autism. Hard evidence for this is still thin on the ground, but last year researchers at the annual Society for Neuroscience meeting in San Diego, California, reported that rats and mice raised on the rodent equivalent of junk food struggled to find their way around a maze, and took longer to remember solutions to problems they had already solved.
It seems that some of the damage may be mediated through triglyceride, a cholesterol-like substance found at high levels in rodents fed on trans-fats. When the researchers gave these rats a drug to bring triglyceride levels down again, the animals' performance on the memory tasks improved.
Brains are around 60 per cent fat, so if trans-fats clog up the system, what should you eat to keep it well oiled? Evidence is mounting in favour of omega-3 fatty acids, in particular docosahexaenoic acid or DHA. In other words, your granny was right: fish is the best brain food. Not only will it feed and lubricate a developing brain, DHA also seems to help stave off dementia. Studies published last year reveal that older mice from a strain genetically altered to develop Alzheimer's had 70 per cent less of the amyloid plaques associated with the disease when fed on a high-DHA diet.
Finally, you could do worse than finish off your evening meal with strawberries and blueberries. Rats fed on these fruits have shown improved coordination, concentration and short-term memory. And even if they don't work such wonders in people, they still taste fantastic. So what have you got to lose?
The Mozart effect
Music may tune up your thinking, but you can't just crank up the volume and expect to become a genius. A DECADE ago Frances Rauscher, a psychologist now at the University of Wisconsin at Oshkosh, and her colleagues made waves with the discovery that listening to Mozart improved people's mathematical and spatial reasoning. Even rats ran mazes faster and more accurately after hearing Mozart than after white noise or music by the minimalist composer Philip Glass. Last year, Rauscher reported that, for rats at least, a Mozart piano sonata seems to stimulate activity in three genes involved in nerve-cell signaling in the brain.
This sounds like the most harmonious way to tune up your mental faculties. But before you grab the CDs, hear this note of caution. Not everyone who has looked for the Mozart effect has found it. What's more, even its proponents tend to think that music boosts brain power simply because it makes listeners feel better - relaxed and stimulated at the same time - and that a comparable stimulus might do just as well. In fact, one study found that listening to a story gave a similar performance boost.
There is, however, one way in which music really does make you smarter, though unfortunately it requires a bit more effort than just selecting something mellow on your iPod. Music lessons are the key. Six-year-old children who were given music lessons, as opposed to drama lessons or no extra instruction, got a 2 to 3-point boost in IQ scores compared with the others. Similarly, Rauscher found that after two years of music lessons, pre-school children scored better on spatial reasoning tests than those who took computer lessons.
Maybe music lessons exercise a range of mental skills, with their requirement for delicate and precise finger movements, and listening for pitch and rhythm, all combined with an emotional dimension. Nobody knows for sure. Neither do they know whether adults can get the same mental boost as young children. But, surely, it can't hurt to try.
Bionic brains
If training and tricks seem too much like hard work, some technological short cuts can boost brain function.
Gainful employment
Put your mind to work in the right way and it could repay you with an impressive bonus. UNTIL recently, a person's IQ - a measure of all kinds of mental problem-solving abilities, including spatial skills, memory and verbal reasoning - was thought to be a fixed commodity largely determined by genetics. But recent hints suggest that a very basic brain function called working memory might underlie our general intelligence, opening up the intriguing possibility that if you improve your working memory, you could boost your IQ too.
Working memory is the brain's short-term information storage system. It's a workbench for solving mental problems. For example if you calculate 73 - 6 + 7, your working memory will store the intermediate steps necessary to work out the answer. And the amount of information that the working memory can hold is strongly related to general intelligence.
A team led by Torkel Klingberg at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden, has found signs that the neural systems that underlie working memory may grow in response to training. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) brain scans, they measured the brain activity of adults before and after a working-memory training programme, which involved tasks such as memorising the positions of a series of dots on a grid. After five weeks of training, their brain activity had increased in the regions associated with this type of memory (Nature Neuroscience, vol 7, p 75).
Perhaps more significantly, when the group studied children who had completed these types of mental workouts, they saw improvement in a range of cognitive abilities not related to the training, and a leap in IQ test scores of 8 per cent (Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, vol 44, p 177). It's early days yet, but Klingberg thinks working-memory training could be a key to unlocking brain power. "Genetics determines a lot and so does the early gestation period," he says. "On top of that, there is a few per cent - we don't know how much - that can be improved by training."
Memory marvels
Mind like a sieve? Don't worry. The difference between mere mortals and memory champs is more method than mental capacity. AN AUDITORIUM is filled with 600 people. As they file out, they each tell you their name. An hour later, you are asked to recall them all. Can you do it? Most of us would balk at the idea. But in truth we're probably all up to the task. It just needs a little technique and dedication.
First, learn a trick from the "mnemonists" who routinely memorise strings of thousands of digits, entire epic poems, or hundreds of unrelated words. When Eleanor Maguire from University College London and her colleagues studied eight front runners in the annual World Memory Championships they did not find any evidence that these people have particularly high IQs or differently configured brains. But, while memorising, these people did show activity in three brain regions that become active during movements and navigation tasks but are not normally active during simple memory tests.
This may be connected to the fact that seven of them used a strategy in which they place items to be remembered along a visualised route (Nature Neuroscience, vol 6, p 90). To remember the sequence of an entire pack of playing cards for example, the champions assign each card an identity, perhaps an object or person, and as they flick through the cards they can make up a story based on a sequence of interactions between these characters and objects at sites along a well-trodden route.
Actors use a related technique: they attach emotional meaning to what they say. We always remember highly emotional moments better than less emotionally loaded ones. Professional actors also seem to link words with movement, remembering action-accompanied lines significantly better than those delivered while static, even months after a show has closed.
Helga Noice, a psychologist from Elmhurst College in Illinois, and Tony Noice, an actor, who together discovered this effect, found that non-thesps can benefit by adopting a similar technique. Students who paired their words with previously learned actions could reproduce 38 per cent of them after just 5 minutes, whereas rote learners only managed 14 per cent. The Noices believe that having two mental representations gives you a better shot at remembering what you are supposed to say.
Strategy is important in everyday life too, says Barry Gordon from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland. Simple things like always putting your car keys in the same place, writing things down to get them off your mind, or just deciding to pay attention, can make a big difference to how much information you retain. And if names are your downfall, try making some mental associations. Just remember to keep the derogatory ones to yourself.
Sleep on it
Never underestimate the power of a good night's rest. SKIMPING on sleep does awful things to your brain. Planning, problem-solving, learning, concentration, working memory and alertness all take a hit. IQ scores tumble. "If you have been awake for 21 hours straight, your abilities are equivalent to someone who is legally drunk," says Sean Drummond from the University of California, San Diego. And you don't need to pull an all-nighter to suffer the effects: two or three late nights and early mornings on the trot have the same effect.
Luckily, it's reversible - and more. If you let someone who isn't sleep-deprived have an extra hour or two of shut-eye, they perform much better than normal on tasks requiring sustained attention, such taking an exam. And being able to concentrate harder has knock-on benefits for overall mental performance. "Attention is the base of a mental pyramid," says Drummond. "If you boost that, you can't help boosting everything above it."
These are not the only benefits of a decent night's sleep. Sleep is when your brain processes new memories, practices and hones new skills - and even solves problems. Say you're trying to master a new video game. Instead of grinding away into the small hours, you would be better off playing for a couple of hours, then going to bed. While you are asleep your brain will reactivate the circuits it was using as you learned the game, rehearse them, and then shunt the new memories into long-term storage. When you wake up, hey presto! You will be a better player. The same applies to other skills such as playing the piano, driving a car and, some researchers claim, memorising facts and figures. Even taking a nap after training can help, says Carlyle Smith of Trent University in Peterborough, Ontario.
There is also some evidence that sleep can help produce moments of problem-solving insight. The famous story about the Russian chemist Dmitri Mendeleev suddenly "getting" the periodic table in a dream after a day spent struggling with the problem is probably true. It seems that sleep somehow allows the brain to juggle new memories to produce flashes of creative insight. So if you want to have a eureka moment, stop racking your brains and get your head down.
Body and mind
Physical exercise can boost brain as well as brawn. IT'S a dream come true for those who hate studying. Simply walking sedately for half an hour three times a week can improve abilities such as learning, concentration and abstract reasoning by 15 per cent. The effects are particularly noticeable in older people. Senior citizens who walk regularly perform better on memory tests than their sedentary peers. What's more, over several years their scores on a variety of cognitive tests show far less decline than those of non-walkers. Every extra mile a week has measurable benefits.
It's not only oldies who benefit, however. Angela Balding from the University of Exeter, UK, has found that schoolchildren who exercise three or four times a week get higher than average exam grades at age 10 or 11. The effect is strongest in boys, and while Balding admits that the link may not be causal, she suggests that aerobic exercise may boost mental powers by getting extra oxygen to your energy-guzzling brain.
There's another reason why your brain loves physical exercise: it promotes the growth of new brain cells. Until recently, received wisdom had it that we are born with a full complement of neurons and produce no new ones during our lifetime. Fred Gage from the Salk Institute in La Jolla, California, busted that myth in 2000 when he showed that even adults can grow new brain cells. He also found that exercise is one of the best ways to achieve this.
In mice, at least, the brain-building effects of exercise are strongest in the hippocampus, which is involved with learning and memory. This also happens to be the brain region that is damaged by elevated levels of the stress hormone cortisol. So if you are feeling frazzled, do your brain a favour and go for a run.
Even more gentle exercise, such as yoga, can do wonders for your brain. Last year, researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles, reported results from a pilot study in which they considered the mood-altering ability of different yoga poses. Comparing back bends, forward bends and standing poses, they concluded that the best way to get a mental lift is to bend over backwards.
And the effect works both ways. Just as physical exercise can boost the brain, mental exercise can boost the body. In 2001, researchers at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation in Ohio asked volunteers to spend just 15 minutes a day thinking about exercising their biceps. After 12 weeks, their arms were 13 per cent stronger.
Nuns on a run
If you don't want senility to interfere with your old age, perhaps you should seek some sisterly guidance. THE convent of the School Sisters of Notre Dame on Good Counsel Hill in Mankato, Minnesota, might seem an unusual place for a pioneering brain-science experiment. But a study of its 75 to 107-year-old inhabitants is revealing more about keeping the brain alive and healthy than perhaps any other to date. The "Nun study" is a unique collaboration between 678 Catholic sisters recruited in 1991 and Alzheimer's expert David Snowdon of the Sanders-Brown Center on Aging and the University of Kentucky in Lexington.
The sisters' miraculous longevity - the group boasts seven centenarians and many others well on their way - is surely in no small part attributable to their impeccable lifestyle. They do not drink or smoke, they live quietly and communally, they are spiritual and calm and they eat healthily and in moderation. Nevertheless, small differences between individual nuns could reveal the key to a healthy mind in later life.
Some of the nuns have suffered from Alzheimer's disease, but many have avoided any kind of dementia or senility. They include Sister Matthia, who was mentally fit and active from her birth in 1894 to the day she died peacefully in her sleep, aged 104. She was happy and productive, knitting mittens for the poor every day until the end of her life. A post-mortem of Sister Matthia's brain revealed no signs of excessive ageing. But in some other, remarkable cases, Snowdon has found sisters who showed no outwards signs of senility in life, yet had brains that looked as if they were ravaged by dementia.
How did Sister Matthia and the others cheat time? Snowdon's study, which includes an annual barrage of mental agility tests and detailed medical exams, has found several common denominators. The right amount of vitamin folate is one. Verbal ability early in life is another, as are positive emotions early in life, which were revealed by Snowdon's analysis of the personal autobiographical essays each woman wrote in her 20s as she took her vows. Activities, crosswords, knitting and exercising also helped to prevent senility, showing that the old adage "use it or lose it" is pertinent. And spirituality, or the positive attitude that comes from it, can't be overlooked. But individual differences also matter. To avoid dementia, your general health may be vital: metabolic problems, small strokes and head injuries seem to be common triggers of Alzheimer's dementia.
Obviously, you don't have to become a nun to stay mentally agile. We can all aspire to these kinds of improvements. As one of the sisters put it, "Think no evil, do no evil, hear no evil, and you will never write a best-selling novel."
Attention seeking
You can be smart, well-read, creative and knowledgeable, but none of it is any use if your mind isn't on the job. PAYING attention is a complex mental process, an interplay of zooming in on detail and stepping back to survey the big picture. So unfortunately there is no single remedy to enhance your concentration. But there are a few ways to improve it.
