[Miriam Reed]

Originally Posted by DrTKStern

I find it frustrating that the specific gastropod cannot be identified. I plan to try my own DNA testing at Stanford University in the next few months to see if greater specificity can be achieved. This assumes that inside a pearl, in some of that 3-4% water content, a few pieces of DNA or RNA are floating around. Mybe there is not enough genetic material to test.

Whatever we may learn, by this message I hereby call upon the reference laboratories and pearl scientists to cogitate about beginning their own investigation into using DNA typing, in the hope of opening a new world. Imagine if pearls somehow lead to a major medical advance. What if the human body could learn, via DNA fragments, to put a calcium wall around a malignant tumor and simply strangle it to death?
Tom Stern,MD

Let us know if you get anywhere with the DNA testing. Its an interesting concept. And the idea of investigating the possiblilites of using pearl DNA for medical research was spoken like a true doctor!

[effisk]

Originally Posted by smetzler

By the way, any news on closer shots of those nautilus pearls?

Originally Posted by effisk

That reminds me I have to ask for that closeup photo.

10 characters

[danachit]

Originally Posted by DrTKStern

Hi Friends,

Delay because I was waiting for authentication. SSEF in Basel, Switzerland, Professor Hanni in command, returned the pearl today and calls it from a marine gastropod, unworked, porcellaneous with flame pattern. Thus it could be a white melo melo, a white conch, a cassis....but not any bivalve such as Tridacna or scallop, nor any cephalopod like a Nautilus. The most costly color of conch is deep pink, and the most costly melo melo an intense orange, but perfect whites such as this and others I have are also quite valuable.

Using electron microscopy, it can be seen that the flame pattern originates in the way the crystalline stuctures alternate from radial to circumferential orientation.

I find it frustrating that the specific gastropod cannot be identified. I plan to try my own DNA testing at Stanford University in the next few months to see if greater specificity can be achieved. This assumes that inside a pearl, in some of that 3-4% water content, a few pieces of DNA or RNA are floating around. Mybe there is not enough genetic material to test.

Whatever we may learn, by this message I hereby call upon the reference laboratories and pearl scientists to cogitate about beginning their own investigation into using DNA typing, in the hope of opening a new world. Imagine if pearls somehow lead to a major medical advance. What if the human body could learn, via DNA fragments, to put a calcium wall around a malignant tumor and simply strangle it to death?

AAA surface, 24 carats, 18mm

Regards to all,
Tom Stern,MD

Wow. It's like Jeremy and Albert Einstein rolled into one. I think I love this man.

[effisk]

Originally Posted by DrTKStern

What if the human body could learn, via DNA fragments, to put a calcium wall around a malignant tumor and simply strangle it to death?

Oh you mean like a lithopaedion?

[effisk]

Originally Posted by DrTKStern

Thus it could be a white melo melo, a white conch, a cassis....

Here's a pic of a Cassis madagascariensis pearl for comparison.


Scale is mm.

[barbie biggs]

Originally Posted by Miriam Reed

Let us know if you get anywhere with the DNA testing. Its an interesting concept. And the idea of investigating the possiblilites of using pearl DNA for medical research was spoken like a true doctor!

I wish we could use a construct like this to isolate malignant behaviors. Psychiatry and Psychology used to have a 'touchy feely' reputation. Today the counseling end is much more scientific. Facts have to be verifiable by consistent research, reproducable. (To be a psychaitrist of course you must also be an MD).

How wonderful would it be for people who, if they wanted to make changes in their own thought process, could identify the specific problem, then use their own DNA to create a wall which would enclose all the old formative structures they had built over years of practice. This would enable them to learn newer, better behaviors easily without the constant knee-jerk response of the old ones getting in the way.

Pearl behavior therapy! Sounds like a magic pill doesn't it?
barbie

[DrTKStern]

Hi, Barbie,

That is a remarkable idea, definitely outside the box, which is where real change originates.

Regards,
Tom Stern,MD

[DrTKStern]

Originally Posted by effisk

Here's a pic of a Cassis madagascariensis pearl for comparison.


Scale is mm.

Dear Effisk,

I'm confident Cassis and other marine gastropods can produce a very white pearl, for example there are many, many white conch. I'd love to find some Cassis like that photo you submitted. WOW!

Tom Stern,MD

[smetzler]

Originally Posted by DrTKStern

Dear Effisk,

I'm confident Cassis and other marine gastropods can produce a very white pearl, for example there are many, many white conch. I'd love to find some Cassis like that photo you submitted. WOW!

Tom Stern,MD

Calcareous concretions are typically most highly esteemed only when definitive colors are evident.

Effisk and Tom: are we days, weeks or months away from better photos of the 'Close up' pearl of this thread and Effisk's nautiluses? Both subjects are begging substantiation.

[effisk]

Originally Posted by smetzler

Effisk and Tom: are we days, weeks or months away from better photos of the 'Close up' pearl of this thread and Effisk's nautiluses? Both subjects are begging substantiation.

Working on it. Just wrote to the keeper of the beast.

[effisk]

In the meantime, here's a little game:

try to identify all pearls in this photo:


edit: actually, the big round one looks a bit similar to Tom's initial pic. Could it be of the same origin?