A team of researchers has reported the first laboratory synthesis and recovery of bulk hexagonal diamond, a crystal form long predicted to be harder than the conventional gems used in cutting tools ...

A team of Chinese scientists may have cracked the secret behind the strange Canyon Diablo diamonds. Hexagonal in form rather than cubic, the process behind how these diamonds formed has, until now, ...

To misquote a famous song, "Diamonds are industry's best friend." Cubic diamond is the hardest mineral on Earth and is used in everything from precision cutting tools to high-performance ...

Jeweler Harry Winston donated the famous Hope Diamond—the largest-known deep blue diamond in the world—to the Smithsonian Institution in 1958. It arrived in a plain brown package by registered mail, ...

This article was published in Scientific American’s former blog network and reflects the views of the author, not necessarily those of Scientific American Geoscientists can't say if diamonds are ...

James is a published author with multiple pop-history and science books to his name. He specializes in history, space, strange science, and anything out of the ordinary.View full profile James is a ...