The first is to raise your arousal levels. The brain's attentional state is controlled by the neurotransmitters dopamine and noradrenalin. Dopamine encourages a persistent, goal-centred state of mind whereas noradrenalin produces an outward-looking, vigilant state. So not surprisingly, anything that raises dopamine levels can boost your powers of concentration.
One way to do this is with drugs such as amphetamines and the ADHD drug methylphenidate, better known as Ritalin. Caffeine also works. But if you prefer the drug-free approach, the best strategy is to sleep well, eat foods packed with slow-release sugars, and take lots of exercise. It also helps if you are trying to focus on something that you find interesting.
The second step is to cut down on distractions. Workplace studies have found that it takes up to 15 minutes to regain a deep state of concentration after a distraction such as a phone call. Just a few such interruptions and half the day is wasted.
Music can help as long as you listen to something familiar and soothing that serves primarily to drown out background noise. Psychologists also recommend that you avoid working near potential diversions, such as the fridge.
There are mental drills to deal with distractions. College counsellors routinely teach students to recognise when their thoughts are wandering, and catch themselves by saying "Stop! Be here now!" It sounds corny but can develop into a valuable habit. As any Zen meditator will tell you, concentration is as much a skill to be lovingly cultivated as it is a physiochemical state of the brain.
Positive feedback
Thought control is easier than you might imagine. IT SOUNDS a bit New Age, but there is a mysterious method of thought control you can learn that seems to boost brain power. No one quite knows how it works, and it is hard to describe exactly how to do it: it's not relaxation or concentration as such, more a state of mind. It's called neurofeedback. And it is slowly gaining scientific credibility.
Neurofeedback grew out of biofeedback therapy, popular in the 1960s. It works by showing people a real-time measure of some seemingly uncontrollable aspect of their physiology - heart rate, say - and encouraging them to try and change it. Astonishingly, many patients found that they could, though only rarely could they describe how they did it.
More recently, this technique has been applied to the brain - specifically to brain wave activity measured by an electroencephalogram, or EEG. The first attempts were aimed at boosting the size of the alpha wave, which crescendos when we are calm and focused. In one experiment, researchers linked the speed of a car in a computer game to the size of the alpha wave. They then asked subjects to make the car go faster using only their minds. Many managed to do so, and seemed to become more alert and focused as a result.
This early success encouraged others, and neurofeedback soon became a popular alternative therapy for ADHD. There is now good scientific evidence that it works, as well as some success in treating epilepsy, depression, tinnitus, anxiety, stroke and brain injuries.
And to keep up with the times, some experimenters have used brain scanners in place of EEGs. Scanners can allow people to see and control activity of specific parts of the brain. A team at Stanford University in California showed that people could learn to control pain by watching the activity of their pain centres (New Scientist, 1 May 2004, p 9).
But what about outside the clinic? Will neuro feedback ever allow ordinary people to boost their brain function? Possibly. John Gruzelier of Imperial College London has shown that it can improve medical students' memory and make them feel calmer before exams. He has also shown that it can improve musicians' and dancers' technique, and is testing it out on opera singers and surgeons.
Neils Birbaumer from the University of Tübingen in Germany wants to see whether neurofeedback can help psychopathic criminals control their impulsiveness. And there are hints that the method could boost creativity, enhance our orgasms, give shy people more confidence, lift low moods, alter the balance between left and right brain activity, and alter personality traits. All this by the power of thought.
Diamond Report—Technical or Descriptive?
Gabi Tolkowsky has a unique way of explaining diamond concepts. Good info.
Gabi S. Tolkowsky writes:
The End Consumer
What are the major elements which make people take the decision to acquire a diamond? Due to my numerous lectures given worldwide to consumers, and professionals alike, the ‘Live’ conversations with them, their immediate reactions, their questions, comments, requests and their continuous ‘come backs’, I will give such feedback to the audience.
Due to the internet and the multiple publications, our professional language spilled into common knowledge and is employed by the general public as such. Should our professional language adapt itself more towards descriptive senses such as "Rarity", "Beauty", "Dream", "Emotion", "Craftsmanship", "Art"?
I do not Cut a diamond. The word 'Cut' means in English: make an opening or a wound in something, with a sharp tool such as a knife or scissors: To divide and remove something from something large: To reduce something by removing material, etc.
As a professional diamond cutter I would say: "Divide" a diamond if necessary (cleaving, sawing, lasering). As a professional diamond bruter I would say: "Fashion" a shape, a form. As a professional diamond polisher I would say: "Fashion" a shape, a form, and will polish the surface by applying the "Style" of a "Design" with precise "Facets" or "Mirrors".
Should our terminology be "Technical" or should it become more "Descriptive"? Should we have an internal, detailed Technical Diamond Report (for professional use only) and a descriptive external Diamond Report (to the attention of the consumer)?
What is Gemology, and what is a Gemologist (Most of the popular dictionaries and encyclopedias do not refer to such entries)? What means the word - Modified or Variations? What are the meanings of finish, make, proportions, cut grading, finish grading, major symmetry, minor symmetry.
New designs of polished diamonds are subject to very high expenses for protection purposes. The gemological laboratories should be able to maintain a complete and confidential library of past and future "Shapes and Styles", and provide legal protection to creativity and invention as long as such are not yet reaching the open market. New designs as well as past historical designs are presenting parameters which are not yet considered being conventional (depth, table, crown, pavilion, cutlet, shape etc.). Should those be integrated into the general description "Fancies" or should the terminology "Fancy Shape" be described as being "Natural Shapes" (The craftsman protects symmetrically the natural outline of the individual natural rough diamond shape?).
Gabi S. Tolkowsky writes:
The End Consumer
What are the major elements which make people take the decision to acquire a diamond? Due to my numerous lectures given worldwide to consumers, and professionals alike, the ‘Live’ conversations with them, their immediate reactions, their questions, comments, requests and their continuous ‘come backs’, I will give such feedback to the audience.
Due to the internet and the multiple publications, our professional language spilled into common knowledge and is employed by the general public as such. Should our professional language adapt itself more towards descriptive senses such as "Rarity", "Beauty", "Dream", "Emotion", "Craftsmanship", "Art"?
I do not Cut a diamond. The word 'Cut' means in English: make an opening or a wound in something, with a sharp tool such as a knife or scissors: To divide and remove something from something large: To reduce something by removing material, etc.
As a professional diamond cutter I would say: "Divide" a diamond if necessary (cleaving, sawing, lasering). As a professional diamond bruter I would say: "Fashion" a shape, a form. As a professional diamond polisher I would say: "Fashion" a shape, a form, and will polish the surface by applying the "Style" of a "Design" with precise "Facets" or "Mirrors".
Should our terminology be "Technical" or should it become more "Descriptive"? Should we have an internal, detailed Technical Diamond Report (for professional use only) and a descriptive external Diamond Report (to the attention of the consumer)?
What is Gemology, and what is a Gemologist (Most of the popular dictionaries and encyclopedias do not refer to such entries)? What means the word - Modified or Variations? What are the meanings of finish, make, proportions, cut grading, finish grading, major symmetry, minor symmetry.
New designs of polished diamonds are subject to very high expenses for protection purposes. The gemological laboratories should be able to maintain a complete and confidential library of past and future "Shapes and Styles", and provide legal protection to creativity and invention as long as such are not yet reaching the open market. New designs as well as past historical designs are presenting parameters which are not yet considered being conventional (depth, table, crown, pavilion, cutlet, shape etc.). Should those be integrated into the general description "Fancies" or should the terminology "Fancy Shape" be described as being "Natural Shapes" (The craftsman protects symmetrically the natural outline of the individual natural rough diamond shape?).
The Kings Of Jaipur
(via Couture International Jeweler, Spring 2007) Victoria Gomelsky writes:
Motorized rickshaws, mopeds, hand-drawn carts an cows dominate the relentless traffic on Jaipur’s dusty M.I.Road, except for the block that houses the esteemed Gem Palace, where tour buses are a conspicuous and everyday presence.
The retail store—a Jaipur institution since 1852, when the maharaja who ruled the city, capital of India’s Rajasthan province, appointed Kasliwal family crown jewelers—conjures images of such fabulousness among visitors that it is now a regular stop on the tourist circuit, like the pink-honeycombed Palace of the Winds and hilltop Amber Fort. Credit goes to eighth-generation Munnu Kasliwal, the creative genius behind Gem Palace’s treasure trove, and his brothers, Sudhir and Sanjay, who manage the retail and wholesale ends of the business along with their cousins, Ajay and Pappu Kasliwal. Even the ninth generation is represented, the form of Munnu’s son, Siddarth, who recently joined the business. Under the family’s careful stewardship, Gem Palace earns as much respect from contemporary jewel-lovers as it did under the majarajas’ patronage.
“It the mother lode,” confirms a well-groomed American woman, cooing over a pair of carnelian earnings and matching ring on a sunny December afternoon. She’s a media buyer from Maryland on a two-week holiday with her husband in Rajasthan. A visit to Gem Palace was built in their itinerary, making them the latest in a long line of admirers to gawk over the gem-set wonders stocked inside its aging wooden showcases.
Few retailers can claim Jackie Onassis, Bill Clinton, Mick Jagger, Nicole Kidman, Giorgio Armani, Countess Mountbatten of Burma and Diana, Princess of Wales as fans. Then again, few retailers offer visitors an opportunity to purchase baubles in an environment that recalls an era in which jewelry was valued above all other material possessions. Located in a centuries-old Jaipur building with a central courtyard and flat-roof terraces distinguished by Mughal-style minarets, Gem Palace is a veritable museum of Rajasthani craftsmanship, from the mustard-color block prints that blanket the walls, withered and peeling with age, to the carved silver elephants and jeweled objects d’art that litter the floor beneath the showcases, themselves brimming with antique and contemporary interpretations of traditional Indian motifs.
There are spectacular villandi, or Mughal-cut, diamond necklaces, the diamonds flat as cobblestones and almost as large; traditional bell earrings known as jhoomki strung with Burmese rubies, like tiny gem-set parasols; gold cuff lotus flower bracelets laced with pink and green tourmalines; 22-karat gold and diamond rings fashioned in the shape of parakeets, with colorless diamond briolettes swinging from their gilded beaks. The range of jewels includes the eccentric (a 32-piece gold and diamond chess set, anyone?) and the imperial (a Mughal turban ornament known as sarpech is set with pink and purple spinels and is as long as child’s forearm), but there’s a healthy selection of more affordable baubles in rose quartz, moonstone and other semi precious stones, sourced as rough from the hundreds of dealers who congregate inside the walls of the old city.
What’s more, the jewelry on display at Gem Palace is breathtaking down to the details hidden from view. Following the Hindu belief that the body sees what the eyes cannot, the back of Mannu’s creations bear extraordinary detailing, including delicate filigree work, diamond accents and vivid pastoral scenes rendered in red and green enamel, a style known as kundan meena. Gem Palace is also one of the chief practitioners of an ancient Indian gold working technique called kundan, in which precious stones are set into 24-karat gold with a core of lac, a natural resin, the inlay forming a shiny ribbon around each stone.
Beyond the sensory pleasures of touring Gem Palace lies the significant intellectual reward of seeing and touching historical evidence that connects the store to its magnificent home city, founded by ruler Jai Singh in 1727. The salon’s wooden chairs, carved from Burmese teak, look like they could have supported the backside of a Mughal King, and probably did. Against the wall, a stack of 100-year old, poster-size black-and-white prints depict the annual mystic extravaganza that is the Pushkar camel fair. Ornate silver trunks lined in red velvet store historic-gem-encrusted flasks originally crafted for the Singh dynasty. Such touches lend the store an antique atmosphere that belies the whirl of activity going on upstairs and at select location around Jaipur.
“We don’t outsource anything,” says Sudhir Kasliwal, as he leads a visitor through the warren of rooms that constitute the main selling floor. “We have our workers working in their homes for pieces. But everything is done by our staff. This is one place where we do everything, right from cutting and polishing stones to setting. That’s why we can design something and don’t have to look here and there for the stones. Instead, we cut our own.”
Gem Palace employs several thousand people, all under the direction of Munnu, a 49-year old artist whose flair with gemstones is such that London’s Gilbert Collection at Somerset House assembled 250 pieces of his work for a month long exhibition last fall. “Treasures from the Gem Palace” was the brainchild of Harry Fane, an authority on Cartier who grew close to the Kasliwal family over the course of numerous research visits to India.
