... burned the hair without oxygen ... ???

You beat me to it... :¬D

In order to burn something, you need an oxidant, and there are many oxidants that don't have any chemical Oxygen in them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrochemistry#Oxidation_and_Reduction

It is perfectly possible to burn something without oxygen as only fire needs oxygen. Simply raising the temperature in a vacuum (perhaps by heating the walls of the container - in a similar way to cooking on a hotplate) would be enough to reduce the hair to carbon ash, thus allowing safe extraction.

Come on guys - you _know_ oxymoron doesn't mean "contradiction" !

But it's a good pun in this context !!

You guys beat me to it, too :)

Not that we really care about where the atoms came from, but...

1 carat = 0.2g, so the 0.56 ct diamond weighs 1.12g, and is to all intents and purposes pure carbon. But Ludwig's barnet yielded only 0.113g of soot, and that was going to be used in *three* diamonds. If they're all the same size, that means that the Beethoven jewel is in fact only three percent Genuine Genius Fur. I expect to see the ebay auction accurately labelled.

If I could do simple multiplication, I wouldn't make an arse of myself on the public internets.

0.2 * 0.56 = 0.112, or 112 milligrams. Would you believe I was using a slide rule?

No, I wouldn't, either

What a waste of science, time and money. Please somebody shoot the employees who made it and the eBayer who buys it.

Looks like it got pulled:

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I followed the link from the LifeGems site, and it took me here : http://tinyurl.com/ytrs54

Are you guys thinking what I'm thinking? Convert all the atmospheric CO2 to diamonds; instantly solve global warming and WE'LL ALL BE RICH!!!

We all know that since it's on Wikipedia, it must be true. :)