Natural History Museum expedition could be "disaster" for indigenous people

The 100-strong expedition, one of the largest undertaken by the museum in the last 50 years, is due to set off in the next few days to explore one of the most unknown regions of the world for one month.

However the museum has been warned by campaigners that the trip could cause “genocide” for isolated tribes.

The group Iniciativa Amotocodie, that protects local indigenous people, said groups of Ayoreo Indians in the area have never come into contact with westerners before. If they come across the expedition without preparation they could catch common western viruses that could wipe out the small groups in a matter of weeks.

A statement from the group, that has been circulated online, read: “If this expedition goes ahead we will not be able to understand why you prefer to lose human lives just because the English scientists want to study plants and animals. There is too much risk: the people die in the forest frequently from catching white people’s diseases – they get infected by being close. Because the white people leave their rubbish, their clothes, or other contaminated things. It’s very serious. It’s like genocide.”

Jonathan Mazower, Director of Advocacy at Survival International, said there was also a risk to the scientists as tribes have been known to throw spears at groups they fear have come to cause them harm. Westerners going into the area have been killed before.

He said it was impossible to know where the tribal groups are therefore it is better to “err on the side of caution given that the consequences for either side could be pretty disastrous.”

“The danger is to the scientists and to the indigenous people. The scientists because the indigenous people may view them as hostile and attack them and the indigenous people because the scientists carry common western viruses that they have no immunity to,” he said.

The vast area of dry forest across parts of Bolivia, Argentina as well as Paraguay, known as the Gran Chaco, is the only place in South America outside the Amazon where there are uncontacted tribes. Until about 1950 it was thought there were around 5,000 people in the area but now there are thought to be less than 150 as people leave or die out.

Richard Lane, Director of Science at the NHM, confirmed that he had received a letter from a group representing indigenous groups.

But he insisted the expedition has taken every precaution to ensure they do not come into contact with isolated tribes. He said a member of the Ayoreo community will go ahead of the rest of the rest of the group to make sure that there is no opportunity of contact with isolated tribes, as well as helping the scientists through local knowledge.

“Clearly the needs of indigenous people to remain uncontacted needs to be respected and we as an institution have always respected that,” he said.

View the original article here

ATM - Night at the Museum - Nov10

Several months ago, the Hope Diamond was taken from the National Museum of Natural History for an overnight stay in the mineralogy lab.

By Joseph CaputoSmithsonian magazine, November 2010

Smithsonian scientists extract atoms from the surface of the Hope Diamond

At first, Evalyn Walsh McLean, an heiress living in Washington, D.C., didn’t want to buy the Hope Diamond. She was unhappy with the setting surrounding the precious blue stone that had once belonged to King Louis XIV and asked jeweler Pierre Cartier to create a new one: a circle of 16 clear diamonds, shaped like squares and pears.

That was in 1910, and for much of the past century the Hope Diamond remained in its Cartier setting. But several months ago, it was taken from the National Museum of Natural History’s gem hall for an overnight stay in the mineralogy lab. There, geologists conducted an experiment to learn precisely why the Hope Diamond is so blue. Every gem has its own unique molecular formula, which is determined by how its atoms bond together in the extreme heat of the planet’s crust. But the formula for deep ocean blue is rare, occurring in only one out of every several hundred thousand diamonds. At 45.52 carats, the Hope, discovered in 17th-century India, is the largest-known deep blue diamond. “Its creation, as far as we know, is a completely unique event in the history of the earth,” says geologist Jeffrey Post, a curator at Natural History.

But before the experiment could begin, some delicate surgery had to be performed to remove the blue diamond from its setting. At 9:16 p.m in a room almost as long as a bus, where fluorescent lights and white walls canceled out even the sparkle of topaz on the shelves, jeweler Stephen Clarke donned a pair of glasses equipped with magnifying lenses and reached for his tools. He steadied the walnut-size gem in his left hand—his fingerprints smearing its 60 facets—while his right hand wielded a pair of tweezers. “It’s like a little puzzle,” Clark said, as he unhooked the small wire rivets holding the diamond in place.

A security officer peeked into the room. “Look at that,” he said. “It’s even more beautiful out of the setting than in.”

At 12:35 a.m., two researchers wearing blue gloves cleaned the stone of the jeweler’s prints. Carefully, they loaded it into a custom-made mount and placed it into the chamber of a device that would fire an ion beam, boring a ten-angstrom-deep hole (just over four-billionths of an inch) into the gem.

“Looks more like a science experiment than a fancy gemstone right now, doesn’t it?” Post said to a film crew from the Smithsonian Channel, which will air a documentary on the Hope Diamond on November 21.