“The show had 7400 visitors in one day while the Tiffany show across the way attracted 600, so you can see the amount of interest that people in Europe had in us,” Sudhir says, as he walks past a shiny 1912 Mercedes parked in back of the store, one of the numerous vintage cars that make up his personal collection.
Even among the private lives of Jaipur’s citizens, the past is perpetually present. When Jai Singh built this “Pink City”, known for the dusty pink stucco walls that surround the old quarter, he invited artisans from all over the country to move here, part of his campaign to make Jaipur India’s first planned city. Then, as now, the Johari Bazaar, or jeweler’s market, teemed with gem cutters and traders bartering for the best prices on colored stones.
That foundation helped cement Jaipur’s standing as the epicenter of the gemstone trade, a reputation that continues to this day. In the 2005-2006 fiscal year, India imported $110 million in rough colored stones and exported $235 million. Eighty to 90 percent of those gems filtered through Jaipur, says Gaurav Joshi, the assistant director of the Jaipur office of Gem & Jewellery Export Promotion Council, a quasi-governmental agency charged with promoting India’s gem and jewelry industry.
While emerald and tanzanite are processed in mass quantities here, so, too, are stones from all the corners of the gem world: moonstones from Sri Lanka, tsavorites from East Africa, tourmalines from Brazil, rubies from Burma. To the delight of jewelry connoisseurs the world over, Munnu uses all of them.
But those who can’t make the trek to India to peruse the selection are welcome to schedule a viewing in New York, where Gem Palace recently opened a by-appointment-only salon in a charming brownstone on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. The company—familiar to patrons of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Barneys, two venues that regularly sell Munnu’s jewels—chose New York for its first showroom outside of India to augment its fast-rising reputation, bolstered in recent months by fawning coverage in The New York Times, Robb Report and Time Style & Design, among other publications.
In addition to the increased international presence, Munnu’s work—now leaning toward a fusion of Art Deco and rose-cut diamond designs featuring his favorite stones, old Golconda diamonds—also appears in the Diamond Information Center’s new right-hand ring campaign. Women of the world, you know what to do.
Motorized rickshaws, mopeds, hand-drawn carts an cows dominate the relentless traffic on Jaipur’s dusty M.I.Road, except for the block that houses the esteemed Gem Palace, where tour buses are a conspicuous and everyday presence.
The retail store—a Jaipur institution since 1852, when the maharaja who ruled the city, capital of India’s Rajasthan province, appointed Kasliwal family crown jewelers—conjures images of such fabulousness among visitors that it is now a regular stop on the tourist circuit, like the pink-honeycombed Palace of the Winds and hilltop Amber Fort. Credit goes to eighth-generation Munnu Kasliwal, the creative genius behind Gem Palace’s treasure trove, and his brothers, Sudhir and Sanjay, who manage the retail and wholesale ends of the business along with their cousins, Ajay and Pappu Kasliwal. Even the ninth generation is represented, the form of Munnu’s son, Siddarth, who recently joined the business. Under the family’s careful stewardship, Gem Palace earns as much respect from contemporary jewel-lovers as it did under the majarajas’ patronage.
“It the mother lode,” confirms a well-groomed American woman, cooing over a pair of carnelian earnings and matching ring on a sunny December afternoon. She’s a media buyer from Maryland on a two-week holiday with her husband in Rajasthan. A visit to Gem Palace was built in their itinerary, making them the latest in a long line of admirers to gawk over the gem-set wonders stocked inside its aging wooden showcases.
Few retailers can claim Jackie Onassis, Bill Clinton, Mick Jagger, Nicole Kidman, Giorgio Armani, Countess Mountbatten of Burma and Diana, Princess of Wales as fans. Then again, few retailers offer visitors an opportunity to purchase baubles in an environment that recalls an era in which jewelry was valued above all other material possessions. Located in a centuries-old Jaipur building with a central courtyard and flat-roof terraces distinguished by Mughal-style minarets, Gem Palace is a veritable museum of Rajasthani craftsmanship, from the mustard-color block prints that blanket the walls, withered and peeling with age, to the carved silver elephants and jeweled objects d’art that litter the floor beneath the showcases, themselves brimming with antique and contemporary interpretations of traditional Indian motifs.
There are spectacular villandi, or Mughal-cut, diamond necklaces, the diamonds flat as cobblestones and almost as large; traditional bell earrings known as jhoomki strung with Burmese rubies, like tiny gem-set parasols; gold cuff lotus flower bracelets laced with pink and green tourmalines; 22-karat gold and diamond rings fashioned in the shape of parakeets, with colorless diamond briolettes swinging from their gilded beaks. The range of jewels includes the eccentric (a 32-piece gold and diamond chess set, anyone?) and the imperial (a Mughal turban ornament known as sarpech is set with pink and purple spinels and is as long as child’s forearm), but there’s a healthy selection of more affordable baubles in rose quartz, moonstone and other semi precious stones, sourced as rough from the hundreds of dealers who congregate inside the walls of the old city.
What’s more, the jewelry on display at Gem Palace is breathtaking down to the details hidden from view. Following the Hindu belief that the body sees what the eyes cannot, the back of Mannu’s creations bear extraordinary detailing, including delicate filigree work, diamond accents and vivid pastoral scenes rendered in red and green enamel, a style known as kundan meena. Gem Palace is also one of the chief practitioners of an ancient Indian gold working technique called kundan, in which precious stones are set into 24-karat gold with a core of lac, a natural resin, the inlay forming a shiny ribbon around each stone.
Beyond the sensory pleasures of touring Gem Palace lies the significant intellectual reward of seeing and touching historical evidence that connects the store to its magnificent home city, founded by ruler Jai Singh in 1727. The salon’s wooden chairs, carved from Burmese teak, look like they could have supported the backside of a Mughal King, and probably did. Against the wall, a stack of 100-year old, poster-size black-and-white prints depict the annual mystic extravaganza that is the Pushkar camel fair. Ornate silver trunks lined in red velvet store historic-gem-encrusted flasks originally crafted for the Singh dynasty. Such touches lend the store an antique atmosphere that belies the whirl of activity going on upstairs and at select location around Jaipur.
“We don’t outsource anything,” says Sudhir Kasliwal, as he leads a visitor through the warren of rooms that constitute the main selling floor. “We have our workers working in their homes for pieces. But everything is done by our staff. This is one place where we do everything, right from cutting and polishing stones to setting. That’s why we can design something and don’t have to look here and there for the stones. Instead, we cut our own.”
Gem Palace employs several thousand people, all under the direction of Munnu, a 49-year old artist whose flair with gemstones is such that London’s Gilbert Collection at Somerset House assembled 250 pieces of his work for a month long exhibition last fall. “Treasures from the Gem Palace” was the brainchild of Harry Fane, an authority on Cartier who grew close to the Kasliwal family over the course of numerous research visits to India.
“The show had 7400 visitors in one day while the Tiffany show across the way attracted 600, so you can see the amount of interest that people in Europe had in us,” Sudhir says, as he walks past a shiny 1912 Mercedes parked in back of the store, one of the numerous vintage cars that make up his personal collection.
Even among the private lives of Jaipur’s citizens, the past is perpetually present. When Jai Singh built this “Pink City”, known for the dusty pink stucco walls that surround the old quarter, he invited artisans from all over the country to move here, part of his campaign to make Jaipur India’s first planned city. Then, as now, the Johari Bazaar, or jeweler’s market, teemed with gem cutters and traders bartering for the best prices on colored stones.
That foundation helped cement Jaipur’s standing as the epicenter of the gemstone trade, a reputation that continues to this day. In the 2005-2006 fiscal year, India imported $110 million in rough colored stones and exported $235 million. Eighty to 90 percent of those gems filtered through Jaipur, says Gaurav Joshi, the assistant director of the Jaipur office of Gem & Jewellery Export Promotion Council, a quasi-governmental agency charged with promoting India’s gem and jewelry industry.
While emerald and tanzanite are processed in mass quantities here, so, too, are stones from all the corners of the gem world: moonstones from Sri Lanka, tsavorites from East Africa, tourmalines from Brazil, rubies from Burma. To the delight of jewelry connoisseurs the world over, Munnu uses all of them.
But those who can’t make the trek to India to peruse the selection are welcome to schedule a viewing in New York, where Gem Palace recently opened a by-appointment-only salon in a charming brownstone on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. The company—familiar to patrons of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Barneys, two venues that regularly sell Munnu’s jewels—chose New York for its first showroom outside of India to augment its fast-rising reputation, bolstered in recent months by fawning coverage in The New York Times, Robb Report and Time Style & Design, among other publications.
In addition to the increased international presence, Munnu’s work—now leaning toward a fusion of Art Deco and rose-cut diamond designs featuring his favorite stones, old Golconda diamonds—also appears in the Diamond Information Center’s new right-hand ring campaign. Women of the world, you know what to do.
Monday, May 07, 2007
On Beryllium Agreement
On March 14, 2007, representatives of the Thai Gem and Jewelry Traders Association (TGJTA) and Japan Jewelry Association (JJA) announced an agreement regarding the disclosure of beryllium (Be) treatments in corundum. Other signatories were the Thai Department of Export Promotion (DEP) of the Thai Ministry of Commerce; the Gem and Jewelry Institute of Thailand (GIT); and the Chanthaburi Gem and Jewelry Traders Association (CGA).
The memorandum states that exporters of loose corundum must disclose the treatment on invoices using the following terminology:
Non- Be-Treated
Be Treated
Unconfirmed Be Treatment
The memorandum states that exporters of loose corundum must disclose the treatment on invoices using the following terminology:
Non- Be-Treated
Be Treated
Unconfirmed Be Treatment
Get Shorty
Memorable quote (s) from the movie:
Chili Palmer (John Travolta): Leo, sit down. I don't know how you got this far, you're so fucking dumb. But you're through now, and let me explain why. Ray Bones is the man that you're dealing with now, and when Bones finds out what you did, he's gonna take everything, including the sporty little hat you got on your head. And then most likely he'll shoot you, so you won't tell on him. Now, I'm not gonna do that. I'm not gonna hurt you. Now you got three hundred and ten thousand in the bag here. I'm gonna take the three hundred thousand that you scammed from the airline, and then the ten that's left over, I'm gonna borrow from you and pay back at another time.
Leo (David Paymer): Wait, you take all my money, but you're borrowing part of it?
Chili Palmer (John Travolta): At eighteen percent. Now don't ask another fucking question, I'm leaving.
Chili Palmer (John Travolta): Leo, sit down. I don't know how you got this far, you're so fucking dumb. But you're through now, and let me explain why. Ray Bones is the man that you're dealing with now, and when Bones finds out what you did, he's gonna take everything, including the sporty little hat you got on your head. And then most likely he'll shoot you, so you won't tell on him. Now, I'm not gonna do that. I'm not gonna hurt you. Now you got three hundred and ten thousand in the bag here. I'm gonna take the three hundred thousand that you scammed from the airline, and then the ten that's left over, I'm gonna borrow from you and pay back at another time.
Leo (David Paymer): Wait, you take all my money, but you're borrowing part of it?
Chili Palmer (John Travolta): At eighteen percent. Now don't ask another fucking question, I'm leaving.
The Art Of Catching Early Signals On Threats and Opportunities
(via TNN, April 10, 2007) Neelima Mahajan writes:
Intel’s Andy Grove made paranoia fashionable way back in 1996. A few years back at a conference at the Wharton School of Business, Grove made a statement: “Snow melts at the edge,” he famously said. Those words struck a chord with Wharton professor George S Day, whose research is all about scanning the environment for potential opportunities and threats.
Says Day, "A snow bank always retreats at the edge because that’s where it is exposed the most.” It’s pretty much the same for organizations, he avers. There are enough weak signals at the periphery that most people choose to ignore. And that can make all the difference between success and failure.
Living on edge
But before we get into that, what does he mean by the ‘periphery’ or the edge? “It’s the blurred zone at the edge of the organization,” he says. To give an example, take an Indian company—say, one like Infosys—which is making moves in markets like Europe or the US. A weak signal from the periphery could mean that a sales manager in the US hears a rumor about a potential competitor in India.
But there are several problems with these signals. The first thing being that since they are weak anyway, it is hard for one to pick them up and understand their implications. Remember 9/11? After studying the tragedy, the 9/11 Commission said that they had all the data they needed to avert it, but they failed to connect the dots. “This is a consistent story with companies that miss an opportunity or are late to react to a threat,” says Day. “It’s not that they didn’t know about it, but that the information was scattered.”
