New Scientist, a scientific journal, reports a new way of obtaining rings. The usual method of walking into a jewellery shop and buying one is getting kinda, er, low-tech.
“It’s for people who want to give a bit of their body to each other,” says Nikki Stott, a jewellery designer at the Royal College of Art in London. There is a collaboration going on with a bio-engineer, Ian Thompson, of King’s College London.
Basically, you and the other party provides the bone cell and they grow it for you. Each party will give the other the ring grown from their cells!
The bone would be grown in laboratories and then handed to designers to make it look better.
We’re looking for couples who would like to have rings designed for them made from metals and bone tissue. The tissue will be cultured from a sample of your bone cells. These might be commitment rings or could represent an important friendship. The rings will be designed for you, and in consultation with you.
Source: Biojewellery
_(Grow your own ring!)_
Ethics-wise, you don’t have to worry I believe.
Before we start working with interested couples, we need to ensure we have considered all the ethical dimensions of project. This is to ensure that we treat everyone fairly, and includes writing up a consent form. When we have this in place, we can start contacting those who have expressed an interest in the project. The RCA research ethics guidelines can be downloaded here and the Medical Research Councils guide on tissue samples for research can be downloaded there.
Source: Biojewellery
Talking about personalization.
Possibly related:
that… sounds quite gross to me. i think i wouldn’t want that kind of jewellery
by sky (Mar 20, 2005 at 1 AM)