It would be another hour before the experiment could begin, since all the air first had to be pumped out of the chamber to create a vacuum. The scientists rested their eyes. “This is our one shot,” Post said. “We’ll take measurements until they tell us the diamond has to be put back on display.”

While the precise recipe for the Hope is a mystery, geologists know that the primary ingredient endowing the diamond with its color is the element boron. The night’s research may someday be applied to making synthetic blue diamonds—not only for jewelry, but for electronics. Boron allows current to pass through the stones more efficiently than your average semiconductor. “It’s not clear yet how we’re going to be able to make these things,” Post said, “but the experiment gives us a way of seeing how nature did it.”

At 2:35 a.m., with the click of a computer mouse, the ion beam fired. Millions of Hope Diamond atoms sputtered into the vacuum. They were sucked into a tube, past a detector that analyzed the elements.

The initial results came in. Colored spikes appeared on a computer screen, announcing the presence of boron, carbon, hydrogen and possibly some nitrogen. Based on the findings so far, the concentration of boron varies within the diamond, ranging from zero to eight parts per million. The Hope is actually a mosaic of blues.

It will be months before the scientists publish the full results of their experiment. In the meantime, the Hope is back in its display case and—unknown to most museum visitors—a few million atoms lighter.

At first, Evalyn Walsh McLean, an heiress living in Washington, D.C., didn’t want to buy the Hope Diamond. She was unhappy with the setting surrounding the precious blue stone that had once belonged to King Louis XIV and asked jeweler Pierre Cartier to create a new one: a circle of 16 clear diamonds, shaped like squares and pears.

That was in 1910, and for much of the past century the Hope Diamond remained in its Cartier setting. But several months ago, it was taken from the National Museum of Natural History’s gem hall for an overnight stay in the mineralogy lab. There, geologists conducted an experiment to learn precisely why the Hope Diamond is so blue. Every gem has its own unique molecular formula, which is determined by how its atoms bond together in the extreme heat of the planet’s crust. But the formula for deep ocean blue is rare, occurring in only one out of every several hundred thousand diamonds. At 45.52 carats, the Hope, discovered in 17th-century India, is the largest-known deep blue diamond. “Its creation, as far as we know, is a completely unique event in the history of the earth,” says geologist Jeffrey Post, a curator at Natural History.

But before the experiment could begin, some delicate surgery had to be performed to remove the blue diamond from its setting. At 9:16 p.m in a room almost as long as a bus, where fluorescent lights and white walls canceled out even the sparkle of topaz on the shelves, jeweler Stephen Clarke donned a pair of glasses equipped with magnifying lenses and reached for his tools. He steadied the walnut-size gem in his left hand—his fingerprints smearing its 60 facets—while his right hand wielded a pair of tweezers. “It’s like a little puzzle,” Clark said, as he unhooked the small wire rivets holding the diamond in place.

A security officer peeked into the room. “Look at that,” he said. “It’s even more beautiful out of the setting than in.”

At 12:35 a.m., two researchers wearing blue gloves cleaned the stone of the jeweler’s prints. Carefully, they loaded it into a custom-made mount and placed it into the chamber of a device that would fire an ion beam, boring a ten-angstrom-deep hole (just over four-billionths of an inch) into the gem.

“Looks more like a science experiment than a fancy gemstone right now, doesn’t it?” Post said to a film crew from the Smithsonian Channel, which will air a documentary on the Hope Diamond on November 21.

It would be another hour before the experiment could begin, since all the air first had to be pumped out of the chamber to create a vacuum. The scientists rested their eyes. “This is our one shot,” Post said. “We’ll take measurements until they tell us the diamond has to be put back on display.”

While the precise recipe for the Hope is a mystery, geologists know that the primary ingredient endowing the diamond with its color is the element boron. The night’s research may someday be applied to making synthetic blue diamonds—not only for jewelry, but for electronics. Boron allows current to pass through the stones more efficiently than your average semiconductor. “It’s not clear yet how we’re going to be able to make these things,” Post said, “but the experiment gives us a way of seeing how nature did it.”

At 2:35 a.m., with the click of a computer mouse, the ion beam fired. Millions of Hope Diamond atoms sputtered into the vacuum. They were sucked into a tube, past a detector that analyzed the elements.

The initial results came in. Colored spikes appeared on a computer screen, announcing the presence of boron, carbon, hydrogen and possibly some nitrogen. Based on the findings so far, the concentration of boron varies within the diamond, ranging from zero to eight parts per million. The Hope is actually a mosaic of blues.

It will be months before the scientists publish the full results of their experiment. In the meantime, the Hope is back in its display case and—unknown to most museum visitors—a few million atoms lighter.

View the original article here