The second problem is that weak signals are rarely brought to the notice of a leadership team. In his research with his colleague Paul J H Shoemaker which later culminated in a book titled Peripheral Vision, Day found that in almost all these cases, there were people in the organization or the network who knew about a past surprise, but the management didn’t know that they knew.” “The people didn’t realize that the management needed to know in the first place,” says Day.
Let’s take this American company that does a lot of work in advanced materials and has laboratories in Europe. Now Europe has regulation called Reduction of Hazardous Substances which impacts product design dramatically. “The European technologists knew all about this but just didn’t tell anyone in the US. When it came to design of a new generation project, they discovered that they do not comply with these new regulations,” says Day. They paid heavily for that: the company lost between $20 million to $30 million because they were late in picking up the signals.
Peripheral vision—or the lack of it—is an even more important issue in today’s globalized world. “Your potential competitors and markets are no longer regional or country level: they are global,” says Day. The communication revolution—especially the internet—also adds to this. “For instance, blogs are becoming a major source of customer information and complaints. With the development of new technology, markets are much more fragmentary and harder to understand,” says Day.
In a nutshell, peripheral vision is about scanning, interpreting and, most importantly, acting. Remember the low carb diet revolution in the US? The trend caught on like fire, lasted for a bit and then vanished. There were a clutch of companies that caught the trend early on and introduced products even before it had fully set in. But there were others who were less fortunate. “About 3000 new products were launched after the low carb diet started to decline in popularity. One particular company was ruined with losses in excess of $200 million. They did see the market early enough but they were late in capitalizing on it,” says Day.
The right filters
But clearly, just detecting weak signals is not enough. Because there are hundreds and millions of them, it is not worthwhile to focus on every blip, you see. “One of the things that people are concerned about is there is so much happening at the periphery that’s confusing and overwhelming,” says Day. “We don’t propose that you have to pay attention to each and every weak signal.”
Sure, it’s not easy: weak signals of threats and opportunities are pretty hard to distinguish in noise and clutter. “The best practice companies really look at the signals and then focus on a few key questions. They sculpt out where they are going to work,” says Day.
Take for instance, Medtronic, a company that makes pacemakers defibrillators. “It can always be at risk from drugs that could perform the same function as pacemakers. So they put together a taskforce of people that ask the same questions: what drug developments can impact our business? Once they get those weak signals, they can collect them, interpret them and be focused on them and then decide what to do,” says Day.
But for organizations that don’t have this capability, how can they go about developing it? It starts with the guys at the top, says Day. Vigilant leaders, as Day calls them, help put in place a warning system by encouraging people to talk to them.
Grove was very anxious that people in far-flung parts of the organization bring him their concerns. That’s not true of most other organizations,” says Day. Besides, they signal their commitment to this by continuously asking questions about the edge. They also encourage mavericks. “These are smart people who are not usually accepted by the organization because they are always challenging everything,” says Day.
Besides, by their very nature, such leaders are curious, imaginative and externally oriented. They go about seeking diverse viewpoints. “We as an industry spend too much time talking to mutual resources. So you go to the same trade meetings, read the same magazines. Vigilant leaders tend to have a much broader network and access to other parts of the environment,” says Day. “Such leaders are much better at figuring out uncertainity. They don’t avoid it. They work a lot at internalizing.”
Part of what such leaders do is that they provide a supportive climate. “They allow time for people to explore the periphery,” says Day. They do all sorts of things for that: like create a taskforce, create a small group to scan the environment, set up a council to look at the trends on a regular basis. So while a company like Medtronic creates taskforces focused on questions, others like IBM have a full time crows nest. In other words, some people sitting up in a crow’s nest high in a tree whose job is to continuously scan.
Yet other companies resort to scenario planning. All of us are familiar with Enron which was very successful in the late 1990s—and then went bust. Enron Federal Credit Union (Enron FCU is now called Star Federal Credit Union), which served Enron’s employees, was into scenario planning. Even before Enron’s collapse became imminent, they had explored several possible scenarios, including one called ‘starting over’, which meant that they would have to expand their member base. When the collapse happened, Enron FCU quickly sent out customized mails to reassure former and current Enron employees that their deposits were safe. Today Enron has vanished, yet Enron Credit Union is still going strong.
Clearly, the phrase ‘living on the edge’ seems to have acquired a whole new meaning.
Intel’s Andy Grove made paranoia fashionable way back in 1996. A few years back at a conference at the Wharton School of Business, Grove made a statement: “Snow melts at the edge,” he famously said. Those words struck a chord with Wharton professor George S Day, whose research is all about scanning the environment for potential opportunities and threats.
Says Day, "A snow bank always retreats at the edge because that’s where it is exposed the most.” It’s pretty much the same for organizations, he avers. There are enough weak signals at the periphery that most people choose to ignore. And that can make all the difference between success and failure.
Living on edge
But before we get into that, what does he mean by the ‘periphery’ or the edge? “It’s the blurred zone at the edge of the organization,” he says. To give an example, take an Indian company—say, one like Infosys—which is making moves in markets like Europe or the US. A weak signal from the periphery could mean that a sales manager in the US hears a rumor about a potential competitor in India.
But there are several problems with these signals. The first thing being that since they are weak anyway, it is hard for one to pick them up and understand their implications. Remember 9/11? After studying the tragedy, the 9/11 Commission said that they had all the data they needed to avert it, but they failed to connect the dots. “This is a consistent story with companies that miss an opportunity or are late to react to a threat,” says Day. “It’s not that they didn’t know about it, but that the information was scattered.”
The second problem is that weak signals are rarely brought to the notice of a leadership team. In his research with his colleague Paul J H Shoemaker which later culminated in a book titled Peripheral Vision, Day found that in almost all these cases, there were people in the organization or the network who knew about a past surprise, but the management didn’t know that they knew.” “The people didn’t realize that the management needed to know in the first place,” says Day.
Let’s take this American company that does a lot of work in advanced materials and has laboratories in Europe. Now Europe has regulation called Reduction of Hazardous Substances which impacts product design dramatically. “The European technologists knew all about this but just didn’t tell anyone in the US. When it came to design of a new generation project, they discovered that they do not comply with these new regulations,” says Day. They paid heavily for that: the company lost between $20 million to $30 million because they were late in picking up the signals.
Peripheral vision—or the lack of it—is an even more important issue in today’s globalized world. “Your potential competitors and markets are no longer regional or country level: they are global,” says Day. The communication revolution—especially the internet—also adds to this. “For instance, blogs are becoming a major source of customer information and complaints. With the development of new technology, markets are much more fragmentary and harder to understand,” says Day.
In a nutshell, peripheral vision is about scanning, interpreting and, most importantly, acting. Remember the low carb diet revolution in the US? The trend caught on like fire, lasted for a bit and then vanished. There were a clutch of companies that caught the trend early on and introduced products even before it had fully set in. But there were others who were less fortunate. “About 3000 new products were launched after the low carb diet started to decline in popularity. One particular company was ruined with losses in excess of $200 million. They did see the market early enough but they were late in capitalizing on it,” says Day.
The right filters
But clearly, just detecting weak signals is not enough. Because there are hundreds and millions of them, it is not worthwhile to focus on every blip, you see. “One of the things that people are concerned about is there is so much happening at the periphery that’s confusing and overwhelming,” says Day. “We don’t propose that you have to pay attention to each and every weak signal.”
Sure, it’s not easy: weak signals of threats and opportunities are pretty hard to distinguish in noise and clutter. “The best practice companies really look at the signals and then focus on a few key questions. They sculpt out where they are going to work,” says Day.
Take for instance, Medtronic, a company that makes pacemakers defibrillators. “It can always be at risk from drugs that could perform the same function as pacemakers. So they put together a taskforce of people that ask the same questions: what drug developments can impact our business? Once they get those weak signals, they can collect them, interpret them and be focused on them and then decide what to do,” says Day.
But for organizations that don’t have this capability, how can they go about developing it? It starts with the guys at the top, says Day. Vigilant leaders, as Day calls them, help put in place a warning system by encouraging people to talk to them.
Grove was very anxious that people in far-flung parts of the organization bring him their concerns. That’s not true of most other organizations,” says Day. Besides, they signal their commitment to this by continuously asking questions about the edge. They also encourage mavericks. “These are smart people who are not usually accepted by the organization because they are always challenging everything,” says Day.
Besides, by their very nature, such leaders are curious, imaginative and externally oriented. They go about seeking diverse viewpoints. “We as an industry spend too much time talking to mutual resources. So you go to the same trade meetings, read the same magazines. Vigilant leaders tend to have a much broader network and access to other parts of the environment,” says Day. “Such leaders are much better at figuring out uncertainity. They don’t avoid it. They work a lot at internalizing.”
Part of what such leaders do is that they provide a supportive climate. “They allow time for people to explore the periphery,” says Day. They do all sorts of things for that: like create a taskforce, create a small group to scan the environment, set up a council to look at the trends on a regular basis. So while a company like Medtronic creates taskforces focused on questions, others like IBM have a full time crows nest. In other words, some people sitting up in a crow’s nest high in a tree whose job is to continuously scan.
Yet other companies resort to scenario planning. All of us are familiar with Enron which was very successful in the late 1990s—and then went bust. Enron Federal Credit Union (Enron FCU is now called Star Federal Credit Union), which served Enron’s employees, was into scenario planning. Even before Enron’s collapse became imminent, they had explored several possible scenarios, including one called ‘starting over’, which meant that they would have to expand their member base. When the collapse happened, Enron FCU quickly sent out customized mails to reassure former and current Enron employees that their deposits were safe. Today Enron has vanished, yet Enron Credit Union is still going strong.
Clearly, the phrase ‘living on the edge’ seems to have acquired a whole new meaning.
Thinkers 50
(via Times of India, April 10, 2007)
Launched in 2001, the Thinkers 50 is the world’s first ranking of business and management gurus. In a run to 2007 rankings, TOI will exclusively run profiles of those in the fray. If you have an opinion on who should figure in the list, you can vote on http://www.thinkers50.com
Ranked 21 in last year’s Thinkers 50, Clayton Christensen is the Robert and Jane Cizik professor of business administration at Harvard Business School. His research and writing interests focus on managing technological innovation and locating new markets for leading-edge technologies. He is the author of the management classic The Innovator’s Dilemma. The crux of his argument was that disruptive new technologies could cause even well-established companies to fall. “The criteria that managers use to make the decisions that keep their present businesses healthy make it impossible for them to do the right thing for their future,” he says. Part of the reason for this blinkered view is that companies tend to focus on listening closely to their ‘lead’ customers that will help them in their current business. Unfortunately, that prevents them from foreseeing future challenges. “If you only blindly listen to the leading customers of the current set that you listen to then you won’t see innovations that will take root amongst the other set,” says Christensen.
After the runaway success of his first book, Christensen followed it up with a second book titled The Innovator’s Solution which looked at the other side: how companies can create disruptions rather than being destroyed by them. His most recent book, titled Seeing What’s Next, says it is possible to predict which companies will win and which will lose in a specific situation. The best tribute to Chistensen’s work came from Inc Magazine which said, “Just as kids await the latest Harry Potter installment, so do business leaders look for Clayton M Chistensen’s next offering.”
Launched in 2001, the Thinkers 50 is the world’s first ranking of business and management gurus. In a run to 2007 rankings, TOI will exclusively run profiles of those in the fray. If you have an opinion on who should figure in the list, you can vote on http://www.thinkers50.com
Ranked 21 in last year’s Thinkers 50, Clayton Christensen is the Robert and Jane Cizik professor of business administration at Harvard Business School. His research and writing interests focus on managing technological innovation and locating new markets for leading-edge technologies. He is the author of the management classic The Innovator’s Dilemma. The crux of his argument was that disruptive new technologies could cause even well-established companies to fall. “The criteria that managers use to make the decisions that keep their present businesses healthy make it impossible for them to do the right thing for their future,” he says. Part of the reason for this blinkered view is that companies tend to focus on listening closely to their ‘lead’ customers that will help them in their current business. Unfortunately, that prevents them from foreseeing future challenges. “If you only blindly listen to the leading customers of the current set that you listen to then you won’t see innovations that will take root amongst the other set,” says Christensen.
After the runaway success of his first book, Christensen followed it up with a second book titled The Innovator’s Solution which looked at the other side: how companies can create disruptions rather than being destroyed by them. His most recent book, titled Seeing What’s Next, says it is possible to predict which companies will win and which will lose in a specific situation. The best tribute to Chistensen’s work came from Inc Magazine which said, “Just as kids await the latest Harry Potter installment, so do business leaders look for Clayton M Chistensen’s next offering.”
A New Kind Of Love
Memorable quote (s) from the movie:
Steve Sherman (Paul Newman): Here's to all the bachelors in the world. May our tribe increase.
