"Now you can be brilliant and flawless forever. But you have to be cremated first. A company based in the Chicago suburb of Elk Grove Village has accepted its first deposit for manufactured diamonds made from carbon captured during the cremation process so that loved ones -- family members or even pets -- could be mounted into a ring, pendant or other jewelry....

"After three years of trial and error using the cremated remains of several animals and a cadaver, VandenBiesen said, a diamond-manufacturing laboratory outside of Munich, Germany, reported success in April. The lab, owned by an American company, said that one human body could yield up to 50 stones of varying sizes ...."

"Life Gem officials say the process begins when technicians control oxygen levels during cremation to prevent carbon in the body from converting to carbon dioxide. The incineration is interrupted so the technician can collect the body's carbon in the form of a dark powder. The powder then is sent to a Pennsylvania company where it is heated in a vacuum at extreme temperatures to produce graphite. Only about a thimbleful is needed to produce a stone, Herro said. The graphite is sent to the German lab and placed into autoclaves that simulate the intense pressure and temperature needed to create the stones. Because so little material is needed to make a stone, a family still would receive an urn containing their loved one's ashes. Life Gem says it guarantees that diamonds can be made only when the company oversees the cremation process.

"Doug Ahlgrim, director of Ahlgrim & Sons Funeral Services' four locations in the Northwest suburbs, said he is training his staff to explain the new product to customers. ... 'This is sorely needed for families who choose cremation,' Ahlgrim said. 'An urn is beautiful in its own right, but you certainly can't take it wherever you go.' "

...said grim Doug, all sparkling.