Gene Jewelry: Romantic or Creepy?

The newest development in ultra-personalized jewelry is the addition of a loved ones encapsulated DNA. Swiss chemist, Robert Grass and inventor of Identity Inside, a Kickstarter project, is the creator behind this distinct idea. He expresses that each individual’s genetic material makes the jewelry unique.



This novel idea originated during Grass's research for the stabilization and storage of DNA. The process starts when the purchaser sends a saliva sample to Grass' lab in Switzerland where the DNA is extracted. Chemicals are added to the solution containing the purified DNA to promote glass production. This reaction essentially fossilizes the DNA similarly to the fossilization process that occurs with mosquitoes in amber. To learn more about the fossilization process check out Science Clarified.
 
 The resulting powdery glass substance containing the strands of DNA is then stored in a drilled hole within a rose gold pendant, silver ring, or Swiss-made watch and sealed with a .02-carat diamond. This process leaves the DNA intact and can be removed and analyzed in the future. Researchers performed storage stimulation and predict the encapsulated DNA has a half-life of 1,000 years.

So, is jewelry embedded with a loved ones DNA romantic, creepy, or something in between?  Well, that depends who you ask.  Personally, I think this idea could catch on with engagement rings because of the poetic nature of a diamond protecting the "biological blueprint" of your spouse.  The engagement ring has been a symbol of marriage since antiquity.  I think this concept could modernize this classic symbol and overtime appear more romantic than creepy to the majority of the public.

The Half-Life of DNA

According to an article on Nature, paleontologists at the University of Copenhagen and Murdoch University have calculated that the half-life of DNA is 521 years. This was discovered in New Zealand, where the paleontologists examined 158 leg bones of three extinct giant bird species called moa. These leg bones contained DNA and were between 600 and 8000 years old. After a cell dies, enzymes break down the nucleotides that make up DNA. Much of the break down comes simply from reactions with water. However, groundwater is considered to be found everywhere and so DNA theoretically decays at a set rate. The half-life means that half of the bonds between the nucleotides in the DNA have been broken.



The paleontologists predict that at ideal preservation conditions, DNA would be fully broken down after a maximum of 6.8 million years. What this means is that the theories of dinosaur and insect DNA being trapped inside of amber are incorrect. Dinosaur bones are relatively 65 million years old, so the chances of being able to recover dinosaur DNA and possibly use that DNA to clone them (think Jurassic Park) are far out of the question.

While this find is unfortunate in an evolutionary perspective, it is still something that could be used to help date fossils and determine when extinct creatures existed, to an extent.