Harry (Marvin Kaplan): How?
Steve Sherman (Paul Newman): Automation.
Steve Sherman (Paul Newman): Here's to all the bachelors in the world. May our tribe increase.
Harry (Marvin Kaplan): How?
Steve Sherman (Paul Newman): Automation.
Angela Belcher: Bioengineer
(via Time, April 9, 2007) Michael D Lemonick writes:
Nano knowledge studying abalone shells led Belcher to batteries made of viruses. An M.I.T polymath uses genetic engineering to make a better car battery out of viruses.
The reason we aren’t all driving electric cars has little to do with a Detroit conspiracy. It’s that nobody has invented a lightweight, inexpensive battery that can store enough electricity to make such a vehicle practical.
If anyone can change that, it’s Angela Belcher. A materials scientist and bioengineer at M.I.T., Belcher, 49, won a MacArthur Foundation genius grant in 2004, and last fall Scientific American named her research leader of the year for her current project: creating an entirely new kind of battery, not by building it but by growing it. Working with several M.I.T colleagues, Belcher has engineered a virus, known as M13 bacteriophage, that latches onto and coats itself with bits of inorganic materials, including gold and cobalt oxide. That turns each long, tubular virus into what amounts to a minuscule length of wire. Coax these nanowires to line up, and you have the components of a battery that is far more compact and powerful than anything available.
If her battery works as a commercially viable product, that alone could qualify Belcher as a climate change hero, but her vision is green in other ways as well. Conventional batteries generate a lot of waste during manufacture, and they are a disposal nightmare. But a viral battery essentially grows itself, using water as a solvent, so there’s practically no waste. And since much of its relatively small bulk is organic, the battery is partly biodegradable.
Belcher has been tackling a whole new field of science every five years (so far, she has mastered materials science, biochemistry, molecular biology and electrical engineering). Considering her track record, the next thing she decides to study could well lead to yet another remarkable breakthrough.
Nano knowledge studying abalone shells led Belcher to batteries made of viruses. An M.I.T polymath uses genetic engineering to make a better car battery out of viruses.
The reason we aren’t all driving electric cars has little to do with a Detroit conspiracy. It’s that nobody has invented a lightweight, inexpensive battery that can store enough electricity to make such a vehicle practical.
If anyone can change that, it’s Angela Belcher. A materials scientist and bioengineer at M.I.T., Belcher, 49, won a MacArthur Foundation genius grant in 2004, and last fall Scientific American named her research leader of the year for her current project: creating an entirely new kind of battery, not by building it but by growing it. Working with several M.I.T colleagues, Belcher has engineered a virus, known as M13 bacteriophage, that latches onto and coats itself with bits of inorganic materials, including gold and cobalt oxide. That turns each long, tubular virus into what amounts to a minuscule length of wire. Coax these nanowires to line up, and you have the components of a battery that is far more compact and powerful than anything available.
If her battery works as a commercially viable product, that alone could qualify Belcher as a climate change hero, but her vision is green in other ways as well. Conventional batteries generate a lot of waste during manufacture, and they are a disposal nightmare. But a viral battery essentially grows itself, using water as a solvent, so there’s practically no waste. And since much of its relatively small bulk is organic, the battery is partly biodegradable.
Belcher has been tackling a whole new field of science every five years (so far, she has mastered materials science, biochemistry, molecular biology and electrical engineering). Considering her track record, the next thing she decides to study could well lead to yet another remarkable breakthrough.
The Gem Producing Potential Of Somaliland—A New Sri Lanka?
(via Gem & Jewellery News, Vol.8, No.4, September 1999) Judith Kinnaird writes:
My visit to Somaliland had not started well. I had arrived on an ECHO flight from Nairobi (EC Humanitarian Organization) and had landed in Hargeisa, the capital, along with about eight other people of assorted nationalities bound for a peace conference.
Unfortunately, the normal rota for the plane that day would have been for it to land in Berbera on the Gulf Coast, which was where my visa was waiting but, because of the conference delegates, that day it had come to the capital instead. A four hour delay then occurred at the airport whilst ‘Mr Fixit’, my mentor, was found. This gave me the opportunity to learn about the country from the various officials who felt it important to keep me company during my sojourn in the VIP lounge whilst visa formalities got sorted.
The discovery of gemstones in Somaliland and their subsequent extraction only began in 1990. The widespread distribution and broad range of gemstones available makes it all the more surprising that gemstones have come to light so recently. My visit to Somaliland had been arranged to consider the small scale mining potential in the country as part of an EC programme to investigate the sustainable exploitation of natural resources. The gemological potential may provide an important income generation in a country where many will earn only $10 per month, not necessarily because of their primitive state, but more as a consequence of a bruising civil war.
Difficulties
Visits to various gemstone producing areas proved quite difficult as many of them are only reached by tracks little better than the bed of dried up stream, resulting in bone-shaking journeys which might take five hours to do 50 miles. Also, the Ministry of Water and Minerals did not want me to visit any private sector producers without being accompanied by a person from the Ministry, and groups in the private sector showed considerable reluctance to accept a Ministry representative since most had not paid for a license for mineral working. Eventually, most of the initial problems were solved and I traveled extensively round the country, particularly in the north east from Sheikh to Berbera on the coast where the temperature was in excess of 40°C (and that was in the winter) and Borama in the west, which is the center for emerald production.
Numerous varieties
Once people knew that I was interested in gemstones everywhere I went I was inundated by collectors and traders who wanted to sell me their goods. Among more than forty different mineral species produced, were a variety of gemstones varying from emerald, ruby, sapphire, and aquamarine, to minerals like garnet and amethyst, some of which were of considerable size and excellent color. Other gems like phenakite, alexandrite and heliodor were reported though not seen, and it was unwise to place too reliance on local gem identification. This is not due to unscrupulous behavior on the part of most producers and traders, rather a lack of knowledge as they begin to learn to identify gemstones.
Thus of occurrences reported as tanzanite, one turned out to be of purple fluorite the other purple of vesuvianite. Similarly, one locality believed to produce emerald, whilst right in the middle of rich pegmatite belt, was found to contain bright green quartz colored by secondary copper minerals between the quartz crystals. Green epidote and diopside are frequently thought to be tourmaline or peridot.
One group told me they were working green garnet. Although the rocks were of the right composition for potential finds of green garnet, the mineral they thought was green garnet was largely epidote, although scapolite, green amphibole and orange hessonite garnets also occurred, and we did indeed succeed in finding one tiny green garnet. Despite the disappointment of sometimes having to tell people that the minerals they were mining were worthless, there were some localities with exciting potential. In one area, the mineral believed to be tourmaline was in fact epidote, although it was accompanied by blue zoisite which, if found in sufficiently large pieces could have some value.
In conversation with a very impressive lawyer in Hargeisa, I was told that gemstones are also being produced in the Bossaso area on the coast in the far northeast, which is consistent with the geology shown on the geological map of Somalia. He also maintained that the gemstones which are appearing from Garowe to the east have been robbed from ancient graves dating back as far as the civilizations of Egypt. He also believed that some of the gemstones referred to in the bible had their origin in Somaliland.
Diamonds
Unfortunately there is a widespread belief among the people of Somaliland that there is an abundance of diamonds in the country. This is based on the mis-identification of quartz by a few locals and traders. These men have ‘diamond testers’ which they believe distinguish diamonds from other stones on account of its hardness. The testers being used are the sort that are specifically designed to distinguish diamonds set in jewelry and were made to show a hardness of ten for quartz crystals, whilst some minerals were shown to have a hardness of anything up to 12. The commonly occurring concentrations of small quartz crystals are called ‘sugar diamonds’ by these traders.
On one occasion, following an afternoon studying an extensive outcrop of water clear rock crystal near the Dabail Weina (a locality from which 200 tons of piezo-electric quartz had been extracted from a 5m deep trench during 1977-78), my driver, myself and guide were arrested and taken to prison, because the locals had reported we had stolen their diamonds. Fortunately, a permit from the Ministry of Minerals, which stated that we were on government business was reluctantly accepted.
The miners
Some groups of gem producers gem producers comprise half-a-dozen men, while others are moderately well-organized with more than twenty workers. Typically all the groups are extracting gemstones from hard rock with the minimum of tools. In addition, one group near Heinweina had no camping equipment, yet they stayed on the mountain for four or five nights at a time because their aquamarine mine is 8 km from the village and more than 500 m up in rough mountainous terrain. All groups face the same problems of lack of equipment, lack of access to overseas markets, lack of capital to travel to foreign gem trade fairs, lack of any central display and exhibition center to attract the attention of the many foreign visitors to the country, lack of knowledge on relevant mining equipment and how to use it, and often the most basic problems of difficulty of identification of even the common minerals.
Buying gems
Gems for sale are not readily obtained, and it is necessary to become acquainted with producers on a personal basis to get good material, although the Somalis are currently in the process of setting up a gemological association in the capital Hargeisa. Once this association has been established it will form a focus for the collection and trading of gemstones and mineral specimens. I did visit one authorized dealer of gemstones in Hargeisa who buys stones from producers and says he also owns a gold prospect. He had a variety of minerals on display, most of which were of dubious quality. He also tried to persuade me to buy some mercury which he says is ‘dripping out of rocks’ in an unspecified locality. Later my mentor suggested that it is more likely from Russian missiles which are remnants of the war.
Among the more enterprising businessmen, one young man showed me more than a hundred Somalia gemstones cut in Ethiopia, for which he paid $1500. Among these stones were some extremely handsome dark purple amethysts, a large cabochon of orange opal, numerous small red garnets, some green chrysoberyl, colorless spinel or zircon, deep red ruby and an occasional sapphire, but no emerald. He said he intended to take these as a display collection to the Far East to generate interest in trading of raw uncut gemstones.
Important deposits
Amazingly, despite their long history, I was told that they have only had a written language in Somaliland since 1972. The country has a population of 1.1 million people, half of them nomadic pastoralists, and the main economy of the country is based on the export of around three million head of camels, cattle, sheep and goats from Berbera. The animals come from all over the region, including Ethiopia, making their way for hundreds of miles, grazing as they go. But agriculture cannot sustain the development of the country and if a legalized gemstone production can be established it will go some way to providing much needed foreign income.
If the continental configuration was reconstructed around 500 million years ago (the time when the Pan African pegmatites were formed, the source of many of the gemstones) then Sri Lanka and Madagascar, which at that time were part of African landmass, lie in the same geological belt of rocks that extend from Somaliland to southern Africa—the Mozambique Belt.
The diversity of gemstones that are coming to light suggest that some excellent material could become available and that with development Somaliland could be an important world producer.
My visit to Somaliland had not started well. I had arrived on an ECHO flight from Nairobi (EC Humanitarian Organization) and had landed in Hargeisa, the capital, along with about eight other people of assorted nationalities bound for a peace conference.
Unfortunately, the normal rota for the plane that day would have been for it to land in Berbera on the Gulf Coast, which was where my visa was waiting but, because of the conference delegates, that day it had come to the capital instead. A four hour delay then occurred at the airport whilst ‘Mr Fixit’, my mentor, was found. This gave me the opportunity to learn about the country from the various officials who felt it important to keep me company during my sojourn in the VIP lounge whilst visa formalities got sorted.
The discovery of gemstones in Somaliland and their subsequent extraction only began in 1990. The widespread distribution and broad range of gemstones available makes it all the more surprising that gemstones have come to light so recently. My visit to Somaliland had been arranged to consider the small scale mining potential in the country as part of an EC programme to investigate the sustainable exploitation of natural resources. The gemological potential may provide an important income generation in a country where many will earn only $10 per month, not necessarily because of their primitive state, but more as a consequence of a bruising civil war.
Difficulties
Visits to various gemstone producing areas proved quite difficult as many of them are only reached by tracks little better than the bed of dried up stream, resulting in bone-shaking journeys which might take five hours to do 50 miles. Also, the Ministry of Water and Minerals did not want me to visit any private sector producers without being accompanied by a person from the Ministry, and groups in the private sector showed considerable reluctance to accept a Ministry representative since most had not paid for a license for mineral working. Eventually, most of the initial problems were solved and I traveled extensively round the country, particularly in the north east from Sheikh to Berbera on the coast where the temperature was in excess of 40°C (and that was in the winter) and Borama in the west, which is the center for emerald production.
Numerous varieties
Once people knew that I was interested in gemstones everywhere I went I was inundated by collectors and traders who wanted to sell me their goods. Among more than forty different mineral species produced, were a variety of gemstones varying from emerald, ruby, sapphire, and aquamarine, to minerals like garnet and amethyst, some of which were of considerable size and excellent color. Other gems like phenakite, alexandrite and heliodor were reported though not seen, and it was unwise to place too reliance on local gem identification. This is not due to unscrupulous behavior on the part of most producers and traders, rather a lack of knowledge as they begin to learn to identify gemstones.
Thus of occurrences reported as tanzanite, one turned out to be of purple fluorite the other purple of vesuvianite. Similarly, one locality believed to produce emerald, whilst right in the middle of rich pegmatite belt, was found to contain bright green quartz colored by secondary copper minerals between the quartz crystals. Green epidote and diopside are frequently thought to be tourmaline or peridot.
One group told me they were working green garnet. Although the rocks were of the right composition for potential finds of green garnet, the mineral they thought was green garnet was largely epidote, although scapolite, green amphibole and orange hessonite garnets also occurred, and we did indeed succeed in finding one tiny green garnet. Despite the disappointment of sometimes having to tell people that the minerals they were mining were worthless, there were some localities with exciting potential. In one area, the mineral believed to be tourmaline was in fact epidote, although it was accompanied by blue zoisite which, if found in sufficiently large pieces could have some value.
In conversation with a very impressive lawyer in Hargeisa, I was told that gemstones are also being produced in the Bossaso area on the coast in the far northeast, which is consistent with the geology shown on the geological map of Somalia. He also maintained that the gemstones which are appearing from Garowe to the east have been robbed from ancient graves dating back as far as the civilizations of Egypt. He also believed that some of the gemstones referred to in the bible had their origin in Somaliland.
Diamonds
Unfortunately there is a widespread belief among the people of Somaliland that there is an abundance of diamonds in the country. This is based on the mis-identification of quartz by a few locals and traders. These men have ‘diamond testers’ which they believe distinguish diamonds from other stones on account of its hardness. The testers being used are the sort that are specifically designed to distinguish diamonds set in jewelry and were made to show a hardness of ten for quartz crystals, whilst some minerals were shown to have a hardness of anything up to 12. The commonly occurring concentrations of small quartz crystals are called ‘sugar diamonds’ by these traders.
On one occasion, following an afternoon studying an extensive outcrop of water clear rock crystal near the Dabail Weina (a locality from which 200 tons of piezo-electric quartz had been extracted from a 5m deep trench during 1977-78), my driver, myself and guide were arrested and taken to prison, because the locals had reported we had stolen their diamonds. Fortunately, a permit from the Ministry of Minerals, which stated that we were on government business was reluctantly accepted.
The miners
Some groups of gem producers gem producers comprise half-a-dozen men, while others are moderately well-organized with more than twenty workers. Typically all the groups are extracting gemstones from hard rock with the minimum of tools. In addition, one group near Heinweina had no camping equipment, yet they stayed on the mountain for four or five nights at a time because their aquamarine mine is 8 km from the village and more than 500 m up in rough mountainous terrain. All groups face the same problems of lack of equipment, lack of access to overseas markets, lack of capital to travel to foreign gem trade fairs, lack of any central display and exhibition center to attract the attention of the many foreign visitors to the country, lack of knowledge on relevant mining equipment and how to use it, and often the most basic problems of difficulty of identification of even the common minerals.
Buying gems
Gems for sale are not readily obtained, and it is necessary to become acquainted with producers on a personal basis to get good material, although the Somalis are currently in the process of setting up a gemological association in the capital Hargeisa. Once this association has been established it will form a focus for the collection and trading of gemstones and mineral specimens. I did visit one authorized dealer of gemstones in Hargeisa who buys stones from producers and says he also owns a gold prospect. He had a variety of minerals on display, most of which were of dubious quality. He also tried to persuade me to buy some mercury which he says is ‘dripping out of rocks’ in an unspecified locality. Later my mentor suggested that it is more likely from Russian missiles which are remnants of the war.
Among the more enterprising businessmen, one young man showed me more than a hundred Somalia gemstones cut in Ethiopia, for which he paid $1500. Among these stones were some extremely handsome dark purple amethysts, a large cabochon of orange opal, numerous small red garnets, some green chrysoberyl, colorless spinel or zircon, deep red ruby and an occasional sapphire, but no emerald. He said he intended to take these as a display collection to the Far East to generate interest in trading of raw uncut gemstones.
Important deposits
Amazingly, despite their long history, I was told that they have only had a written language in Somaliland since 1972. The country has a population of 1.1 million people, half of them nomadic pastoralists, and the main economy of the country is based on the export of around three million head of camels, cattle, sheep and goats from Berbera. The animals come from all over the region, including Ethiopia, making their way for hundreds of miles, grazing as they go. But agriculture cannot sustain the development of the country and if a legalized gemstone production can be established it will go some way to providing much needed foreign income.
If the continental configuration was reconstructed around 500 million years ago (the time when the Pan African pegmatites were formed, the source of many of the gemstones) then Sri Lanka and Madagascar, which at that time were part of African landmass, lie in the same geological belt of rocks that extend from Somaliland to southern Africa—the Mozambique Belt.
The diversity of gemstones that are coming to light suggest that some excellent material could become available and that with development Somaliland could be an important world producer.
Saturday, May 05, 2007
The Road To Hong Kong
Memorable quote (s) from the movie:
Harry Turner (Bing Crosby): Chester, I give you my solemn word. This time it's not dangerous.
Chester Babcock (Bob Hope): Not dangerous?
Harry Turner (Bing Crosby): No.
Chester Babcock (Bob Hope): That's what 'cha said when you shot me out of a cannon, when you dropped me in a tank with an octopus, when you had me wrestle a gorilla. It's not dangerous! I'm not goin'. I'm through. I've had it. So forget it, Charly!
Harry Turner (Bing Crosby): Chester, I give you my solemn word. This time it's not dangerous.
Chester Babcock (Bob Hope): Not dangerous?
Harry Turner (Bing Crosby): No.
Chester Babcock (Bob Hope): That's what 'cha said when you shot me out of a cannon, when you dropped me in a tank with an octopus, when you had me wrestle a gorilla. It's not dangerous! I'm not goin'. I'm through. I've had it. So forget it, Charly!
India: 5th Largest Consumer By 2025
(via Times News Network) Irshad Daftari writes:
The elephant has begun dancing and is now set to take wings. India’s much-touted middle-class will soon embark on a consuming spree that is set to make the country the fifth-largest consuming economy behind US, Japan, China and the UK by 2025.
According to a report by McKinsey Global Institute (MGI) titled The Bird of Gold: The Rise of India’s Consumer Market, India is set for a consumption boom, with aggregate consumption (private and government consumption) increasing more than four times to Rs 70,00,000 crore (approximately $1.5 trillion) from Rs 15,00,000 crore currently.
Further, the report states, if purchasing power parity (PPP) was used as a benchmark India’s aggregate consumption will stand at $8.2 trillion, making it larger than the current US consumption at $7.8 trillion. A significant aspect of a broadly middle-class economy is that it fundamentally changes the political dynamics.
“The political power structure will change as it has happened all over the world when economies have become middle-class,” says Adil Zainulbhai, MD, McKinsey, India. For a 20-year forecast, MGI has assumed that land reforms and urban and rural infrastructure investments will continue, or at least not be rolled back.
Says Mr Zainulbhai, “Our studies show that it takes nearly 15 years for reforms to fundamentally change the economy. China, for instance, took off in the mid-90s after beginning reforms in the late 70s. Some of the heavy lifting in terms of reforms has already been done and it won’t require sweeping changes at this speed.”
Further, the middle-class, which has broadly been defined as households earning between Rs. 2 lakh to Rs 10 lakh per annum, will grow to 583 million from just 50 million today. To put that figure into perspective, the middle-class would form the third-largest country by itself in terms of population, and nearly twice the current population of the United States. The average household income will rise from Rs 113,744 in 2005 to Rs 318,896 in 2025, growing 5.3% annually.
While that might seem a pittance in dollar terms at just under $7600, it works out to nearly $40,000 in terms of purchasing power parity, comfortable by most standards. Nearly 291 million people will move out of the lowest consuming class, earning less than Rs 90,000 per annum, to a middle class lifestyle.
More info @
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/India_5th_largest_consumer_by_2025/articleshow/1999742.cms
The elephant has begun dancing and is now set to take wings. India’s much-touted middle-class will soon embark on a consuming spree that is set to make the country the fifth-largest consuming economy behind US, Japan, China and the UK by 2025.
According to a report by McKinsey Global Institute (MGI) titled The Bird of Gold: The Rise of India’s Consumer Market, India is set for a consumption boom, with aggregate consumption (private and government consumption) increasing more than four times to Rs 70,00,000 crore (approximately $1.5 trillion) from Rs 15,00,000 crore currently.
Further, the report states, if purchasing power parity (PPP) was used as a benchmark India’s aggregate consumption will stand at $8.2 trillion, making it larger than the current US consumption at $7.8 trillion. A significant aspect of a broadly middle-class economy is that it fundamentally changes the political dynamics.
“The political power structure will change as it has happened all over the world when economies have become middle-class,” says Adil Zainulbhai, MD, McKinsey, India. For a 20-year forecast, MGI has assumed that land reforms and urban and rural infrastructure investments will continue, or at least not be rolled back.
Says Mr Zainulbhai, “Our studies show that it takes nearly 15 years for reforms to fundamentally change the economy. China, for instance, took off in the mid-90s after beginning reforms in the late 70s. Some of the heavy lifting in terms of reforms has already been done and it won’t require sweeping changes at this speed.”
Further, the middle-class, which has broadly been defined as households earning between Rs. 2 lakh to Rs 10 lakh per annum, will grow to 583 million from just 50 million today. To put that figure into perspective, the middle-class would form the third-largest country by itself in terms of population, and nearly twice the current population of the United States. The average household income will rise from Rs 113,744 in 2005 to Rs 318,896 in 2025, growing 5.3% annually.
While that might seem a pittance in dollar terms at just under $7600, it works out to nearly $40,000 in terms of purchasing power parity, comfortable by most standards. Nearly 291 million people will move out of the lowest consuming class, earning less than Rs 90,000 per annum, to a middle class lifestyle.
More info @
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/India_5th_largest_consumer_by_2025/articleshow/1999742.cms
Gem Scams—Where Are They Leading?
(via Gem & Jewellery News, Vol.9, No.1, December 1999) Harry Levy writes:
Since man first discovered the beauty of gems and pearls, and found he could find favor in the eyes of women by giving these as gifts, he has been faking it. He has been filling in the cracks in stones, oiling and staining them, bleaching pearls and waxing turquoise and lapis, anything to improve their appearance.
The discovery of glass was god send to such people and much ancient jewelry is found to be adorned with glass. These were cut to resemble gems and many were undoubtedly sold as gems to the rich and famous. It seems inconceivable that any royal person would have bought a piece of cut glass, but I have seen royal collections of loose stones containing many glass imitations.
When one buys a beautiful Georgian antique piece of jewelry everyone in the trade assumes that the gems could be foiled. Pale stones are cut in closed settings over a layer of colored silver foil to intensify the colors of the stones. I wonder how many of the original owners knew or where found that the stones were foiled and not valuable as they seemed at the time.
Traffic lights
Selling glass as gems is still practiced today. One amusing story (although not so amusing to the victims) is that often one sees smashed traffic lights in gem producing and gem cutting centers. The police eventually discovered why they were being smashed when they caught people selling broken pieces as ‘rough emeralds and rubies’ to the tourists.
Gem scams take many forms. The most obvious one is to sell a fake—a piece of glass or plastic—as real gem. A less obvious method is to sell a synthetic stone (one that has all the chemical and physical characteristics of its natural counterpart) as a natural gem, or to sell a genuine stone at a highly inflated price or to try to sell it as another type of stone. In this last category yellow quartz was marketed as ‘topaz’ confusing the unwary—the practice became so common that the trade introduced the term ‘topaz-citrine’ as being more truthful than simply ‘topaz’ for the yellow quartz. The correct description is yellow quartz or citrine, but never topaz with or without qualifying terms. To sell genuine topaz, the trade now uses terms such as ‘real topaz’ or ‘precious topaz’.
Iolite was sold as ‘water sapphire’ making the unwary think they were buying a variety of blue sapphire—not realizing they were buying a much softer and cheaper stone. Rubellite is used for a variety of red tourmaline to confuse the unsuspecting into thinking that is a variety of ruby. White stones have been sold as diamantine, CZ-diamond, diamonair and so on, again making the buyer think he is buying a type of diamond.
Synthetics
Colored synthetics are often sold as genuine gems, one of the most popular being the synthetic color change corundum imitating alexandrite. We often get calls from jewelers claiming that their client has a large alexandrite and they think it might be worth a lot of money. A good 1 carat alexandrite can fetch up to $10000 in the trade, and stones of 5 carat and above can run into hundred of thousands of dollars. So when we are told that the stone in question is large and very clean, we ask if it is 12mm or 15mm round, or 16 x 12 oval or octagonal. They are surprised when we can quote the size over the phone without seeing the stone. This is because the stones are synthetic and are cut in the calibrated ring sizes—worth but a few pounds. Their customer often insists that they are real stones bought in the markets in Alexandria.
Synthetic alexandrite is now available originating from Russia and being offered for sale in Sri Lanka and Brazil as a genuine alexandrite. Many in the trade are fooled by such stones as the color change and appearance is far more convincing than the synthetic corundum counterpart.
Mixed parcels
Itinerant dealers coming to London from the Far and Exotic East, show parcels of rubies and sapphires. Whilst the majority is real, the best few stones in the parcel are often synthetics. One does not know whether the dealers are doping the parcels or if they are duped themselves when they acquired the goods. Such stones circulating in the upper echelons of the trade are hard to spot, as the rubies are heated to reduce the visible zoning and curved lines, while sapphires are cut from the top parts of the boules to give striation of color and patches of blue resembling genuine Ceylon stones.
Usually one thinks that synthetics will generally be used as a substitute for expensive stones. Several years ago a dealer from the sub-continent came into my office with a parcel of cheap rubies calibrated into 9 x 7mm and 10 x 8mm ovals. They were reddish pink color, somewhat opaque and roughly polished. One often sees such goods, but only up to size of 7 x 5mm. The stones seemed cheap for their size. It was perhaps experience and instinct that made me look again before buying. I then realized that they were synthetic rubies; they had been heated and cooled rapidly to produce a cracking effect and then tumbled to rub the surface and produce the effect one sees in cheap Burma rubies. The seller claimed he knew nothing about the origin of the stones and had been given them by an ‘uncle’ to sell in Europe.
One can see other dealers coming in from that part of the world with cheap native cut stones. Sometimes there may be a parcel of, say, larger cut peridots. The price looks tempting until one looks again to discover that they are peridot color glass—native cut to resemble natural stones.
Genuine stones at inflated prices
The most common gem scam nowadays is to sell genuine stones, but at highly inflated prices. The stones may be in transparent sealed boxes, or loose, nearly always accompanied by a certificate. The certificate purports to come from a gemological institution or a government body with titles such as the “The State Gem Corporation’. The certificate will give accurate measurements of the stone, its weight and a statement to the effect that it is a real or genuine stone such as a ruby or sapphire, and sometimes the origin of the stone. Always these statements will be true. In some cases there will be a grading with words such as ‘fine’, ‘high quality’, etc. Potential buyers are targeted by researching credit card companies to find high spenders. They are approached through telephone calls or enticing literature offering a portfolio of stones with copies of the certificates, literature about the uniqueness and beauty of gemstones and graphs showing steep growth of prices over the past few years. These are often accompanied by promises, usually verbal, of buy-back opportunities as the value of the stones increases.
To add insult to injury, such buyers will still in their state of euphoria at the bargains they have purchased, and again approached by their sellers, with good news that they have found a buyer for their investment earning them a very healthy profit. The only condition is that the new buyer needs another stone to complete the portfolio before the deal can be completed. They promise to try to locate such a stone as they sold one to another investor in his portfolio and hope they can persuade him to sell. They of course come back with good news that he can purchase this stone and this stage of the negotiations the ‘profit’ shown on his portfolio will more than pay for the additional stone, but after paying for taking delivery the deal is never realized. But the consolation to the investor is that they shown him his stones are now worth much more than he paid for them originally and in a short time they will find another buyer and by then his stones will be worth even more.
Shamefaced
Whenever such stones are offered for sale by the ‘investors’ they say that they think they overpaid for the stone but would like to recoup their money or the best they can get. They are often prepared to take a small loss. Invariably such stones seem to be overvalued by a factor of ten, i.e. a $1000 stone is worth $100 in the trade. The owners are often shamefaced to state the true price they paid, but are shocked when they learn the true value. There is often an element of disbelief at the price they are told and it is only by being sent to several offices and shops that they actually realize the extent to which they have been overcharged.
All such stones I have seen would not be called ‘fine’ and are often difficult to sell even it at the correct market value. They usually are stones which have some defect, be it even in size or shape that makes them unsuitable for jewelry.
At the other end of the scale, captive audiences, such as those on cruise, are told that they have won a gemstone—usually a garnet or topaz. It is again accompanied by a certificate extolling its beauty and value. To make the win truly memorable they will have to pay a small amount—usually tens of pounds or dollars—to have the stone set in a ring or pendant. The ‘sting’ is in the amount they pay for mounting and setting of this stone; they could in many cases buy a similar article in their local High Street jewelers at a much cheaper price.
Moissanite
The latest masquerader is moissanite. No suggestion is made that those who are selling it are involved in any sort of scam. The producers, while they control the rough, have set their price and the prices their agents should charge and as long as these conditions prevail there will be a stability—and possibly increases—in the price. You may remember that when CZ first appeared
Large department stores often set aside a whole section for the sale of CZ jewelry. The stones often came with certificates, and grading reports were issued for the larger stones. They sold in the hundreds rather than the ten of dollars or pounds, whereas today a 6.5mm CZ (one carat diamond spread) sells for a few pence in the trade.
There are already rumors that moissanite is being manufactured in Eastern Europe and China where patents are hard to enforce. As the supply increases, so the prices will tumble. But in the case of moissanite the scam will come not from the producers or the jewelers—they will disclose it for what it is, a synthetic stone—but from the spouse or lover. With all the media publicity he can at last buy a ring with a stone that few can distinguish from a diamond. He will present his beloved the ‘diamond’ ring he always wanted to give her but could not afford. It will be years later, well into next millennium, when this jewelry will come back on the market by widowed spouses (or as family heirlooms) as authentic diamond jewelry. By then, hopefully, all jewelers will be able to spot a moissanite as being different from a diamond. They could then be accused, as the harbingers of bad tidings, of having cheated the original buyer by selling him a synthetic moissanite as a real diamond. The real culprit would not the actual jeweler in such a case but would bring the trade into disrepute.
I have not covered all the scams but jewelers and tourists who seek bargains from the gem cutting centers are often surprised that what they have bought may not sell at a profit back home. And this brings me round to the disclosure dispute—are we all committing a scam when we do not make the appropriate disclosure when selling a gemstone—by withholding information we are letting the buyer believe that the stone he is purchasing is not what it appears to be?
Disclosure
A thought that has bothered me for many years, as I have debated and presided over meetings devoted to disclosure of gemstone treatments and enhancements, that I as a dealer do not treat—sorry, handle—all my stones in the same way. My expensive emerald and ruby is carefully handled, placed in a special safe, unwrapped carefully, perhaps insured separately, while my small third-rate emeralds and rubies are put together with no cotton wool so that they rub and scratch each other. I have no second thoughts if I leave them out of the safe, for after all they are worth a few pence or at most a few pounds each. Yet when it comes to disclosure I have to apply the same rules to them as I apply to my truly precious gems. There is no disclosure problem with costume jewelry and this lower popular end of the trade now has many resemblances to the costume jewelry trade—people buy it for themselves, they are not given to them as gifts. They are worn a few times then thrown to the back of the drawer and forgotten—almost for ever. Should the stones in such jewelry be subjected to the same strictures of disclosure?
I do not know how I can draw a demarcation line but with the proliferation of jewelry set with cheap gemstones, often treated or synthetic, and the sale of such jewelry moving away from the traditional outlets such as jewelry shops into supermarkets and market stalls, should they become exempt from the need for disclosure? After all, who really cares if a 2mm round emerald selling in a ring for a few pounds has been oiled or resined or infilled with a colored substitute? Yet the trade can suffer prosecution every time this article is sold if the full facts have not been disclosed.
What for the future?
I mentioned the millennium a little earlier. It would be interesting if the trade could set up a panel to come up with their projection of the jewelry trade in, say, a hundred years time. With the advent of synthetics and ever improving treatments, I think a large part of jewelry will be sold for its appearance rather than its value. The traditional jeweler will move up market and hopefully those who buy the cheap items will develop a taste and move on to the more expensive individual jewelry where they will want to know exactly what they are buying.
Since man first discovered the beauty of gems and pearls, and found he could find favor in the eyes of women by giving these as gifts, he has been faking it. He has been filling in the cracks in stones, oiling and staining them, bleaching pearls and waxing turquoise and lapis, anything to improve their appearance.
The discovery of glass was god send to such people and much ancient jewelry is found to be adorned with glass. These were cut to resemble gems and many were undoubtedly sold as gems to the rich and famous. It seems inconceivable that any royal person would have bought a piece of cut glass, but I have seen royal collections of loose stones containing many glass imitations.
When one buys a beautiful Georgian antique piece of jewelry everyone in the trade assumes that the gems could be foiled. Pale stones are cut in closed settings over a layer of colored silver foil to intensify the colors of the stones. I wonder how many of the original owners knew or where found that the stones were foiled and not valuable as they seemed at the time.
Traffic lights
Selling glass as gems is still practiced today. One amusing story (although not so amusing to the victims) is that often one sees smashed traffic lights in gem producing and gem cutting centers. The police eventually discovered why they were being smashed when they caught people selling broken pieces as ‘rough emeralds and rubies’ to the tourists.
Gem scams take many forms. The most obvious one is to sell a fake—a piece of glass or plastic—as real gem. A less obvious method is to sell a synthetic stone (one that has all the chemical and physical characteristics of its natural counterpart) as a natural gem, or to sell a genuine stone at a highly inflated price or to try to sell it as another type of stone. In this last category yellow quartz was marketed as ‘topaz’ confusing the unwary—the practice became so common that the trade introduced the term ‘topaz-citrine’ as being more truthful than simply ‘topaz’ for the yellow quartz. The correct description is yellow quartz or citrine, but never topaz with or without qualifying terms. To sell genuine topaz, the trade now uses terms such as ‘real topaz’ or ‘precious topaz’.
Iolite was sold as ‘water sapphire’ making the unwary think they were buying a variety of blue sapphire—not realizing they were buying a much softer and cheaper stone. Rubellite is used for a variety of red tourmaline to confuse the unsuspecting into thinking that is a variety of ruby. White stones have been sold as diamantine, CZ-diamond, diamonair and so on, again making the buyer think he is buying a type of diamond.
Synthetics
Colored synthetics are often sold as genuine gems, one of the most popular being the synthetic color change corundum imitating alexandrite. We often get calls from jewelers claiming that their client has a large alexandrite and they think it might be worth a lot of money. A good 1 carat alexandrite can fetch up to $10000 in the trade, and stones of 5 carat and above can run into hundred of thousands of dollars. So when we are told that the stone in question is large and very clean, we ask if it is 12mm or 15mm round, or 16 x 12 oval or octagonal. They are surprised when we can quote the size over the phone without seeing the stone. This is because the stones are synthetic and are cut in the calibrated ring sizes—worth but a few pounds. Their customer often insists that they are real stones bought in the markets in Alexandria.
Synthetic alexandrite is now available originating from Russia and being offered for sale in Sri Lanka and Brazil as a genuine alexandrite. Many in the trade are fooled by such stones as the color change and appearance is far more convincing than the synthetic corundum counterpart.
Mixed parcels
Itinerant dealers coming to London from the Far and Exotic East, show parcels of rubies and sapphires. Whilst the majority is real, the best few stones in the parcel are often synthetics. One does not know whether the dealers are doping the parcels or if they are duped themselves when they acquired the goods. Such stones circulating in the upper echelons of the trade are hard to spot, as the rubies are heated to reduce the visible zoning and curved lines, while sapphires are cut from the top parts of the boules to give striation of color and patches of blue resembling genuine Ceylon stones.
Usually one thinks that synthetics will generally be used as a substitute for expensive stones. Several years ago a dealer from the sub-continent came into my office with a parcel of cheap rubies calibrated into 9 x 7mm and 10 x 8mm ovals. They were reddish pink color, somewhat opaque and roughly polished. One often sees such goods, but only up to size of 7 x 5mm. The stones seemed cheap for their size. It was perhaps experience and instinct that made me look again before buying. I then realized that they were synthetic rubies; they had been heated and cooled rapidly to produce a cracking effect and then tumbled to rub the surface and produce the effect one sees in cheap Burma rubies. The seller claimed he knew nothing about the origin of the stones and had been given them by an ‘uncle’ to sell in Europe.
One can see other dealers coming in from that part of the world with cheap native cut stones. Sometimes there may be a parcel of, say, larger cut peridots. The price looks tempting until one looks again to discover that they are peridot color glass—native cut to resemble natural stones.
Genuine stones at inflated prices
The most common gem scam nowadays is to sell genuine stones, but at highly inflated prices. The stones may be in transparent sealed boxes, or loose, nearly always accompanied by a certificate. The certificate purports to come from a gemological institution or a government body with titles such as the “The State Gem Corporation’. The certificate will give accurate measurements of the stone, its weight and a statement to the effect that it is a real or genuine stone such as a ruby or sapphire, and sometimes the origin of the stone. Always these statements will be true. In some cases there will be a grading with words such as ‘fine’, ‘high quality’, etc. Potential buyers are targeted by researching credit card companies to find high spenders. They are approached through telephone calls or enticing literature offering a portfolio of stones with copies of the certificates, literature about the uniqueness and beauty of gemstones and graphs showing steep growth of prices over the past few years. These are often accompanied by promises, usually verbal, of buy-back opportunities as the value of the stones increases.
To add insult to injury, such buyers will still in their state of euphoria at the bargains they have purchased, and again approached by their sellers, with good news that they have found a buyer for their investment earning them a very healthy profit. The only condition is that the new buyer needs another stone to complete the portfolio before the deal can be completed. They promise to try to locate such a stone as they sold one to another investor in his portfolio and hope they can persuade him to sell. They of course come back with good news that he can purchase this stone and this stage of the negotiations the ‘profit’ shown on his portfolio will more than pay for the additional stone, but after paying for taking delivery the deal is never realized. But the consolation to the investor is that they shown him his stones are now worth much more than he paid for them originally and in a short time they will find another buyer and by then his stones will be worth even more.
Shamefaced
Whenever such stones are offered for sale by the ‘investors’ they say that they think they overpaid for the stone but would like to recoup their money or the best they can get. They are often prepared to take a small loss. Invariably such stones seem to be overvalued by a factor of ten, i.e. a $1000 stone is worth $100 in the trade. The owners are often shamefaced to state the true price they paid, but are shocked when they learn the true value. There is often an element of disbelief at the price they are told and it is only by being sent to several offices and shops that they actually realize the extent to which they have been overcharged.
All such stones I have seen would not be called ‘fine’ and are often difficult to sell even it at the correct market value. They usually are stones which have some defect, be it even in size or shape that makes them unsuitable for jewelry.
At the other end of the scale, captive audiences, such as those on cruise, are told that they have won a gemstone—usually a garnet or topaz. It is again accompanied by a certificate extolling its beauty and value. To make the win truly memorable they will have to pay a small amount—usually tens of pounds or dollars—to have the stone set in a ring or pendant. The ‘sting’ is in the amount they pay for mounting and setting of this stone; they could in many cases buy a similar article in their local High Street jewelers at a much cheaper price.
Moissanite
The latest masquerader is moissanite. No suggestion is made that those who are selling it are involved in any sort of scam. The producers, while they control the rough, have set their price and the prices their agents should charge and as long as these conditions prevail there will be a stability—and possibly increases—in the price. You may remember that when CZ first appeared
Large department stores often set aside a whole section for the sale of CZ jewelry. The stones often came with certificates, and grading reports were issued for the larger stones. They sold in the hundreds rather than the ten of dollars or pounds, whereas today a 6.5mm CZ (one carat diamond spread) sells for a few pence in the trade.
There are already rumors that moissanite is being manufactured in Eastern Europe and China where patents are hard to enforce. As the supply increases, so the prices will tumble. But in the case of moissanite the scam will come not from the producers or the jewelers—they will disclose it for what it is, a synthetic stone—but from the spouse or lover. With all the media publicity he can at last buy a ring with a stone that few can distinguish from a diamond. He will present his beloved the ‘diamond’ ring he always wanted to give her but could not afford. It will be years later, well into next millennium, when this jewelry will come back on the market by widowed spouses (or as family heirlooms) as authentic diamond jewelry. By then, hopefully, all jewelers will be able to spot a moissanite as being different from a diamond. They could then be accused, as the harbingers of bad tidings, of having cheated the original buyer by selling him a synthetic moissanite as a real diamond. The real culprit would not the actual jeweler in such a case but would bring the trade into disrepute.
I have not covered all the scams but jewelers and tourists who seek bargains from the gem cutting centers are often surprised that what they have bought may not sell at a profit back home. And this brings me round to the disclosure dispute—are we all committing a scam when we do not make the appropriate disclosure when selling a gemstone—by withholding information we are letting the buyer believe that the stone he is purchasing is not what it appears to be?
Disclosure
A thought that has bothered me for many years, as I have debated and presided over meetings devoted to disclosure of gemstone treatments and enhancements, that I as a dealer do not treat—sorry, handle—all my stones in the same way. My expensive emerald and ruby is carefully handled, placed in a special safe, unwrapped carefully, perhaps insured separately, while my small third-rate emeralds and rubies are put together with no cotton wool so that they rub and scratch each other. I have no second thoughts if I leave them out of the safe, for after all they are worth a few pence or at most a few pounds each. Yet when it comes to disclosure I have to apply the same rules to them as I apply to my truly precious gems. There is no disclosure problem with costume jewelry and this lower popular end of the trade now has many resemblances to the costume jewelry trade—people buy it for themselves, they are not given to them as gifts. They are worn a few times then thrown to the back of the drawer and forgotten—almost for ever. Should the stones in such jewelry be subjected to the same strictures of disclosure?
I do not know how I can draw a demarcation line but with the proliferation of jewelry set with cheap gemstones, often treated or synthetic, and the sale of such jewelry moving away from the traditional outlets such as jewelry shops into supermarkets and market stalls, should they become exempt from the need for disclosure? After all, who really cares if a 2mm round emerald selling in a ring for a few pounds has been oiled or resined or infilled with a colored substitute? Yet the trade can suffer prosecution every time this article is sold if the full facts have not been disclosed.
What for the future?
I mentioned the millennium a little earlier. It would be interesting if the trade could set up a panel to come up with their projection of the jewelry trade in, say, a hundred years time. With the advent of synthetics and ever improving treatments, I think a large part of jewelry will be sold for its appearance rather than its value. The traditional jeweler will move up market and hopefully those who buy the cheap items will develop a taste and move on to the more expensive individual jewelry where they will want to know exactly what they are buying.
Friday, May 04, 2007
Diamond Hub Upbeat At Duty Cut
Times News Network writes:
Surat's dream to shine brighter on the global diamond map — as a one-stop shop for sparklers — just moved yet another step closer to reality. This diamond manufacturing hub now has a shot at emerging as the global trading hub as well thanks to the Centre's decision to scrap customs duty on cut and polished diamond imports.
The decision promises to propel India into the league of global diamond trading hubs like Belgium, Israel and Hong Kong. After all, if 11 out of every 12 diamonds in the world is processed in India, then nine out these take shape in Surat.
"In the short term, Surat may benefit only indirectly from this move as it is a manufacturing centre and Mumbai is India's trading hub. But in the long run, the future looks bright for Surat," says an upbeat Gujarat Hira Bourse president Chandrakant Sanghavi.
Of course, much of Surat's realizing this ambition hinges on its ability to grab from Mumbai its coveted status as the country's diamond trading and exports hub, as most Surat companies prefer to operate their marketing and exporting offices from Mumbai.
An attempt at this is already underway with the upcoming Ichhapore Gems & Jewellery SEZ. "If Surat can create world class infrastructure like international connectivity, luxury hotels and entertainment, it can unseat a frightfully expensive Mumbai as most of the players would prefer to expand at a cheaper destination. But till such time, international buyers, domestic players would still prefer to trade at Mumbai," adds Sanghavi.
"If Surat can upscale infrastructure, it can easily take away at least 30% of Mumbai's business," says Gitanjali group chairman Mehul Chokshi. So what does this scrapping of customs duty mean for India's diamond industry? The move directly benefits diamond jewellery manufacturers who can now value-add with imports of special cuts or varieties from other global centres. For Indian diamond traders and exporters, the removal of customs duty, which stood at 5% before the budget when Union finance minister slashed it to 3%, will now enable them to stock all varieties of diamonds right here in India.
"From just a global diamond manufacturing, India will now become a global trading hub at par with other major centres. Trading volumes will shoot up and exports will get a boost," points out Gems & Jewellery Export Promotion Council chairman Sanjay Kothari.
More info @ http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Diamond_hub_upbeat_at_duty_cut/articleshow/1999434.cms
Surat's dream to shine brighter on the global diamond map — as a one-stop shop for sparklers — just moved yet another step closer to reality. This diamond manufacturing hub now has a shot at emerging as the global trading hub as well thanks to the Centre's decision to scrap customs duty on cut and polished diamond imports.
The decision promises to propel India into the league of global diamond trading hubs like Belgium, Israel and Hong Kong. After all, if 11 out of every 12 diamonds in the world is processed in India, then nine out these take shape in Surat.
"In the short term, Surat may benefit only indirectly from this move as it is a manufacturing centre and Mumbai is India's trading hub. But in the long run, the future looks bright for Surat," says an upbeat Gujarat Hira Bourse president Chandrakant Sanghavi.
Of course, much of Surat's realizing this ambition hinges on its ability to grab from Mumbai its coveted status as the country's diamond trading and exports hub, as most Surat companies prefer to operate their marketing and exporting offices from Mumbai.
An attempt at this is already underway with the upcoming Ichhapore Gems & Jewellery SEZ. "If Surat can create world class infrastructure like international connectivity, luxury hotels and entertainment, it can unseat a frightfully expensive Mumbai as most of the players would prefer to expand at a cheaper destination. But till such time, international buyers, domestic players would still prefer to trade at Mumbai," adds Sanghavi.
"If Surat can upscale infrastructure, it can easily take away at least 30% of Mumbai's business," says Gitanjali group chairman Mehul Chokshi. So what does this scrapping of customs duty mean for India's diamond industry? The move directly benefits diamond jewellery manufacturers who can now value-add with imports of special cuts or varieties from other global centres. For Indian diamond traders and exporters, the removal of customs duty, which stood at 5% before the budget when Union finance minister slashed it to 3%, will now enable them to stock all varieties of diamonds right here in India.
"From just a global diamond manufacturing, India will now become a global trading hub at par with other major centres. Trading volumes will shoot up and exports will get a boost," points out Gems & Jewellery Export Promotion Council chairman Sanjay Kothari.
More info @ http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Diamond_hub_upbeat_at_duty_cut/articleshow/1999434.cms
The Devil At 4 O'Clock
Memorable quote (s) from the movie:
Harry (Frank Sinatra): Hey, Holy Joe, we don't owe you nuttin', so don't start pushin'.
Father Matthew Doonan (Spencer Tracy): Where you from, tough guy? I hear echoes.
Harry (Frank Sinatra): I've been around... What's it to ya?
Father Matthew Doonan (Spencer Tracy): You spit your T's. That'd be Jersey, I guess, maybe Jersey City. Huh! I came from just across the River - Hell's Kitchen. We used to eat punks like you.
Harry (Frank Sinatra): Maybe. That's when you had your teeth.
Harry (Frank Sinatra): Hey, Holy Joe, we don't owe you nuttin', so don't start pushin'.
Father Matthew Doonan (Spencer Tracy): Where you from, tough guy? I hear echoes.
Harry (Frank Sinatra): I've been around... What's it to ya?
Father Matthew Doonan (Spencer Tracy): You spit your T's. That'd be Jersey, I guess, maybe Jersey City. Huh! I came from just across the River - Hell's Kitchen. We used to eat punks like you.
Harry (Frank Sinatra): Maybe. That's when you had your teeth.
Top Luxury Jewelry Brands
According to the Luxury Institute, the top ten ultra luxury jewelry brands are:
1. Tiffany
2. Cartier
3. De Beers
4. Gucci
5. Bulgari
6. Van Cleef & Arpels
7. Harry Winston
8. Chanel
9. Dior
10. Mikimoto
Useful link:
www.luxuryinstitute.com
1. Tiffany
2. Cartier
3. De Beers
4. Gucci
5. Bulgari
6. Van Cleef & Arpels
7. Harry Winston
8. Chanel
9. Dior
10. Mikimoto
Useful link:
www.luxuryinstitute.com
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